Is social media proliferating beauty standards?

Is social media proliferating beauty standards?

Social media today has almost peaked into every aspect of modern life. From kitchen chores to branded shops, everything can be found on such platforms. This massive growth in the digital media industry has also thus led to an increase in the number of people who take the status of influencers on these platforms and has tremendously impacted the interaction between fans and these celebrities. Even though this access to information and ongoing trends seems to be a much-celebrated culture, these have also proliferated conventional beauty standards. It is due to the use of social media that today, eating disorders and the anxiety around how one sees beauty have grown drastically.

But how does social media do it?

Social media acts as a means of spreading the idea of beauty standards that prefer certain body types over others. It is exacerbated by the fact that on social media, where thousands of pictures are uploaded on an everyday basis, almost all of them are highly filtered and edited images. Many photo-editing tools are employed by influencers and celebrities to enhance their pictures digitally, which are then uploaded online for the world to see. These pictures are then consumed by millions of people, who then set unrealistic beauty standards for themselves. These idealized versions of beauty are certainly unrealistic, therefore causing many people to suffer from self-criticism, body image issues, and anxiety.

Moreover, due to constantly struggling with body image issues, people tend to become more self-conscious and start a vicious cycle of social comparison. They keep on comparing themselves with celebrities and influencers or friends and seek external validation for themselves. This ties into the number of comments and likes that they get on their pictures when they are uploaded on social media platforms. This drives them to give in to conventional beauty standards, and in doing so, they tend to conform to these standards, and the cycle thus keeps on getting more and more complex. With this, the curation of a highly perfect image becomes more of a necessity for people.

However, the role of social media in the proliferation of body image issues is not confined to this. Rather, it is furthered by the constantly changing trends. In today’s world, beauty has become trend-centric, which means that with each passing day, there is a new beauty trend causing thousands of people to follow it. Therefore, users become compelled to adapt themselves continuously to these newly emerging trends that make them question their own beauty if not followed.

The effect of social media on beauty standards has been uniform across the gender spectrum. People of any gender tend to fall into this cycle of self-doubt due to the constant exposure to curated and beautified images that further increase the need for them to question their own beauty as well. Therefore, it is high time today to negate these beauty standards through the use of the same platform. Beauty is beauty, regardless of body shape, color, or height.