Hostage To Social Media

 From: Kayley

The subtopic I used in my photo assignment was unrealistic beauty standards in today’s world

that us as young girls and women are blinded or subjected to on a daily basis. The methods I

use for this project are the specific way I placed the makeup all over the bathroom counter, the

position of the photo being that you look down on the person in the photo(Me) showing that the

girl (Me) is so used to makeup as a way to fit in with others that she’s blinded to its side effects

and lastly how the background in the bathroom the most common place young girls and teens

play with makeup and skin care products in specifically their parents bathroom. From anti-aging

skin care from the Generation Alpha age range to unhealthy diets such as #Thinspo and

#Fitspo encourages young girls and teens to basically either starve themselves or to be on diet

supplements and dieting pills to achieve the most perfect body that they can.

In the “Two Culture Of Childhood” reading By Laurie Rudman she mentions how little boys and

girls are more likely to play with the same gender growing up meaning that they as little girls and

boys can have influence over one other to do particular things such as either act up, repeat one

other speech patterns and syntax and also wear, act or play with the same or similar things that

usually young boys and girls play with like the typical dolls and makeup sets for the girls and

the cars and action figures for the boys. On the Dove webpage the statistics are shocking to

how young girls feel that they have to change themselves to fit in to today’s world with the

statistics showing that 90% of girls feeling that social media makes them feel less beautiful, 56%

of girls feel that they’re not worthy enough to be able follow or being like today’s beauty trends/

styles saying “They can’t live up to it.” and lastly a shocking 50% of young girls have self esteem

problems due to excessive social media usage. Also Dove has posted a lot of content to its

social media pages like Instagram, Youtube and Facebook to convince young teens, and

women specifically that they don’t have to live up to today’s standards but instead becoming

more accepting and okay with the way their bodies look naturally and learning to embrace that

day by day.

I felt that all the techniques I used in the photo such as the background of the picture, the

symbolism of the makeup products and camera angle all really capture that in today’s world

young women all follow a code of trying to being ultimately the most beautiful can sometimes

make some feel like a hostage if the code can’t be met. In Tannen’s video about conversation

rituals it mentions that boys are more likely to top one another physically whilst for girls it’s more

they top one other socially and mentally by who has more friends or generally who has more of

certain things like beauty. I feel that this can connect to the true reason that young women/girls

in today’s society feel the way they feel on social media and in social settings alone.

My Sources:

author, Dove. “Toxic Beauty Standards on Social Media: The Stats.” Dove, Dove, 31 Oct.

2022, www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/social-media-and-body-image.html.

Rudman, Laurie A., et al. "The Two Cultures of Childhood."

The Social Psychology of

Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations

. The Guilford Press,

2015, 59-63.

Tannen, Deborah.

He Said, She Said: Gender, Language and Communication.

Into the

Classroom Media, 2013.