Toxic beauty standards on social media
Beauty standards have changed over the years, from “natural” beauty, over extremely skinny bodies, to body curves highlighting, too much heavy makeup, or a natural look, for women and girls, are set molds into which they "have to" fit. However, nowadays when social networks are expanding beauty standards have become almost unattainable, leading young people to serious mental problems, identity crises, and even body dysmorphia, because they are trying to reach these unrealistic standards.
The filters available on social media are AI-programmed masks, accessed by using a mobile phone camera and they can drastically change the facial appearance. Back in 2015 when face filters first appeared they were mostly used for humorous purposes, and the most famous filter added ears and a nose to the face that resemble a dog. However, since then filters have developed at an incredible speed and have been perfected to the point of accurately tracking movements in real time and changing people's faces. And while most filters glitch when we put our hand in front of our face, that "problem" has been solved on some filters sealed, they practically do not move from the face, whatever movement we make, which will eventually stop us from discerning who uses the filters.
A new "Bold Glam" filter has appeared on the TikTok platform, which is different from many filters because even passing a hand over our face does not disturb its appearance. Many users have criticized this filter, pointing out that it has nothing to do with reality and that it has a bad effect on self-confidence.
Are filters a problem?
Numerous face and body beautification filters are available on popular platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, which can make us completely unrecognizable.
While some of the available filters can be funny and interesting, many promote an unhealthy and narrow idea of what beauty is and what it looks like. For young people who have yet to develop a sense of identity, these types of filters lead to destructive thinking about their appearance. Retouched face, small nose, prominent cheekbones, full lips, and bigger eyes are what they aspire to and want to see in the mirror reflection. A big problem occurs when people can't and won't publish their photos without editing them first and adding many filters to them, which leads to the fact that in reality they can't accept themselves and their looks, and they only accept themselves through the magic of the filters.
Using filters has serious consequences and can even lead people to resort to plastic surgery to look more like a filtered version of themselves.
The results of the 2021 survey by ParentsTogether conducted in the USA showed that teenagers who frequently use beauty filters have a greater desire for plastic surgery and even want to change their skin color. 61% of surveyed teens say using beauty filters makes them feel worse about how they look in real life.
Fake representation and unrealistic standards
Influencers play an important role in setting beauty standards.
Many celebrities, models, and influential brands use social media to promote the perfect image, promoting perfectly toned bodies, faces without a single imperfection, incredibly long legs, large breasts, and round buttocks accompanied by unrealistically narrow waists. On their social media profiles, we can often see their morning routine, exercise routine, perfectly balanced diet, and promotion of fabulously expensive preparations which according to them help them to look as they present themselves in photos or videos. There is only one problem behind their unrealistic perfection, a great deal is a lie.
Watching "spontaneous" photos and videos of influencers, such as, for example, bikini vacation photos that show a perfect figure and face "without makeup", leads young people to low self-esteem and negative thoughts about their own appearance. However, what many young people don't know is that behind this kind of content, there is a huge amount of planning and editing before it is finally published on one of the platforms.
In this way, a distorted sense of validation is fostered, because it turns out that we have to be beautiful in order to be worthy of attention, which is far from reality and truth.
Unfortunately, many young people are not aware of this and in their desperate attempts to reach the imposed standards, they cause physical and psychological harm to themselves, and in the end, some of them resort to plastic surgery in the hope that they will finally be satisfied with their appearance and stand side by side with their role models.
Dove's mission to cancel toxic beauty standards
The cosmetics brand Dove surveyed as part of its Dove Self-Esteem project, and the results showed that half of the surveyed girls believe that toxic beauty standards cause low self-esteem.
Hate towards physical appearance and body dissatisfaction has led to the destruction of many young lives.
In cooperation with the Ogillvy agency, they created a very direct campaign in the fight against unrealistic beauty standards using activism on social networks.
As part of this project, the #ReverseSelfie campaign was created in 2021, in which they presented a video of a young girl sharing a photo on social media which was edited using various applications and filters, as well as the entire process of how she prepared herself before taking a photo. The video then shows how she goes from the unreal edited photo and the whole process of grooming and make-up back to the image of the young girl revealing her natural beauty. At the end of the video, the text is written: „The pressure of social media is hurting our girls’ self-esteem.“
Another campaign was created in 2022 called Toxic Influence in which a video showed mothers "advising" their daughters to achieve unrealistic beauty standards by emphasizing terms such as 'fitspo,' 'thinspo' and the promotion of cosmetic procedures. The videos of mothers shown to daughters are actually fake, with mothers "giving" terrible health and beauty advice. The campaign aims to encourage a conversation between parents and teenagers about the toxic advice that is spread through social networks.
Media agencies, as well as the brands and influencers they collaborate with, must take into account what kind of message they send to the audience, about the beauty standards they promote, but also about how it affects self-confidence, and what psychological consequences it can leave, especially for young people who are constantly exposed to content that it is promoted to them through social networks.
Author: Katarina Stanković, Content Manager
