"I often find myself worrying about celebrities. It's an entirely caring thing; it's not like the people who commission those photographs with cruel arrows to go on the covers of the celebrity magazines. The photographs show botched plastic surgery, raging eczema, weight gain and horrible clothes for maximum schadenfreude."
Peter York
"It's what on the inside that counts" is heard everyday in schools across the nation. "It's what's on the inside", we say as we dress ourselves in the latest trends and brands, striving to be the perfect American consumer. The desire to be different, special, is expressed in ways thousands of other people partake in, rendering the uniqueness of the endeavor useless.
Despite campaigns we still judge a book by its cover. The preoccupation with physical appearance has only become stronger with the widespread use of social media. These "ideal" beauty standards are mostly the same with minimal changes in details (hair color, eye color) and affect both genders. These usually involve height (for both, but girls are usually shorter), clear skin, thin (women), muscular (men), and stylish hair. Men and women with an appearance different from the "ideal" are perceived as less powerful than the normal.
Striving for impossible (made possible by photoshop) forces men and women into diets, eating disorders, and a negative self perception. In extreme cases men and women resort to plastic surgery. Plastic has a strong negative connotation- people who go under the knife for cosmetic reasons are seen afterwards as fake, as the common use of plastic indicates. As people become more Barbie and Ken than human as the obsession with physical appearance takes its toll.
The proliferation of social media feeds us a constant bombardment of what is perfect: appearance, jobs, money and family. The anonymity of the keyboard allows internet user to say whatever they want with little to no repercussions which adds personal commentary to everything online. Some comments are helpful while many are the opposite. At the same time the internet allows connections with others through gaming, chats, and video calls. The intimate connections that can form online outweigh the bad that can come. If you find the right online community, the members can be a structure to rely on. Many argue that it is unhealthy to have so many relationships through the computer, but I believe that having online friends who care is better than having real life friends who don't.
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