Woman takes on social media body shaming

[ch33zw1z]

This article came across my news feed. I think this young lady does a great job shedding some light on how social media can be a very negative influence in our lives. It's become so easy to spread disinformation, propaganda, and FUD that it's doing a real number on society. This is a not-so-political example, but news just the same.

A woman's side-by-side images show the reality behind the 'perfect' Instagram photo

Sara Puhto shares "Instagram versus Reality" photos to demonstrate how poses can drastically change your appearance in pictures.

www.insider.com

 

[soulcougher73]

I agree. Social media is bad for humanity on many levels.

 

[purbeast0]

Social media can be as positive or negative as you want it to be. The problem is the majority of people don't know how to just ignore the negative stuff or get it off their feed. They would rather engage in it and see it than remove it and never see it.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Pffftttt.....she has pointy elbows.....

Seriously thank you for the post, I love stuff like this Instagram vs reality. I also love clothing ads vs what arrived.
She has a great point and I hope she and others keep talking about it.
We seem to fluctuate between being too accepting of body image as in not allowing anyone to say someone is fat or being fat is unhealthy to expecting every picture to be model perfect.
Hopefully her and Jillian Michaels keep us grounded somewhere in the healthy middle.

 

[Xcobra]

Humans are silly...

 

[ch33zw1z]

Humans are silly...

That's one way to put it, lol

 

[mect]

Social media can be as positive or negative as you want it to be. The problem is the majority of people don't know how to just ignore the negative stuff or get it off their feed. They would rather engage in it and see it than remove it and never see it.

I used to think this as well, until I started learning about the type of jobs social media creates. While people view them largely as tech companies, some of the most important positions are also social scientists with expertise in addiction. They intentionally create platforms and promote content specifically to draw people in to spending as much time as possible on their sites. As Hammerbacher said, "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

 

[fleshconsumed]

I used to think this as well, until I started learning about the type of jobs social media creates. While people view them largely as tech companies, some of the most important positions are also social scientists with expertise in addiction. They intentionally create platforms and promote content specifically to draw people in to spending as much time as possible on their sites. As Hammerbacher said, "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

Eh, it's no different than sales/marketing positions. It's a gray area and it's hard to say where to draw the line between what's good, what's bad, and what is a necessary evil. Is it insidious that people devote their entire careers trying to get small children hooked on McDonalds by bundling toys with every meal? Yes. Does that mean we should get rid of all the sales and marketing people? No.

 

[Homerboy]

I love when people on Anandtech rip on social media... not realizing these forums are social media.
That being said, social media has really fucked up this country/world. It, like so many things, could have been such a great positive force, and in the end, most humans decided to use it for shitty purposes and make it something horrible.

 

[interchange]

Good for her. This seems like a great way to help address our problem with perceptions.

 

[Aikouka]

Social media can be as positive or negative as you want it to be. The problem is the majority of people don't know how to just ignore the negative stuff or get it off their feed. They would rather engage in it and see it than remove it and never see it.

If we’re specifically talking about women, I think the social media problem is just a side effect of the entire beauty industry being a vicious parasite. The entire industry is designed around telling people what is good/acceptable in regard to physical looks, which starts in magazines that happen to sell ads to (i.e. are monetarily involved with) companies that sell beauty products to attain said state. It’s a self-serving industry that preys in insecurity in women, and it’s bad enough that it’s almost “weird” for anyone (men included) to not see someone in makeup. We’ve pretty much been conditioned to accept it as the norm.

 

[Vic]

I love when people on Anandtech rip on social media... not realizing these forums are social media.
That being said, social media has really fucked up this country/world. It, like so many things, could have been such a great positive force, and in the end, most humans decided to use it for shitty purposes and make it something horrible.

The biggest problem with social media is that it is largely consequence-free. Which allows people to behave in anti-social ways that they most likely would never do in real life, nor would real life society normally tolerate. Such as tell malicious baldfaced lies. Or be a real life ugly fatass who publicly insults and shames women for not meeting some perceived ideal of beauty that they do not come anywhere near to. And so forth.
If people acted that way in real life, there would likely be consequences. They might be shunned or ostracized for their anti-social behavior, fail to advance in their public circles, or even face legal repercussions, depending on the severity of their anti-social behavior. But since it's social media, bad manners are suddenly 'free speech,' and 'free speech' suddenly means no one is free to speak back.

Edit: I'd like to add that it is impossible to have a free and fair society that is also ill-mannered. This is why, as we become more ill-mannered to each other, we also tend more to authoritarianism and inequality.

 

[mect]

Eh, it's no different than sales/marketing positions. It's a gray area and it's hard to say where to draw the line between what's good, what's bad, and what is a necessary evil. Is it insidious that people devote their entire careers trying to get small children hooked on McDonalds by bundling toys with every meal? Yes. Does that mean we should get rid of all the sales and marketing people? No.

Actually, I do say we need to cut way back on sales and marketing people. For the most part, these people contribute nothing to society, and actually make it worse in a lot of ways. The fact that most pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than on research shows how big this problem is. It creates a world where the companies with the best advertising stay alive, not the companies with the best products.

 

[nisayvx]

Social media became a catalyzer of fake bodies, clothes, hair, and even lives. It’s anxious how people try to depict the perfect life on Instagram, then in reality they face myriad of problems. The worst part is that other people are influenced by fake lives on Instagram. Especially small girls who dream of a beautiful and expensive life. They simply copy the behavior, style, way of living and even the talk manner of girls who tend to show a fake life on Instagram. In addition, we should not forget that many users tend to buy Instagram views and followers in order to become popular. I admire people who show the reality as it without pretending to be someone else.

 

[Fenixgoon]

There definitely is some unhealthy aspects to social media. People go in with the mindset of "this is how other people look" instead of "this is a curated image designed to portray the subject as best as possible using any number of photographic techniques"

Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty as hell of looking at photos and associating them with reality

 

[pmv]

Is "social media" that much worse than just "mass media" of any kind?

Comparing yourself to unrealistic images (which are not exclusively either visual or of bodies) is surely something that began with mass media?

Once-upon-a-time we only had to compare ourselves with the richest or most athletic or toughest or best-looking person in our village or tribe. Now we are constantly presented with curated and cherry-picked images of the exceptional from across the globe.

 

[pmv]

That's one way to put it, lol

Another way to put it is that we've constructed a world for ourselves that we didn't evolve to cope with.

 

[shortylickens]

I dont know if anybody realizes this but social media is not a person.
People are ON social media.

PEOPLE are bad. We're just using social media to show off how bad we are. And PEOPLE need to improve in order to get over our problems and move ahead in civilization.
Stop blaming your fucking iphone. I dont give a shit what Alex Jones says. Its not alive and its not taking over the world.
YOU are taking over the world. And you suck.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I dont know if anybody realizes this but social media is not a person.
People are ON social media.

PEOPLE are bad. We're just using social media to show off how bad we are. And PEOPLE need to improve in order to get over our problems and move ahead in civilization.
Stop blaming your fucking iphone. I dont give a shit what Alex Jones says. Its not alive and its not taking over the world.
YOU are taking over the world. And you suck.

Remember when Alex jones accidentally showed tranny porn on his phone? The internet remembers

 

[Stokely]

Social media is a pandemic. That said, if it could somehow shame people into wearing masks I'd give it some credit (I imagine it works much the opposite though.)

 

[darkswordsman17]

Are some of you seriously acting like people weren't fake ass motherfuckers before social media?

Social media consequence free? The next day it'll be that social media ruins peoples lives too easily for stupid shit.

The problem isn't social media. The problem is people being stupid. That's happened for as long as there's been humans. We're barely conscious apes not far evolved beyond flinging our shit as a standard means of communication.

At some point, you'd think some of you would see through this like you should see through the same stupid behavior of blaming the next generation. They've said the same fucking shit about every previous thing. It was smartphones, then it was the internet, then video games, then it was computers, then it was TV, then it was fucking PA systems (the guy that invented them died miserable thinking he'd given Hitler a megaphone to brainwash the masses - which there's some truth but it ignores all the good that it enabled and how it also helped stop Hitler and shit like that), movies/film, radio, pictures, newspapers, books, fucking guys smearing shit into crude drawings. There's always some thing that's the arbiter of doom. And yet...here we are, still flinging our shit to communicate, we just learned to make it metaphorical.

So, guys, copy all your arguments and then in like 5-10 years just replace social media with AR/VR headsets. Then neural implants and biological "hacking".

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yes, and so it was clear that this would happen.

That what would happen?
Welcome to AT forums

 

[Moonbeam]

For those interested, it not always roses and tulips for those of us who are physically and mentally perfect. The only advantage I can think of that it might confer is it's so obviously true I have no need to prove it.

 

[Kratosynatos]

Social media now has a very strong influence on people, especially teenagers. Many teenagers see what ideal life artists have and think they have a boring and poor life compared to them. However, some people need to know that even if artists or athletes, it does not matter. We are talking about influential personalities, who post photos where they are happy, and everything is fine with them. It does not mean that they feel like that. Or here's the news you shared with us. Many girls see Instagram models and then complex their bodies, but it's wrong. You need to love yourself with anyone. By the way, I recently created a new Instagram account where I raise similar topics, and I think to attract an audience, I will buy likes from 1394TA.

 

[pete6032]

Social media now has a very strong influence on people, especially teenagers.

Fascinating. Can you tell me more?