The toxicity of beauty culture is harmful as it provides unrealistic body standards that may cause us to long for an appearance which will forever be unattainable naturally
Media is a major influence on most young adults today, with the rise of TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and other social media apps influencing our culture and shaping how we live and act today. From models to instagram, social media influencers pose and give unrealistic expectations for anyone to see, particularly young teens.
Beauty advertisements specifically, within the makeup industry have shown to portray their makeup as a realistic filter and that if you use it, it will blur your pores to provide you with smooth and flawless skin, just like those filters online.
However, many celebrities have had cosmetic plastic surgery such as breast and lip augmentation, Botox and more, done to their body and portray themselves in the media in a specific way. This is where young adults try to convince themselves they are not naturally pretty as the celebrities shown online, when social media is just simply perpetuating this false reality.
Although many individuals today strive to achieve a flawless look which is naturally unattainable, everyone does have their own little flaw which makes them, them or is simply something we all deal with as it is human. For example, pores and textured skin, it’s natural, because that's what skin is.
Although photoshooping does happen a lot with celebrities and their jobs, it can still be something they do not stand for themselves, as Jameela Jamil, a British Indian celebrity, criticized magazines for filtering her face to make it more appealing to Caucasian audiences.
Cosmetic companies take advantage of these insecurities to make products like blurring primers that teenagers are attracted to. Don't get me wrong, makeup can be used by people to feel confident and beautiful and that's more than okay. However brands that falsely advertise makeup products in their campaigns are very problematic, especially to teenagers.
Mass media has invented new tools to further manipulate young teenagers and adults. Editing can be seen as just a mere feature to add brightness or contrast to photos. However using it to change your body structure and complexion to be more airbrush is toxic to young adults.
For example, Facetune is a photo editing app known to retouch your face and body which has gone viral over the last few years. Some people use this app just because of boredom or to test how far they can edit themselves before it becomes noticeable, yet as you continue to do it so often it gets addictive and toxic to you and your mental health.
To get more featuring tools, there is a VIP subscription for $71.99/year. Within a few seconds you can edit yourself, change your skin tone and curve out your body to look just like Kim Kardashian if you wanted.
As people keep editing themselves, one can get used to your edited self, so, eventually when you look in the mirror, it's like you’re seeing a whole different person and you feel ashamed that you don't look like the edited version of yourself. It can become so dangerous with these constant false perpetuations as again as again, ththey are not true, it also does not mean you are not ey are not true utiful.
The western beauty standard has been a great representation throughout years in the beauty industry of making only one specific group of woman feel good. This standard consists of features of white slim women with pouty lips, small waist, and a toned body to imply that, that body and face type is what is called ‘beautiful’.
These beauty standards are all throughout western media, whether displayed on magazines or billboards.
All body types are beautiful; however, our society would say that skinnier women are more attractive than larger women, when that is simply not the case.
Women everywhere are beautiful in their own way, but this standard has not only made women but teenagers not appreciate their own image. This has led to many individuals receiving treatments and surgeries, and the rise of it over the past few years has been immense. Plastic surgery only makes you feel better about the way that you look because society tells you how you should want to look. I strongly disagree that an individual should get plastic surgery if they were only influenced by social media or some kind of celebrity.
Cosmetic companies take advantage of these insecurities to make products like blurring primers that teenagers are attracted to. Don't get me wrong, makeup can be used by people to feel confident and beautiful and that's more than okay. However, brands that falsely advertise makeup products in their campaigns are very problematic, especially to teenagers.
Celebrities and influencers are known to be influential, and to even some idols, as there are many young adolescents who look up to and dream to be when they're grown up.
However, many celebrities have had cosmetic plastic surgery such as breast and lip augmentation, Botox and more, done to their body and portray themselves in the media in a specific way. This is where young adults try to convince themselves they are not naturally pretty as the celebrities shown online, when social media is just simply perpetuating this false reality.
What's taking these filters to a new level is not just comparing yourself to these celebrities, but also comparing your authentic self against a false representation of them and more importantly you. It is important that you never believe anything on social media and focus on doing acts and practices of self-love. When you realize this, you can come to see your own beauty without the influence of social media.
Fourth-year student Abi Oladesu is beautifying clients through her business Desu Beauty
Abi Oladesu has been doing makeup for most of her life. She started having fun with her mother’s makeup from the age of 10 and decided a few years later to challenge herself to increase her skills. She did someone else’s makeup for the first time when she was about 16.
During her second year at McMaster University, the biochemistry student started thinking about taking makeup more seriously. However, it wasn’t until she was quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic that she decided to take the leap and start her business, Desu Beauty on Oct. 30, 2020.
There are three components to Oladesu’s business. As she has received many requests for makeup tutorials and enjoys teaching, she decided that she would post makeup tutorials on Instagram and offer beginner and intermediate lessons.
The second part of her business involves posting her own makeup looks in order to improve her skills and show clients what she can do. Lastly, she does makeup for clients’ weddings, photoshoots, proms, graduations and other events.
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It is important to Oladesu that when she does clients’ makeup, she isn’t turning them into a different person but highlighting the best parts of them. This goal stems in part from her own experience with makeup. When Oladesu was a preteen and early teenager, she used makeup as a way of hiding her face. Now she uses makeup to accentuate her features and seeks to do the same for her clients.
“Obviously nobody wants that for themselves, but I don't think there's anything necessarily bad about [being self-conscious] in the sense that we all feel self-conscious once in a while. We're in a society where the beauty standards are very high and they change all the time, but it's important to remember . . . you're the one that at the end of the day determines your worth to other people,” said Oladesu.
"We're in a society where the beauty standards are very high and they change all the time, but it's important to remember . . . you're the one that at the end of the day determines your worth to other people," said Oladesu.
This mission is embedded in the name of Oladesu’s business. While she originally called it Desu Beauty as a reference to the last four letters of her last name, she realized upon reflection that it had a deeper meaning for her.
“I'm a very large fan of anime and so desu . . . basically means “to be” . . . I am [also] Christian [and] in the Bible, it's like “we are beautifully and wonderfully made” . . . So to be that beautifully and wonderfully creative person, you have to love yourself in every aspect, whether that's with wearing your natural face out and being super proud of it or getting the skills to do your makeup really well so that every time you look in the mirror . . . you’re like, “wow, I feel beautiful, I know I'm beautiful.” . . . I want you to be the best version of yourself or at least to look at yourself and be like "wow, I feel like that beautifully and wonderfully made person,"” explained Oladesu.
Since she started, Oladesu has received positive reception and a lot of support from family and friends. Unfortunately, the ongoing pandemic has decreased the number of events for which people would get their makeup done. At the same time, Oladesu credits the pandemic with giving her the time to start her business.
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Oladesu also sees online classes as a blessing for her since she started her business. Instead of spending all day on campus and then doing makeup appointments, she can better make her own schedule by doing makeup during the day and watching recorded lectures afterwards. Managing the business alongside her demanding degree and other commitments has also encouraged her to better prioritize her time.
Oladesu looks forward to continuing to grow her following and reach more people through her business. As she will be graduating soon, she is considering how she might integrate her love of makeup into her career.
“I'm definitely a cautious person so . . . right now, I definitely am going to finish my biochemistry degree and I'm going to see if I could get a job with that. But working with makeup has gotten me interested in cosmetics in general so [maybe] I can mix my biochemistry major with cosmetics and then possibly go into formulation or something along those lines,” said Oladesu.
"I definitely am going to finish my biochemistry degree and I'm going to see if I could get a job with that. But working with makeup has gotten me interested in cosmetics in general."
To other students with a skill they are considering turning into a business, Oladesu says to just start. She recalls that she felt the need to have high-quality foundations in every colour before she began her business. However, since she started, all her clients have used colours that she had already had.
“There's nothing wrong with humble beginnings. You don't have to have everything, you don't have to have the best of everything," Oladesu said. "It's better to just start because honestly, I feel like people appreciate watching you grow and watching you improve.”
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By: Sonia Leung
Last week Essena O’Neill made waves by condemning social media. The young model deleted most of the photos on her Instagram account and changed the caption of those that remained to reveal the arduous process required to create the seemingly effortless posts. While many have heralded Essena’s move as a bold statement about social media, she has drawn fire from other social media celebrities, who cast doubt on her intentions (Essena created a website/online store that is supposed to be inclusive) and defended social media. Most notably, critics argued that social media was not to blame for Essena’s predicament, rather it was her own weakness of character.
When Essena O’Neill first felt the pressures of social media she was 12 years old. Six years later, she had amassed over half a million followers on Instagram while still considered a minor.
To hold a minor to the same standards as adults similarly navigating social media for commercial purposes creates a discrepancy through unjustified isolation. Critical responses to Essena giving up social media equated social media to a sandbox where everyone plays together. In such rebuttals, the common theme likened communications technology and social media to tools — poor results would only come about if the user of such a tool fails to use it well.
There is more to this story than the relationship between technology and its user; O’Neill was a young girl who walked into a network of existing businesses benefiting from a system they put in place. The basis of the business model used by virtual ventures like Facebook and Instagram involves the engagement between the user and their platform — we become the eyes for their advertising. Regardless of how well versed she may have become in marketing techniques, O’Neill entered the industry under the universal pressures youth face to find validation among their peers, never having undertaken paid work, to be offered compensation in return for her search for approval.
In this advent of the digital era, who can honestly say they have never felt a “like” or “favourite” as something that transcends the screen? This instantaneous feeling of validation became all consuming for O’Neill, but this is not an isolated case of a user abusing their access to social media. This is symptomatic of a greater cultural ailment to seek societal approval, an idea itself that is packaged and sold particularly to susceptible youth. Like O’Neill says, “Everyone wants to feel valued and love.” This penchant for acceptance becomes maladaptive when we quantify it with “likes” on Facebook or Instagram, or when we enter into a contest against an unrealistic standard we hope to upkeep to maintain that quantification.
But who sells us these unrealistic standards? Who is behind the idea of a perfect life that O’Neill and so many other Instagram models and YouTubers strive to embody? These are questions that reinforce the importance of understanding that a system is in place entrapping people like O’Neill into thinking they are selling something when they are just another customer buying into a pre-packaged, Valencia-filtered idea of happiness. It’s a terrifyingly effective means of mass distribution, this commercialized pursuit of happiness. At some point in the case of O’Neill, her universal desire for validation and acceptance became exploited and instead of using social media as a tool, she became a tool in the toolbox of corporations — something she would not understand until it had taken an emotional toll.
Flip the coin. Clearly, O’Neill has realized the artificial nature of virtual validation — what remains unclear is how long she has known this, and whether she is being sincere in her intentions. There are few things that media loves more than a pretty face, and they include controversy and a redemption story. O’Neill has come to represent the subversion of an idea that, as a collective, we love to envy and equally love to hate. In her refusal of the “perfect life” she once lived, those half million Instagram followers and so many others can validate their suspicions around an idea they subscribed to that seemed too good to be true and reassure themselves about their own lives that might not be considered up to par.
This too, is an excellent business model, and while O’Neill entered into the industry as a child, she is now a businesswoman in her own right.
"I know you didn't come into this world just wanting to fit in and get by,” she writes. "You are reading this now because you are a game changer.” I can’t help but be cognizant of how much this sounds like a pitch when coupled with the new website she’s launched, letsbegamechangers.com. Is social awareness the next product to be sold under the pretense of authenticity with pre-determined parameters?
What O’Neill seems to be doing, consciously or unconsciously, is reinforcing a general trend of social activism reduced to a bandwagon that has too much to do with personal morality and loses sight of the issues at heart. She is repackaging self-worth with social awareness and redefining her image without unpacking her implication in the system. At the core of it, not much has changed. She was the “cool girl” selling the “cool life”. By becoming the new face of authenticity, she is still the “cool girl” selling the “cool life.”
Which narrative do you and I believe: a genuine and exploited girl exposing a corrupt industry, or a young business woman who knows that even artificial sincerity tastes sweeter after a lie? And what does that say about us?
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Sophia Topper
Staff Reporter
It was beautiful.
The sky was blue, the brick was red, the grass was green and the tree was so, so, gold.
I remembered sitting on the scratchy carpet in Mrs. Nordahl’s grade one class, learning about why trees change colour in the fall. As autumn days are cut to darkness and fall is cut to winter, the green pigments flood out, extraneous without the light that feeds them. Gold is the colour of death.
But as we extoll upon fall’s fiery beauty, we might ask why we find it so. The reds and yellows splattering our campus are omens of winter, and a symbol of vanishing vitality. They are the tree’s last words, and their parting gift before a barren darkness.
As I stood next to viagra canada Bates residence staring up at this incredible tree, I wondered why we don’t revel in spring the same way. Sure, everyone loves spring, the blissful rebirth after a harsh winter, but we don’t savour it. We keep looking ahead to summer. Fall is different because it’s ephemeral. We know it won’t last. We don’t like what comes next.
The leaves remind us how little time we have left. Fall inspires people to do things: go for one last hike before it gets icy, wear your sandals one last time, roast around one last bonfire, eat one last bowl of squash soup and live as much as possible before frigidity sets in and we all retreat to tunnels and dorms.
It was a bit of a shock to come inside and open up a magazine to a spread on anti-aging creams, serums and cleansers. Society doesn’t find beauty in wrinkles and grey hairs, but they’re no different from gold and red leaves.
When a woman looks in the mirror and spots her first wrinkle, the tired trope calls for a catastrophic melt down. She looks in the mirror and curses all the things that caused it. All those afternoons sunbathing on the lawn, those blissful cigarette study breaks, the late nights imbibing with friends, she stares in the mirror and wishes she could take them all back. Is it really worth it to lose all those joyful moments for a less flawed face?
When a man spots his first grey hair, he doesn’t celebrate the fact he lived long enough to earn one, he worries that he has lost his looks. He fears he looks old, tired, like his grandfather.
If a tree could see its leaves, how would it feel? Would it rejoice in its new beauty, or fear their imminent loss? We dislike signs of age in ourselves because they remind us of how much time we have left, but rather than plan how to spend it most people plan how to keep it from showing. What if grey hair and wrinkles were treated like fall, inspiring us to really carpe diem this time, instead of feeding into the $114 billion anti-aging industry. Couldn’t that money be better spent making the most of our own personal autumns?
I know that a bunch of college students who won’t be facing this anytime soon may not be the best people to make this plea to, but it starts with you. Next time you see your grandmother, try to appreciate the silver in her hair like you appreciate the gold in the leaves. If you’re lucky, that’ll be you some day. It can be beautiful too.
