To think that every teenager should follow this Instagram account?

[JanuaryJonez]

My 14yo DD showed this to me today and it was such an eye-opener. I really had no idea of the extent to which Instagram influencers alter their faces and bodies using apps.

instagram.com/beauty.false?igshid=1nepq16a1v7ns

I knew they all applied some, but I always thought they were all stunningly beautiful anyway (albeit some through surgery as well) and these apps were just enhancing what they already had.

The majority of the people shown literally look like different people with the apps applied, and most seem to have pretty ordinary faces and bodies in real life.

My DD has now sent it to most of her own friends and followers, saying it will really boost their confidence and make them realise how ridiculously unattainable these looks are, because they're not real!

Before and after pics both look equally lovely....makes me mad that we are not considered enough.

Ugh I’ve just clicked and got lost down a vacuous Instagram hole. It’s all so narcissistic I can’t stand it! I have two daughters and I’m terrified they will get sucked into this crap. I noticed that the ‘celebs’ have been tagged in each post. So then you can click and see their individual feeds. It’s all so me, me look at me. I don’t get Instagram. Must make me old!

Surely most teenagers who are interested in this stuff are aware of filters etc because they are using them?
The ones who aren’t aware are probably looking at cat videos etc so won’t be bothered.
Yes in my defence I have taken to looking at cat videos and they are adorable. A bit mindless I know by better than reading about Covid.

I think I'll have more impact showing my DD this account than trying fruitlessly to get her to come off Instagram and TikTok - as a pp said, that ship has sailed.

Aside from friends and her peer group, my DD follows mainly creative and funny accounts. I'm similar. But if you click the search icon you get a suggested page which invariably has a lot of these gorgeous images.

The main relief for me seeing beauty.false was a money thing. I always assumed when I see these gorgeous images that the person has the time and money to spend a fortune on cosmetic surgery, fitness and expensive skin and hair treatments etc, and that there was inevitably going to be a huge divide between the poor/ordinary looking and the wealthy/beautiful. It's a relief to see that it seems to be mainly down to technology!

I'm wondering (hoping) the Kardashians etc and their extensive surgery is the exception rather than the norm, although they may have started the whole obsession in the first place.

@Shetoshe

It would be even better if every teenager stayed off instagram altogether IMO. It's a vacuous hole of misery for a lot of young people I imagine.

This.

The whole influencer culture needs to end. The influencers themselves are all anxious and depressed. Horrible situation all round.

No, instead they should follow an account called Sunday Morning View, where real women and real beauty is shown. No stupid lip fillers or gross eyelashes.

www.instagram.com/sundaymorningview/?hl=en

Sasha Louise Pallari is a lovely young woman who has campaigned for influencers to stop using filters when they are promoting/selling products. She actually succeeded in getting the ASA to change the rules around this - your daughter should follow her, and the #filterdrop

Teach your kids to ignore influencers, models and other pointless people. The ones who actually do something and use their brains are the ones to 'follow'. Looks are a genetic accident, not an achievement.

Pallari, mentioned above, is another peddler of the 'look gormless' expression in photos. Except it is actually ' look like a sex doll'. Poor choices.

@murbblurb You think she looks like a sex doll? I think she looks like a real person, who is a make-up artist and some of her photos are posed to show this. Calling someone gormless and a sex doll is really unkind.

I don’t think it is saying hahaha look how shit they look really, the vast majority look beautiful before, it shows how unnecessary and unrealistic it all is.

@murbblurb

Teach your kids to ignore influencers, models and other pointless people. The ones who actually do something and use their brains are the ones to 'follow'. Looks are a genetic accident, not an achievement.

I hope it's this easy when my girls are teenagers. This thread is depressing me.

I don’t think it’s saying “ha ha ha, don’t they look shit” at the “befores”. The point is that we shouldn’t consider cellulite, visible pores, belly rolls when we bend at the waist etc to be “looking shit”, because they’re just normal!

So many of the “afters” are bizarre to me because bodies just don’t work like that! It’s quite interesting, from a detached point of view (as a middle-aged person who uses Instagram for goofy pictures of sunsets and cats and has about 40 followers who are all people I know in real life) to see how any pretence at reality has been abandoned and everyone seems happy enough to go with that. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be teenagers who actually feel bad because they don’t look like that. As long as the comparisons are used to show that NOBODY looks like that and it’s all a sham, then that’s a good thing, surely?

Mrsfrumble this is the point I was trying to make - that a lot of teenage girls (and boys) think this is how these people really look and it's having a negative impact on their self-esteem as it's so unobtainable.

@AmIBeingTwatty

If your friend was so proud of her “flaws” wouldn’t she be posting them anyway?

How often do you post your worst pics online or your every flaws? The point is that, it’s okay to post and use filter, good angles and whatever else people want to do with their pictures as long as it’s not advertised as a realistic body type and goal to achieve. Which is what she preaches aka, edit your pics if you want to but don’t pretend it’s your real body and how you naturally look as that creates unrealistic expectations in young , easily influenced, people.

I agree.

And I have just followed it too. It's fab.

Thanks @JanuaryJonez

Several of the captions on those photos are interesting to say the least. Including pitting women against each other asking "who's better?". I agree the message is important and you can keep teens off Instagram all you like, but they'll still see edited images of faces, skin and bodies and form their own insecurities, so it's important to show that these gorgeous people are still gorgeous, but they also have normal bodily imperfections like pores and stomachs, just like everyone else. But I think the owner of that account is trying to shame women instead of framing it as just the reality. There's a nasty undertone to the posts.

@Linning I don’t post pictures of myself online.

I was thinking about the ones I’ve seen in the press of celebs not hiding stretch marks etc and would think someone who said they weren’t ashamed would do the same

@Mrsfrumble Here is a really good alternative body positive Insta account to follow. It's really funny and refreshing

www.instagram.com/celestebarber/

I can't see much difference between the photos in many of them. I think it's all a pile of shite. Teenagers shouldn't be absorbing any of this trash.

What a horrible account. Why would you want your teenager to follow this account?

It may sound smug, but dd would be totally disinterested in such sites. She is proudly alternative and has no interest in celebrity culture or Instagram influencers. It may be a site of interest to your dc and their friends but not all teenagers need prompting to see through the filtered world.

[quote AmIBeingTwatty]@Linning I don’t post pictures of myself online.

I was thinking about the ones I’ve seen in the press of celebs not hiding stretch marks etc and would think someone who said they weren’t ashamed would do the same[/quote]
But there is a difference between not being ashamed and flashing them. I am not ashamed of my flaws but I do dress in a way that favors my body rather than advertise my flaws, not because I am ashamed of them but because my flaws don’t flatter me and if I have to pick I would rather dress in a way that flatters me than not. But if people comments on my body and I know that what they see isn’t the reality, like a lot of people say «I wish I had this (insert whatever they like about my body) I always make sure to answer with «Thank you but I do have a (ex: belly) I am just good at hiding it.»

We all have flaws most of us don’t advertise them and I don’t necessarily think we should nor stop doing what we do but I do think it’s important we normalize not having a perfect body by being honest and upfront about all the little tweaks and things we do to look more «flawless».

Just to be clear, neither I nor my DD follow the sort of Instagram accounts that feature this glamorous type of woman.

But the images are hard to avoid as they can appear in your suggested feed and also regularly get featured in online tabloids like the Daily Mail (which every woman I know regularly reads, regardless of politics).

So all I'm trying to say is that it was a pleasant revelation to find out that it's mainly down to digital alteration that they look so amazing, rather than having the money for cosmetic surgery, fitness trainers, expensive beauty treatments etc, which could encourage many young women with a more modest income to get in debt trying to emulate them.