#49 Don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm
It’s just one edition away from our #50 Salmon Mentai edition!
We never imagined that we could do this far, it’s unbelievable! We can’t thank you more — our beloved readers, friends, and support systems.
We decided to jump in the bandwagon because we thought it would be great to reconnect with each other (obviously), all of you (especially) and nonetheless, ourselves with Salmon Mentai. We think that it’s a good decision we never regret!
On our last edition, Meiska wrote about the most beautiful words said by her parents that she could never forget, and Elsa wrote about her actions to convey that she did care with people around her. You can read it back here in case you missed it.
It’s a #SalMonday when we make a writing from a theme given by the guests, and the guests are invited to write according to the theme as well. This time, the SalMonday is coming from Yeganeh Ranjbar or Yegi. She is Elsa’s friend, they just met at a crayfish dinner and easily connected since then!
A topic from her is:
“How has the unification of media resulted in destructive beauty standards?”
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Meiska
On Instagram, I created an alternate account to follow top Instagram celebrities/influencers, culinary, and shop accounts. The reason I don’t follow those celebrities on my main account because I don’t wanna see too many promotions they endorse once they post them. I wanted my main account to focus only on my networks such as; football news , friends, relatives accounts, and other things that cross my daily activities. Most importantly, contents that boost my mood and make me happy!
From all kind of influencers, there are few of them who are beauty vlogger/content creator. Whose contents are most likely reviewing the latest products from beauty brands, and of course, make up tutorials. What I can confirm that not all of them are physically appealing, have the perfect body shape and skin, and so on. Contrary to the theme, I am ensuring media might portray destructive of the beauty itself, but the unification of influencers (not only from beauty content creators!) are strongly promoting self-love.
Around three to four months ago when I browsed Twitter timeline, I found someone protested over one local beauty brand costumer service that responded disrespectfully to their followers. At first, the followers addressed she was disappointed for the limited shade they offered, and asked whether or not they will also formulate the same foundation product with more diverse shade. Of course it got viral, and did not take too long for the beauty brand’s public relation team to take actions. Said they have replaced their costumer service staff, and promised to innovate more variative shades. And it drove other beauty brands to do the same.
I guess it’s time to believe these influencers’ powers are significant enough to shift the destructive beauty the media has done for so long?
Elsa
Yegi is my friend, we often went together in the weekend to have some drinks and good music. She is from Iran, but she is really fluent in Swedish! When I have a Swedish homework, I know with whom I should study with.
I perceive there is fallacy in the beauty standards in our society, yet there is also a growing perspective against that.
I once watched a video about how racial segregation affected kids’ sense of self-worth. It was a research from Kenneth Clark about two identical dolls with different skin colors that were put before kids. They needed to choose a doll between those two that they perceived more beautiful. You can guess, most of the children chose the whiter skin doll instead of the darker skin one. You can watch the video below.
For me, human is full of imperfection, and imperfection is beautiful. Why do we need to be someone else to exist? We don’t need to prove anything to anyone. A tweet I found below pretty sums up everything.
Yegi
The expansion of globalization as well as the expansion of media today has made it possible for fashion and beauty trends to be more unified. If a fashion item becomes fashionable in France, next day you can see that trend in Canada, Sweden, or even in China. The same applies for different trends in different parts of the world.
“Today with our phones in our hands we have access to many different media applications than we ever did before. This expansion however has brought people very close to each other. But at what cost?”“
It may seem perfect when you see how people are closer nowadays on social media and how easy it is to communicate to someone in India, South Korea or Columbia. But on the contrary, this means that those who pursue a different trend than the “global” trend may feel left out and as a result this can affect many people’s mental health.
Most people wake up in the mornings choosing an outfit maybe putting on some makeup and make themselves ready to be seen by the world. We strive to be accepted in the society to be able to make friends at the cost of putting aside our very own interests and go with what the society may want or like.
The bigger issue here is that today many young adults utilize social media and they may find that for example, according to current beauty standard, girls should have big breasts, highlighted hair, skinny legs and so on. Teenagers who see these standards then grow up with low self-confidence feeling secluded in the society’s defined “beauty” circle. Therefore, in my opinion as adults it is our responsibility to open up about these destructive beauty standards that go around in social media and make sure that the contents we post do not comply with such norms.
What do you think about it? Has the thoughts of beauty from media has shifted from being demanding into a platform of promoting self-love? Share your thoughts!
“Beauty is silent eloquence” — French proverb
