Social media is notorious for ruining self-esteem, particularly for young women, and there is an evident reason for this. We live in a time where we post our whole lives online for anyone and everyone to see. Naturally, this inclines us to feel the need to perfect every single photo we take. Whether it be airbrushing, photoshopping, or posing a certain way, so many of the photos on your feed aren’t real life. This can be very detrimental to someone that is scrolling through various social media platforms and beginning to wonder why they don’t have that body shape, that clear skin, or whatever it may be. This rang true for me for a long time, until it didn’t anymore.Â
I created my first Instagram account my freshman year of high school. At first it was just a fun platform to post visual updates in my life or pretty photos I had taken recently. Slowly as I began to follow more people, including friends or celebrities and models, I had a lot of photos coming at me at all times of the day — a lot of which were girls my age or girls a bit older, posting selfies or images of their bodies in some way or another. It made me think a lot about what my body and face looked like. I started to feel strongly aware of my appearance and I kept thinking about how I could change it. I felt like this throughout most of my time in high school. It wasn’t on my mind all of the time, but it was a frustrating reminder in the back of my head when I would scroll through all my different apps.Â
I downloaded TikTok at the end of my senior year. At first I thought it was a little ridiculous and slightly uninteresting. Then I started to get more videos tailored to my interests. Some of these videos included body positive women, dedicated to using their platform to normalize and celebrate all kinds of different bodies and looks. For the first time I was seeing women that would explicitly share their insecurities in order to show their audience what real bodies actually looked like. They would show their rolls, cellulite, acne, and other parts of their bodies that social media has taught us to hide for so long. Not only were these people showing their authentic, unedited bodies, but they were teaching watchers about why our bodies may change and why.Â
One of the first accounts I came across was @VictoriaGarrick on TikTok. As a former college athlete, she shares what her body used to look like when she was training and how it looks now. She emphasizes how our bodies change with time and with different lifestyles. Another account I love is @Jessica.janae on TikTok. She is a huge advocate for body confidence, especially within the plus size community.Â
It’s accounts like these that completely changed my perspective on my own body and the concept of body positivity on social media. I no longer compare myself to every single photo I see or wish to look a different way than I do. I now accept my body in every state and celebrate my insecurities. I believe that the narrative of social media and the way people portray themselves on these sites is completely changing, fortunately for the better.Â