Let's face it- our standards are based off of things we all deem to be "cool" or "idealistic". High School Musical was the standard for how High School should be for many years- and this is obviously not true. Instagram models are who many girls and women try to be- but we all cannot adhere ourselves to these standards. There is one reason why this false representation hurts girls and women a great amount- the trend of natural-looking plastic surgery among models.
A lot models are famous for their beauty and their bodies- for example, Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner. It is obvious that these women have gotten plastic surgery to enhance their look- but they will not confess it to anyone who comments on their posts or asks them in person. Kylie credits her looks to puberty, and Kim claims she's always looked the way she has. This is detrimental for two reasons. One, it creates standards that one can look like that because of puberty, and two, it causes people to feel insecure about the way they look. It is laughable looking at pictures of Kylie and Kim when they were younger- there is no way they look the way they do without plastic surgery. Now, they are the standard. If you don't have the slim face and nose, big lips and eyelids, and hourglass figure, you wouldn't be considered ideal.
Instead of projecting these enhanced and fake looks onto young girls and women that cannot get plastic surgery, and who don't want to, we should embrace honesty. Celebrities shouldn't lie about their surgeries, and we should stop accepting these individuals as our standards. If they cannot be honest about how they look and what they have done to themselves, then we should move on and stop wasting our time on something that isn't real. The media is how celebrities spread this false image of themselves, and advertisers pay them up hundreds of thousands of dollars per post- all to project a false image. Advertisers know that many girls and women want to look just like Kylie Jenner- so they sponsor her. It is an endless cycle, and everyone ends up getting hurt.
I also believe that false images of beauty are presented in media. It seems as though girls are also becoming more influenced by these mature beauty standards, and becoming hyper sexualized at a young age. There are fourteen fifteen year old girls who are look over twenty because of these false media beauty standards.
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