BEHIND THE MASK
www.icenimagazine.co.uk
Issue 82 2020
Behind The Mask “That’ll look perfect on Instagram,” she thinks taking the twenty-seventh photograph of herself after changing the camera setting to ‘square’. Becky is just one of millions of women and men around the world who feel some sort of pressure to present the picture-perfect them to their following on a daily basis. There are clear benefits to social media. However, there are huge drawbacks if people do not take control of their thoughts and feelings when it comes to the perceptions of other people. Let’s think again about Becky. The view of herself that she is presenting to the outside world is completely different to how she thinks and feels about herself. The unlimited access to photos of people on Instagram and other social media platforms influences people’s negative opinions of themselves. Influencers, people who often endorse products they wouldn’t even touch in reality, are partly responsible for this
misery that so many people feel. The hard-sell hashtags and captions (although hard-sell in a way that they are actually making others think that they cannot live without a certain product) are incredibly convincing. A lack of ‘likes’ or comments in response to an image can severely dent someone’s self-esteem. If we stop to think for a minute, behind those eyes with the perfect ‘on fleek’ eyeliner there, is sadness and beyond the highlighted cheek bones there is a faded smile. Looking deeper, we can see behind the mask and it is not always pretty. Not in the physical appearance sense of the word, but in terms of the trauma social media can cause for vulnerable men and women. For years, the press has been blamed for posting ‘fat’ photos of celebrities with vile captions. I distinctly remember ‘Blobby Williams’ and ‘Fat Le Blanc’ a few years ago now. Now, although the press continues to publish diatribe regarding appearances, the constant bombarding of so-called perfection on social media is a far less obvious threat, but potentially even more dangerous.
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