Abstract

This paper below challenges and answers the opposing question of how Tikok has created unrealistic beauty standards and how beauty influencers are the individuals to blame. TikTok has become a globally addictive social media application driving many mental health issues stemming from online trolls, fake beauty ideals created by influencers, unhealthy trends showcasing what people eat in a day, and videos of users obsessing over their weight. This paper explores the negative impacts of this content on all ages with case studies in support of this argument. The Washington Post recently released a statement, suggesting how 70% of young girls under the age of 12 are addicted to TikTok, having an emotional impact on the individual’s well-being due to the application being a behavioral addiction. This paper explores all the impacts on young children using this app and how it has created exceptionally false beauty ideals for all young girls. 

Introduction

The powerful application of TikTok began in 2016 when the Chinese Tech giant ‘ByteDance’ created a similar app called Douyin. This creation attracted over 100 million app users in Thailand and China, and this is where it all Began. Due to the millions of users, the tech giant Chinese company bought the rights to musical.ly and rebranded to TikTok (Tidy, Joe & Galer, Sophia 2020). Since 2018, TikTok has been the most used app globally, with India being the leading country in the world to have downloaded the app. TikTok originally became an educational app with families, kids, and influential users getting on trends and trying to go viral on their cooking, sporting, dancing, and funny videos. Trends formed every day, with kids as young as 6 years old getting on the trends, due to there being no age restriction on the app. Influential celebrities were getting on the app, posting their day-to-day lives starting the trend of “day in the life” vlogs. “Body image can be described as the perception, thoughts and feelings people have about their physical self” (Grogan, 2008).

Section 1

This application of TikTok became an addiction for many young lives, creating false perceptions of beauty standards and setting unrealistic standards, with airbrushing filters for the perfect skin removing any sort of blemishes setting the standard for Women and Men not to have any blemish on your skin otherwise you are not considered remotely “attractive” or “perfect”. Filters make certain features on your face smaller and bigger creating false perceptions to young women of what the typical beauty ideals and standards are. “Our bodies have been long viewed at the heart of contention between public and private spheres” (Satya Raj, 2023) we are always concerned about how we look, and trying to meet the ideal beauty standards instead of doing things that make the mind content. “Each person falls under the pressure of performing their body knowing other users watch it, and in comparison to other users” that is shared onto the application of TikTok (Joshi, Satya Raj, 2023). TikTok trends with Male singers singing Lyrics such as “Perfect body with perfect smile” created a trend where women would dance to the song re-enacting the words, with people in the comments trolling them online telling them they are far from the ideal beauty standards, making jokes about the user’s body or telling the user ways to improve their appearance to meet the perfect ideal beauty standards. The social comparison theory is “described as two social phenomena occurring among humans, firstly with individuals measuring their own opinions by contrasting them to other opinions secondly, individuals then compare themselves to those who are similar to them” (Geothals & Darley, 1986). Social comparison begins as soon as an individual sees someone who has longer hair than them, or skinnier legs. Due to these unrealistic beauty ideals, women and men become obsessed with they’re body and appearances, striving to meet unrealistic beauty standards leading to body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and a range of mental problems. “Due to unrealistic body standards on social media, this places an effect on the younger generation as they are highly attuned to peer evaluation of their physical appearance, as this is the most influential type of social comparison” (Lewis & Currie, 2009).

Section 2

Influencers, known as a social media job; influence users to purchase a certain product or service from a company. These influencers are based on their following and engagement levels, as they are highly followed due to a large factor being the influencer’s appearance, as young girls and boys follow their every move idolising them and ensuring they have the newest piece of clothing, beauty products, or changing their style or appearance to ensure it’s aligning with the influencers. “These types of beauty influencers target women since the makeup industry mainly targets this gender, given the popularity of social media and influencers, researchers have raised concerns regarding the effects of social media on people’s mental well-being” (Tran et al.,2020). The terrible trends of “fits-piration” and “thin-spiration” creates unrealistic body images as the individuals who are posting this content are the ones who are creating body image issues for men and women, who become obsessed with this unrealistic standard, with the individuals mental health declining rapidly each time the user opens there phone onto the application of TikTok. These influencers have a massive part to play in body image issues for men and women, as the content they are posting is so far from authentic. They create a fake world, and an idolised world for many individuals because only they only post the outstanding activities in their days, editing out any remotely negative or not “exciting” details that happen in their vlogs. Influencers are the most influential people on the internet, especially Gen Alpha due to being severely influenced by having the newest piece of clothing, and the best body and appearance. Furthermore, studies have suggested that people are more attracted to authentic influencers due to the level of impact that influencers have on their self-esteem. (Alhoei, 2022). When an influential person gives certain advice on TikTok, through quotes or certain experiences individuals take this information on to use in their everyday life experiences due to being so highly influenced and idolising these content creators. Due to social media, young men and women are expected to be ready at any time to be taken a photo, that would be uploaded to thousands of friends online, from there those thousands of friends examine the photo and judge internally if the individual is seen to have looked good in the image of video and judged upon based on that. Men and women are constantly under pressure to be looking their best every single day, scared to be judged upon and not match the ideal beauty standards of this generation. Due to this pressure, eating disorders are increased severely as this unrealistic beauty standard is consumed every day on all social media platforms. This consumption is set by beauty influencers as they post every single day, trying to portray these fake unrealistic beauty standards to all their followers.

Section 3

Eating disorders stem from unrealistic beauty standards, and pressure on the individual to constantly consume this fake content. “The pressure to live up to these expectations has risen as a result of social media influencers showing off their immaculate bodies and advertising products that claim to assist their followers reach the same” (Saguy et al., 2020). This is a complicated issue because these influencers do not intend to create body image issues and trying to be as authentic as possible in their content, but when it’s your job to get paid thousands of dollars to post content on social media it’s all about how much engagement you are getting, which determines what brands and companies reach out to you and how much the influencer will get paid. Women in the Gen Z and Alpha generations that are exposed to “thin-ideal photographs on social media platforms have exceptionally low levels of body satisfaction in addition to elevated degrees of anxiety and depression according to researchers Tiggemann and Slater (Jaiswal, 2023). Many influencers try their best to advocate for body positivity and diversity which increases satisfaction in user’s body image and increased self-esteem, but this is not in all influencer’s cases due to them being approached by beauty-focused brands. In particular, social media as a whole reinforces that one’s appearance determines the majority of their worth and puts pressure on people to comply with unattainable standards of beauty and leave them feeling inadequate or flawed” (Jaiswal, 2023). I was recently talking to a group of girls here at university the discussion around eating disorders and body positivity came up in the discussion. One girl stated how as girls we talk about clothes, and the hottest gossip, and catch ourselves making comments about a girl’s social media post such as “I wish I looked like her”, “her side profile is amazing” and “ I wish my body looked like that”. We find ourselves falling into that trap of commenting on people’s appearance due to influencers setting unrealistic beauty standards for all their followers. We sat around having this discussion and realised that we had a part to play in making these comments, as making these comments to people around us then set the expectation into their heads as to what the beauty standard is, and that we are constantly comparing ourselves to people around us, trying to meet the unrealistic beauty ideals and expectations on us. As we sat around having this discussion together we decided that this topic needs to be spoken about openly as a group, to spread awareness around the ongoing issue that forever will be a complicated issue into the future as technology evolves. Due to there being no age restrictions put in place for social media, kids as young as 8 and 10 can access the app seeing harmful conversations and trolling on the internet and unrealistic beauty standards spread across the internet setting the tone for younger children who hadn’t reached their teenage years yet, already constantly concerned about what they look like, and trying to meet these beauty standards.

Conclusion

TikTok trends are a main factor in this complicated problem and will continue to be unless influencers change what they are posting to their followers. “TikTok’s For You Page, an algorithm that creates a symbolic relationship between user interest in trends and has promoted the long-standing theme of body image dissatisfaction” (Korbani, 2021). The negative consequence of these trends relates to the marketing and influencers creating unrealistic beauty standards for kids as young as 10. “The app has developed numerous-body related content concerns with 41% of users being between the ages of 16 and 24” watching fake videos every day, and faking their age on the app as you don’t have to submit any proof of age onto the app (Korbani, 2021). An example of another terrible trend on TikTok is “What I eat in a day”, not only did influencers get on this trend, but anyone following these influencers also tried to show people online that they are doing the same. A 17-year-old known as Kayla Long made a vlog about what she eats in a day stating that she had only consumed one jug of water the entire day. The video made by Kayla got over two million views, with harmful comments, and people concerned for Kayla’s health. Just like many of the other influencers, Kayla didn’t have any idea how she was creating a negative space for her followers, and influencing others to do the same as if this was the “norm”. The TikTok database continues to follow these trends and blindly impacts its followers negatively. TikTok can be an exceptionally toxic space, especially around food consumption on a day-to-day basis, and the unrealistic beauty standards constantly being added to each day. There will continue to be an ongoing issue with the harmful impact Influencers have on TikTok creating false perceptions of beauty standards, and body toxicity. It’s so important to know that social media is fake and to not believe everything that is posted online, as influencers only post the great things they are doing to perceive themselves as living this amazing life. TikTok should aim to eliminate any user-based trends that are harmful in any way to eliminate any toxicity, as it should be a safe place of freedom, creativity, and a positive body platform rather than an application of comparison.

 

 

References:

Alhoei, S. (2058). The impact of beauty influencers on young women’s self-esteem and facial satisfaction. [online] Available at: https://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=158964.

Joshi, S.R. (2023). The Representation of the Body in new media, TikTok. Shanti Journal, [online] 3(1-2), pp.93–105. doi:https://doi.org/10.3126/shantij.v3i1-2.60817.

Korbani, A. and LaBrie, J. (2021). Toxic TikTok Trends. Journal of Student Research, 10(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i2.1687.

Tidy, J. and Galer, S.S. (2020). TikTok: The story of a social media giant. BBC News. [online] 5 Aug. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53640724.