Forever Under Their Photoshopped Gaze? - Ethos

From my previous experiences with low self-esteem, I barely pick up a magazine now a day. I’ve experience this in my life too much. To pick up a magazine, see these gorgeous girls, and feel like I could never even compare. Call me jealous, envious, whatever you want. I can’t help it. Everyone wants to be beautiful, especially in his or her adolescence. And when I see these models, honestly, I envy them.

I despise the fact that these industries do this on purpose. Industries use these models to make viewers want to look like them, want to wear what they’re wearing, so that the industry can become richer than they already are. It's intentional in their part making readers feel envy and seek to be like the people in these pictures. And the sick masochistic part is that they so this because they want money. It is so shallow of these industries to put people’s self-esteem down like that just for the growth of their company.

I’m sure there are many who have given up reading magazines because they've become so intimidated by the images and the demands that those women are what is truly beautiful. I may only be one "ex" magazine reader, but I know I am not the only who has had my conscience weighed down, calling myself fat, finding all the imperfections in myself because these models intimidated me into looking PERFECT all the time. They haunt us everywhere we go, they've become a normal part of everyday life, so why can't they be ordinary, normal people?

She opens the magazine, knowing already the feelings of want and desire to fit in that they always bring to her. Beautiful faces stare back, as she reflects to herself why she isn't that way. Don't we all wonder why we're different than these gorgeous models in magazines? Don’t we feel our self-esteem hit rock bottom when magazines say that super skinny is the ONLY beautiful? How do we manage to match these "norms?" How much are we going to have to question and alter our selves and our lifestyle to fit into the image that magazines portray as "beautiful?" And the problem is, they seem to be everywhere! Everywhere you look are magazines, advertisements, all rubbing in the fact that there are a lucky few who have scored big in the gene pool, and that most humans will never be that "beautiful." 

But, what is beauty? Is it artificial on the surface like these advertisements and magazines portray? Or is beauty from within, from being unique and different? Why are we, as individuals, going to let these industries tell us what beauty is and how to be beautiful and unique?

Fashion and advertisement industries need to get real. They need to use real sized models: everyday women and men who are averages, not extremely attractive, but who can showcase their inner beauty, something that everyone has. Instead of being surrounded by these unrealistically beautiful models, we should be surrounded by average people. 

Who says a working mom of 4 can’t be beautiful? A low wage single mom, who cant put on a pair of $700 and rule the runway? Who says an average man working as a carpenter or a stay at home dad can’t showcase a new style of jeans for a famous brand? I can almost guarantee that the majority of people would be more comfortable seeing average people, like themselves, in advertisements and magazines.

The feeling of belittlement and of intimidation because you are not what society and influencing industries set as the "norms," is really terrible. They should notice what they are doing to young girls and basically almost everyone in society. How they are influencing them to run out and get surgeries or drastically change their lifestyles to fit these "beauty" standards. 

Industries, who use these unrealistically beautiful models, have no heart, or conscience, obviously. I can tell by their quest for fame and money, not caring who they intimidate or offend. They are shallow, and don't really pay attention, or care about how they are affecting these young girls. Because even if they know how it hurts not to fit in, they still go for the perfect models, and we, the normal people, have to shrink under their beautiful, photoshopped gaze. 

More and more teenage girls and young women are developing eating disorders, complexion disorders, self-esteem issues, and a large array of other problems because they feel like they don't fit in. How much longer are they going to fake oblivion to these issues? How much longer are teenage girls going to do anything and everything to be skinny and beautiful, even if it harms them, or potentially kills them? How long, Gucci? How long, 7 Jeans? How long Vogue? How long are you going to pretend you cant see  these ever-obvious issues? 

Forever under their photoshopped gaze?

     She opens the magazine, knowing already the feelings of want and desire to fit in that they they always bring to her. Beautiful faces stare back, as she reflects to herself why she isn't that way. Don't we all wonder why we're different than these gorgeous models in magazines? Dont We feel our self esteem hit rock bottom when magazines say that super skinny is the ONLY beautiful? How do we manage to match these "norms?" How much are we going to have to question and alter ourselves and our lifestyle to fit into the image that magazines portray as "beautiful?" And the problem is, they seem to be everywhere!Everywhere you look are magazines, advertisements, all rubbing in the fact that there are a lucky few who have scored big in the gene pool, and that most humans will never be that "beautiful." But, what is beauty? Is it artificial on the surface like these advertisements and magazines portray? Or is beauty from within, from being unique and different? 

    I barely pick up a magazine now a days. Ive experience this in my life too much. To pick up a magazine, see these gorgeous girls, and feel like I could never even compare. Call me jealous, envious, whatever you want. Because, I cant help it. Everyone wants to be beautiful, especially in their adolescence. And when I see these models, honestly, I envy them. And I despise the fact that these industries do this on purpose. It's intentional in their part making readers feel envy and seek to be like the people in these pictures. Im sure there are many who have given up reading magazines because they've become so intimidated by the images and the demands that those women are what is truly beautiful. I may only be one "ex" magazine reader, but I know I am not the only who has had my concience weighed down, calling myself fat, finding all the imperfections in myself because these models intimidated me into looking PERFECT all the time. They haunt us everywhere we go, they've become a normal part of everyday life, so why can't they be ordinary, normal people?

     Fashion and advertisement industries need to get real. They need to use real sized models: everyday women and men who are averages, not extremely attractive, but who can showcase their inner beauty, something that everyone has. Instead of being surrounded by these unrealistically beautiful models,we should be surrounded by average people. Who says a working mom of 4 cant be beautiful? A low class single mom, who cant put on a pair of $700 and totally throw the othere out of the running? Who says an average man working as a carpenter or a staybat home dad cant showcase a new style of jeans for a famous brand? I can almost guarantee that the majority of people would be more comfortable seeing average people, like themselves, in advertisements and magazines. The feeling of belittlment and of intimidation because you are not what society and influencing industries set as the "norms," is really terrible. They should notice what they are doing to young girls and basically almost everyone  in society. How they are influencing them to run out and get surgeries or drastically change their lifestyles to fit these "beauty" standards. Industries who use these unrealistically beautiful models , have no heart, or concience, obviously. Because even if they know how it hurts not to fit in, they still go for the perfect models, and we, the normal people, have to shrink under their beautiful, photoshopped gaze.

     

Sentence Imitation: Nickel and Dimed- On (Not) Getting by in America: Unrealistic and Photoshoped- On (Not) Lowering Self Esteem

Original:
"According to the national coalition for the homeless in 1998-the year i started this project-it took, on average nationwide, an hourly wage of $8.89 to afford a one-bedroom apartment, and the preamble center for public policy was estimating that the odds against a typical welfare recipient's landing a job at such a "living wage"were about 97 to 1. why should i bother to confirm these unpleasant facts?" As the time when I could no longer avoid the assignment approched, I began to feel a little like the elderly man i once knew who used a calculator to balance his checkbook and then went back and checked the results by doing each sum by hand." 
Nickle and Dimed, Barbra Ehrenreich



Imitated: 
Almost all magazines stimulate our minds to think society is strictly made up of beautiful people, to make us wonder what we are missing, and question why we are not what they portray to us as "the way everyone should be," why we are not like the only thing these magazines feature on their pages: these unrealistically beautiful women and men who probably achieve this "beauty" through heavy Photoshop. Why can't magazines use real sized models with realistic body types and natural beauty instead of using media to make our society even more deficient in self-esteem? The more our society uses media to extrapolate that all humans are this unrealistically beautiful,makes us feel like we are missing something and are the ones that are not normal is going to conclude in more people abandoning values about self individualism and natural beauty and succumbing to the norms society implants in our minds. 

Things That Bug Me

It Bugs Me That:
I don't read or follow directions very well; without direction, you will go nowhere in life

I say the wrong things at the wrong times; think twice before you say something

I am too curious; curiosity killed the cat.

My emotional feelings contradict everything I believe in, and it almost always get me screwed in a situation; that’s what you get when you let your heart win.

Sometimes I throw my morals and values in the trash when something that goes against them is tempting; eve was tempted to eat the apple. Look what happened.

It Bugs Me That:
People tell lies; lies are short lived

People act oblivious to my mood; don’t wake a sleeping lion

People make me feel bad about myself and put me down; the humble will be exalted

People embellish themselves with false personalities to gain favor of others; the exalted will be humbled

It Bugs Me That:
Magazines don’t ever show models with realistic bodies and body proportions; the human body, in ALL its forms, is the best work of art 

In movies the woman is always the one with the lesser value; She is far more precious than rubies

Hip hop used to embody the struggles and victories of the black community-now it embodies pure disrespect- sex, drugs, alcohol, racism, prejudice against homosexuality, and the defilement of women and of society itself; stay true to who you are

People who are different and who don't fit into society's norms are called "crazy;" We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

Just some thoughts that found their way into my mind earlier today.

The idea of having  to take pills to be happy and normal moves mountains in me. And not in a good way. It's like robotically living a  life that your not really even living because it's  not even really you. It's an enhanced version of yourself because society and doctors and man decided that your real self is too messed up and different to fit in with "normal."  When I think of pills I see a body, like a machine with gears all corroded on the inside, but shiny and brand new on the outside, being fed by and running on the pills. they are what keep the outside looking new, but the inside never changes, it is still corroded, still on the verge of malfunction, but the effect of medicine is the guild. instead of this machine completely breaking down, in the case of death, the inside gears are just kept going by the flow of the drugs, making the person function, numbly, oblivious to the fact that they are still "screwed (so I don't use a more violent, inappropriate word)"  up on the inside, and that the only thing that keeps them going and keeps their image on the outside as what everyone thinks as "normal" is the pills.I don't think people who take meds ever experience real happiness. because, after a while of taking meds to control your emotions and thoughts and actions, you start to become numb to certain things and just become used to being forced by a pill to feel that way, being managed by a pill.
I like to image a world where everyone is irrevocably crazy, spontaneous, too happy, too hyper, too different, too unique, who love one another too much, and are still called normal. A world where everyone is crazy and its ok. a world where society doesn't create an image for man to follow and live by. A world where happiness doesn't have to come from a small chemical filled pill. A world where drugs don't have to be administered to those who are not completely normal, where they can be themselves, and live spontaneously and freely, not bound by the "norms" of society.  sadly, That's never gonna happen, because those beautiful magical things don't exist. Just an ugly reality is what we have to live and cope with for the remainder of our lives.

My Name Does Not Define Me.

    5,582 girls since 1880 were named Brisa in the United States. Now, a name like Julie or Sarah ranges in the millions. Maybe even billions. Yet my name, only 5,582. But, that’s not the point. The point is, my name is unique: One of a kind (or maybe 5,582 of a kind). I don’t know the reason I was named Brisa, which in Portuguese or Spanish means breeze. Maybe mom had a secret desire to be a weatherwoman or a sailor, and it showed in my name. Whatever was the reason, She never told me why she named me Brisa. She lead me to believe that there was no meaning behind my name when a four year old me asked her what my name meant and she replied “it means breeze.” To me breeze is wind, Air, Nothing, something that can’t be seen, and something that can’t be touched.  Then, I discovered the Internet. My beacon of light, showing me the way to a baby name website, where miraculously, there was something about my name. The name I thought no one else had, the name I thought my mom saw floating around her head in the air and decided to bestow upon me. Surfing through the web, trying to shed some light on my peculiar name, I found that it wasn’t so peculiar after all. 
     My name is of a Latin origin, and is the short form of the Spanish name Briseida. Briseida originated from Briseis, the Greek name of the woman loved by Achilles in homer’s “Iliad.” I don’t think my mom knew all of this when she named me, I think she thought it sounded pretty. To me, at first it was not pretty at all. And it didn't seem pretty to others either. I’ve gotten made fun of by too many people in my lifetime so far. One boy in particular got to me every time. He said I was named Brisa, because my mom felt a breeze giving birth to me, so she said, I feel a breeze, and sighed ahh. And that how “Breeze ahh” turned into Brisa. Miraculously enough, now that I’m older, I’ve gotten over the “Breeze ahh.” I’ve even bestowed it the honor of being my Instagram name instead of my normal “Brisa.” 

      My name is Brisa. Brisa Alexia. Everyone calls me Brisa but there's the Alexia too. It comes from my mom's name, Adriana Alexia. She claims she named me Brisa because she thought it was beautiful, and decided to add a part of her to me. Her Alexia is now my Alexia too. I guess you could say that makes us the united, similar. Everyone says we look really alike and our personalities are the same anyways.I found then that "Alexia" means defender of men. It's origin is Alexander the Great, and Alexandria, in Egypt which was named after him. I wouldn't say I'm much of a defender of men though, and certainly neither is my mom. 
      I am not an Alexandrian defender of men. Neither am I a calm whisper of wind. I am not the woman Achilles fell in love with, and I am certainly not what I would define as beautiful.  My name does not define me. A calm breeze on a sunny afternoon is not who I am. I am a storm. I am extravagant, loud, and a violent believer of my own ideas and philosophies. I jump outside of the lines, I tend to scream more often than talk like a strong wind howls more than it whispers. I am a darkened sky and a raging wind. "Breeze" does not define my boundaries. I am a hurricane, a typhoon, a tornado. But even if my name does not define my violent weather of a personality, I still am the breeze. Named as the opposite of who I am inside, yet people see me as the calm breeze that my mom wished I  would turn out to be when she named me (too bad that didn't happen). I am still Brisa, even if some days my winds are raging and I'm a hurricane waiting to happen.