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?