Difference between revisions of "Social Media Influencers and Unrealistic Expectations"
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==Body Positive Influencers== | ==Body Positive Influencers== | ||
| − | Tess Holliday: Tess is a body-positive influencer with the Instagram account @effyourbeautystandards. She was a model in Europe and, in 2015, was the cover of People Magazine. On her social media accounts, she advocates for body positivity by telling her followers to love their body as it is. With Penningtons, she created a size-inclusive clothing line. The fashion industry has a stigma against being over a specific size, so she tries to reverse that and be more size-inclusive <ref>[Cwynar-Horta, J[The commodification of the body positive movement on Instagram. Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology, 8(2), 36-56]]</ref> | + | Tess Holliday: Tess is a body-positive influencer with the Instagram account @effyourbeautystandards. She was a model in Europe and, in 2015, was the cover of People Magazine. On her social media accounts, she advocates for body positivity by telling her followers to love their body as it is. With Penningtons, she created a size-inclusive clothing line. The fashion industry has a stigma against being over a specific size, so she tries to reverse that and be more size-inclusive <ref>[Cwynar-Horta, J[The commodification of the body positive movement on Instagram. Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology, 8(2), 36-56]]</ref>[[File:Tess-holiday-people-magazine-today-150520.jpg | thumb |"Tess Holliday's People's Magazine Cover"]] |
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==Ethical Concerns== | ==Ethical Concerns== | ||
Revision as of 19:02, 28 January 2022
The ethics surrounding social media influencers and unrealistic expectations have been heavily debated in recent years. There has been a debate on the ethics of their authenticity and how they can convey their actual self to their audience while being able to profit off of their content [1].A social media influencer is a person who has online relationships and can influence others through creating content on the social web [2].
Contents
History of Social Media Influencers
Social media can be thought of as the online spread of various forms of digital content. Using that definition, social media started in the 1980s and 1990s when the Internet was just beginning to become popular. In the 1990s, blogging was popular. Blogging is where people log onto their private computers and post about different things, such as what they felt, and it is available for other people to read. [3]
With more people interested in connecting on the Internet, the first social media sites, Six Degrees and Friendster, were developed. Six degrees was created in May 1996 by Andrew Weinreich with the goal to connect people with profiles, friend lists, and school affiliations. Six Degrees soon failed because not enough people frequently used the Internet [4]. Friendster was founded in 2002 by Johnathan Abrams. The purpose of Friendster was global interaction between people and the chance to make new friends and reconnect with people. By early 2003, 3 million people had used Friendster. Scalability errors caused Freidnster to go downhill and be replaced by more recent social media sites, such as Facebook. Those two first popular social media platforms then gave rise to more modern and widespread social media sites like Facebook and Snapchat [5].
People promoting products have been around way before the rise of the Internet. Having widespread social media platforms made more and more people famous and influential. Social media sites, such as Instagram, started to have more users who had accounts with a lot of followers. Those followers would interact with the posts by liking and commenting, which is why companies started reaching out to people with a large following to promote their products [6]. Therefore, over time having a large follower base on social media sites became a well-paying career, and the term influencer was made.
Body Positive Influencers
Tess Holliday: Tess is a body-positive influencer with the Instagram account @effyourbeautystandards. She was a model in Europe and, in 2015, was the cover of People Magazine. On her social media accounts, she advocates for body positivity by telling her followers to love their body as it is. With Penningtons, she created a size-inclusive clothing line. The fashion industry has a stigma against being over a specific size, so she tries to reverse that and be more size-inclusive [7]
Ethical Concerns
PR Packages
In the context of social media, PR packages are gifts that brands create with their products to give to various influencers. Often the packages are filled with collections that the brands are just releasing or will be selling soon. The purpose of these packages is to give influencers products to show viewers themselves using the products or film unboxing videos. A study was done that showed that most PR Packages were given to influencers with entertainment channels, as opposed to other types of channels like music. This was because there were videos of the influencers doing unboxing videos and showing the products on the entertainment channels. An ethical concern is that sometimes the influencer does not explicitly say that they revived these packages or products for free as part of a PR package [8]. This creates a false sense of reality where viewers are led to believe that the influencer has more money to buy the products they are showing.
Photograph Modification
The first photograph manipulation program was created by Thomas Knoll in 1987. Thomas collaborated with his brother to create a company called Display that was then turned into Photoshop after a deal with Adobe [9]. From there, photo manipulation apps have become more widespread in society and have been available as easy-to-use apps like FaceTune or Photo Editor. In order to attract followers and gain popularity, influencers have to somewhat fit into the typical beauty standard so people will care and idolize them. Also, when the person has a large following, their life and maybe even career revolves around likes. Having a large number of likes validates people and tells them that they are what society tells them they should be. Followers then look up to these influencers and get a false sense of what is considered beautiful and attractive and what is not. Many people turn to social media to show them what they should change about themselves and live up to an unrealistic standard. Since most of the posts that people see are photoshopped or modified, social media promotes an impossible standard of beauty that many people are influenced by and try to live up to [10].
Tana Mongeau is a social media influencer with about 5 million subscribers on YouTube and 5.7 million Instagram followers [11] [12]. In November 2019, Tana posted a red carpet photo. Her followers were quick to pick up on the fact that she drastically changed her appearance in the photo and has a completely different look than what was posted of her on other sources online. She modified her face by making her jaw slimmer and her lips bigger. She never said anywhere on the photo she posted that it was modified, so when people viewed her post, their first thought was that the photo accurately represented how she looked [13].
Demographics
On Instagram, 68 percent of users are female, and 59 percent of all users are between 18 and 29 [14]. Therefore, the majority of Instagram users are young and female. Various studies have found that young females are impressionable to outside influences [15]. Since young females are the primary users of Instagram and are heavily influenced by what they view, seeing modified and faked social media posts gives them a false impression of what they should look like and how their ideal life should be.
Travel Influencers
Travel Influencers are people with a large following on a social media platform that show themselves traveling to different places [16]. For example, Aspyn Ovard is an example of an influencer who rose to fame by showing herself traveling. As of January 2022, Aspyn has 2.2 million Instagram followers. In 2018, she posted multiple pictures and stories on Instagram of her going to various countries, including Italy, Puerto Rico, Japan, and Zambia [17]. A study conducted by Cameron Giannotti found that influencers posting travel photos were creating a false sense of the country they were visiting. She discovered that influencers tended just to take pictures in open and aesthetically pleasing places. The other parts of the country, such as the crowds or pollution, were purposely left out. The followers of these travel influencers were falsely led into believing that the majority of these countries were filled with attractions and sites that fit the tourist gaze [18].
References
- ↑ [Wellman, M. L., Stoldt, R., Tully, M., & Ekdale, B. "Ethics of Authenticity: Social Media Influencers and the Production of Sponsored Content" ].
- ↑ [Enke, N., & Borchers, N. S."Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication: A Conceptual Framework for Strategic Social Media Influencer Communication"].
- ↑ [Jones, M."The Complete History of Social Media: A Timeline of the Invention of Online Networking"].
- ↑ [Ngak, C."Then and now: a history of social networking sites"
- ↑ [Ulunma."Before Facebook there was… Friendster? Yes, that’s right!"]
- ↑ [https://online.maryville.edu/blog/evolution-social-media/ / "The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?"]
- ↑ [Cwynar-Horta, J[The commodification of the body positive movement on Instagram. Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology, 8(2), 36-56]]
- ↑ [Domanais, J., Dorado, J., & Peñaflor, A. J. "YouTube Statistics: A Look at Its Effect on YouTube’s Digital Marketing"]
- ↑ [Story, D."From Darkroom to Desktop—How Photoshop Came to Light"]
- ↑ [Finci, S. "Social Media Influences the Ways We Understand Beauty"]
- ↑ ["Tana Mongeau Instagram Account"]
- ↑ ["Tana Mongeau YouTube Account"]
- ↑ [Glaze, V. "Tana Mongeau under fire for excessive photoshop edits"]
- ↑ "Social Media Platforms and Demographics"
- ↑ [Smith, T. [https://covdegreeshow.coventry.ac.uk/site/assets/files/7008/tia_smith_dissertation.pdf/ "The effect of social media: a research study into how young women can be affected by negative body image"]]
- ↑ [Giannotti, C. [https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/01048e78-55f0-4534-980d-f69b2ccf2ca3/view/8e7f44cc-08ce-40c7-9ceb-e318f8a1fb1e/Giannotti.pdf/ "How to Read Instagram Travel Influencer Photographs: A Semiotic Analysis of Space and Exclusivity in the Content of Instagram Travel Influencers"]]
- ↑ "Aspyn Ovard Instagram Account"
- ↑ [Giannotti, C. [https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/01048e78-55f0-4534-980d-f69b2ccf2ca3/view/8e7f44cc-08ce-40c7-9ceb-e318f8a1fb1e/Giannotti.pdf/ "How to Read Instagram Travel Influencer Photographs: A Semiotic Analysis of Space and Exclusivity in the Content of Instagram Travel Influencers"]]
