Is The ‘Instagram Face’ Era Coming To An End?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Facetune2 (@facetune)

You don’t need me to tell you how shitty the internet can be at times. I mean, I try not to bash it entirely, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in without the internet, in fact, my job didn’t even exist when I was a child, but like anything that’s all-encompassing, every evolving and *highly* addictive it’s got its good, bad and ugly sides.

But the ugly side to the internet and social media in particular comes from how it makes us feel rather than what we see. A breathing ground for feeling lesser than and making “appearance-focused upward comparisons” – the psychological term for comparing how you look to how someone else looks, and feeling like your appearance falls short of the standard set by that person. Plenty of research has linked this unattainable level of perfectionism shown on the likes of Instagram to negative psychological outcomes for women, particularly impressionable young girls. In January 2021, it was reported that there were 3.79 million social media users in Ireland, a number which had increased by 110 thousand from the year prior. This alongside figures from Eurostat stating that in 2019, some 90% of Irish people aged between 16 and 24 were using social media platforms, shows us that figures look only set to rise and incorporate an even bigger target audience, including that of a younger generation, eager to get online. It’s terrifying, and I think partly because we don’t know the outcomes of what the internet can do when you’re exposed to it from age eight. Like I said previously, it just wasn’t the case when we were kids.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by kylie 🤍 (@kylie___jenneerr)

Over the course of my time on social media, I’ve certainly felt all of its impacts. It’s made me feel downright horrific, as well as truly inspired, educated and aspirational. In the era of the ‘Instagram Face’ which was the term coined from FaceTune, and plastic surgery giving everyone a single, cyborgian look, I toyed with the possibility of getting fillers. It was 2018 and I wanted the Kylie Jenner look. A look which we later learned too came from Kylie’s own insecurities of having small lips after they were commented on when she was only 15. But social media as we know it is an eco chamber of monkey see, monkey do.

In the following year, when FaceTune was working at a rate that made the coronavirus look slow, The New Yorker commented on how its takeover was becoming commonplace. “You get the feeling that these women, or their assistants, alter photos out of a simple defensive reflex, as if FaceTuning your jawline were the Instagram equivalent of checking your eyeliner in the bathroom of the bar,” wrote journalist Jia Tolentino. The chokehold that the Instagram Face had on the world was significant, it affected celebrities and it filtered down to us common folk. If I can’t afford filler, I’ll just alter my photos to look prettier, be skinner, have less cellulite, whiter teeth while I lie in bed feeling dead inside.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Kylie Jenner News (@kyliesnapchat)

“We see other people put together and we imagine that they have it all together just through this tiny snippet into their lives,” says Eve Menezes Cunningham, self care coach (selfcarecoaching.net). Quoting a line that changed her life back in 1998, when reading Marian Keyes book Rachel’s Holiday, a character who is soon to be reprised for Again, Rachel in 2022, Eve says: “I was in my late teens, early twenties then and basically the main character realised she was ‘judging her insides by other people’s outsides’, it is a line that has stuck with me and this was even before the age of the internet.” It’s crazy to think that with all our social advancements in the past 23 years, the same sentence can still be as applicable to modern day life. That comparison, no matter what technological leap forward, can be the thief of joy.

A new chapter? 

With all that been said, I think since the pandemic began we’re seeing a change in times on social media. So too like the coronavirus, the Instagram Face had its spike, but now, I’d like to think we’re entering a new chapter, one that if it continues to grow might actually be beneficial to the generations who are chomping at the bit to get online. And for our self esteem, or whatever fragment of it is left. Like everything social media too has its ebbs and flows and right now I’d like to believe we’re beginning to see its rise, in a good way.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by R O Z (@rozannapurcell)

We’re seeing many influencers admit that their fanbases are starting to see through the falseness and pretence, opting instead to follow and support those online who look and act like them rather than accounts who appear to be flawless, holding people to unrealistic exceptions and thus, being downright unrelatable. It’s alarming that this isn’t something that clicked with us from the get-go, that if someone looks unrealistic and acts unrealistic, it’s most certainly smoke and mirrors.

Now, we’re seeing influencers like Roz Purcell carve out a new path, showcasing the highlights as well as the lows, that the perfect image comes after a serious of not-so-traditonally-Instagrammable takes and that being your authentic self is the only way to be, both off and online. “Every time I start comparing myself to a stranger online, I remember that social media only shows you a tiny part, we never know the full picture so don’t go wishing you could trade lives with a randomer,” Roz shares with over half a million followers. Many of who needed to hear this, to stop themselves from falling into the trap that in order to “fit in”, you need to change how you look, think, dress, act.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jessica Megan (@jess_megan_)

“Kim Kardashian posted something lovely before Christmas, highlighting that she failed the baby bar law exam twice. And I thought that was beautiful because she is one of those people that has been part of the unrealistic expectations in so many areas, and her being real about her failings is refreshing,” explains Eve. “I think we’re going to see more of that in 2022 and beyond where people are showing more of the real side of themselves,” she continues, noting that nowadays in order to resonate, there’s more of a drive to show the reality.

And thankfully, like Kim K, we’re starting to see that with more of Hollywood’s elite. Dax Shepard has admitted that being called an “inspirational couple” with his wife Kristen Bell is funny when they’re actually pretty normal, and seek therapy, while the likes of Dua Lipa, Charli D’amelio and Lizzo have all shed tears on Instagram Live over the past year. Why? Because funnily enough they’re all human and contrary to our beliefs, they don’t have it all figured out and now, they want you to know that. They too want to get the f*ck off the pedestal social media puts them on, they too are seeing that these exceptions are unrealistic to uphold, and most importantly, they don’t want to lose their audience who is over feeling less than. The question is, can we make enough of a change before social media inevitably hits its next ebb? I hope so.