Objectification has been happening ever since women and men existed. Perfection is something humans have idolized and admired for a long time. Gods and godesses were drawn to be attractive and charismatic.
If the universe rewards intelligence over stupidity, why is rewarding beauty over ugliness a problem?
There is also this argument that… let people have their circus. Extreme beauty and intelligence are something people can look at and admire for a weekend as a form of escape. But this doesn’t mean people leave their partners or talk shit to their sisters “why don’t you look like her”, etc.
I guess my take is missing the problem which is that young adults set false expectation of their partners and this causes problem for them later in their life. But this feels like arguing we should shut down all forms of adult entertainment because the kids will get corrupted.
rewarding beauty is fine. rewarding beauty in such a way that it has an impact—not only measurable, but significant—against the mental health of the public is not fine.
rewarding intelligence is fine. rewarding intelligence in such a way that it has an impact—not only measurable, but significant—against the mental health of the public is not fine.
Let’s stop this malicious practice of giving Nobel prizes!
Whether we reward it or not, as long as there is someone people can compare themselves to, it’s going to affect their mental health. Social media itself is a beauty competition, and the reward is attention. We tend to compare up, not down, so it doesn’t really matter how beautiful or rich someone is—there’s always someone doing even better who makes us feel insufficient.
nope, not at all. having someone to look up to is not the same as a barage of media and advertising soaked with the intent of amplifying and capitalizing off of body dissatisfaction and self hatred.
If Pixelfed were as popular as Instagram, it would have virtually the same effect on the mental health of young girls, especially. While an advertising-based business model does influence this, it’s not the driving factor. Social comparison is in our genes, but never before have we been able to do it at this scale. This is guaranteed to have a negative effect on mental health. The issue however is not that social media is inherently bad; it’s just incompatible with the way humans behave. It’s like drugs.
literally no lol. the advertising (more accurately, the profit-seeking) model is certainly the driving factor, supported by engagement-maximizing algorithms. and remember it’s not just social media i’m criticizing. it’s a much larger media structure including also the show this post is about, and the discussion is much older than instagram, reaching back decades. here, for example, is a study of media exposure and body dissatisfaction from 2003: 7 years before instagram.
controversial take:
Objectification has been happening ever since women and men existed. Perfection is something humans have idolized and admired for a long time. Gods and godesses were drawn to be attractive and charismatic.
If the universe rewards intelligence over stupidity, why is rewarding beauty over ugliness a problem?
There is also this argument that… let people have their circus. Extreme beauty and intelligence are something people can look at and admire for a weekend as a form of escape. But this doesn’t mean people leave their partners or talk shit to their sisters “why don’t you look like her”, etc.
I guess my take is missing the problem which is that young adults set false expectation of their partners and this causes problem for them later in their life. But this feels like arguing we should shut down all forms of adult entertainment because the kids will get corrupted.
rewarding beauty is fine. rewarding beauty in such a way that it has an impact—not only measurable, but significant—against the mental health of the public is not fine.
Let’s stop this malicious practice of giving Nobel prizes!
as soon as there is evidence that nobel prizes cause mental health problems i will be saying this lol
There’s plenty of evidence that peer and family pressure during studying severely affects mental health of many and often leads to suicides.
ok excellent point i will now start calling for reform in academia. :) not sure if banning Nobel prizes is the most effective way but it’s an idea
also you made some really hateful comments earlier and i forgot to block you oopsie, take care ❤️
A misogynist got offended, lol.
Whether we reward it or not, as long as there is someone people can compare themselves to, it’s going to affect their mental health. Social media itself is a beauty competition, and the reward is attention. We tend to compare up, not down, so it doesn’t really matter how beautiful or rich someone is—there’s always someone doing even better who makes us feel insufficient.
nope, not at all. having someone to look up to is not the same as a barage of media and advertising soaked with the intent of amplifying and capitalizing off of body dissatisfaction and self hatred.
If Pixelfed were as popular as Instagram, it would have virtually the same effect on the mental health of young girls, especially. While an advertising-based business model does influence this, it’s not the driving factor. Social comparison is in our genes, but never before have we been able to do it at this scale. This is guaranteed to have a negative effect on mental health. The issue however is not that social media is inherently bad; it’s just incompatible with the way humans behave. It’s like drugs.
literally no lol. the advertising (more accurately, the profit-seeking) model is certainly the driving factor, supported by engagement-maximizing algorithms. and remember it’s not just social media i’m criticizing. it’s a much larger media structure including also the show this post is about, and the discussion is much older than instagram, reaching back decades. here, for example, is a study of media exposure and body dissatisfaction from 2003: 7 years before instagram.
Define “the universe”