Although “normalcy” has been an idea that has existed for centuries, dating back to when eurocentric ideas of beauty took over the initial Greek ideas of idealism, social media and the access to photography and photo-editing has emphasized the negative connotation of the idea of “normal” and “ideal”. In today’s age, it is close to impossible to escape social media, as about 91% of people ages 18 to 24 have some sort of online profile (Huffington Post). Because of its immense popularity, it has become a career for some people, who make money solely from taking and posting pictures and videos of their lives. Because these social media “influencers” have such a big online presence, they also, therefore, have huge numbers of followers and must portray their “perfect” lives online. An example of such a presence on social media is model and media personality, Kylie Jenner. Jenner found her way into the spotlight because of her family’s famous name, and in 2015, when she became popular for getting lip injections, she started a trend that millions have since followed. Jenner’s lip surgery resulted in viral challenges to acquire lips like hers, many of her followers getting surgery to look like her, as well as the most recent, Instagram filters that feature smaller noses, narrow faces, and bigger lips. Kylie Jenner’s presence and influence on social media, as well as that of her fellow online influencers, emphasizes the points made in “From the Medical Gaze to Sublime Mutations” by Benjamin Singer that the use of images has significant social consequences in a society in which “normalcy” and beauty is determined by a certain list of standards. Social media and those who have a large influence on these platforms put pressure for all human beings to strive for an “ideal” body image and lifestyle that is not only near impossible but also not even completely real for the influencers who seem to be “perfect”, such as Kylie Jenner.
In his article, Singer analyzes how people with “atypical bodies,” meaning those with some sort of disability or defect, are portrayed in photographs of medical journals and textbooks. He makes the point that when people with intersex conditions or atypical embodiment are photographed, many times there is a bar across their face that covers their eyes from being seen. This, while indicating respect for the subject’s privacy, actually makes the human subjects be scientifically objectified, resulting in dehumanization and depersonalization. By stripping away the personality and human features of those being photographed, the audience is then convinced to not see them as fellow human beings, and this thus creates the culture of defining those with slightly “atypical bodies” as “abnormal” and essentially, less human (Singer, 602). In addition, the subjects are photographed against a gridded background, giving it the aesthetic of a mugshot, making the subjects seem almost like criminal subjects that are being questioned in a lineup.
This makes the audience less empathetic for those pictured and makes them seem less human because they are not exactly like “normal” human beings, and are photographed simply because there is something “abnormal” about them.
This same concept applies when it comes to social media, but ends up having the opposite effect. Models and influencers such as Kylie Jenner post pictures, most of which are either enhanced or edited in some way, which are seductive and promote a specific type of body. In Jenner’s case, she is famous for her large lips, small waist, and large buttocks. Though she has been called out for using photoshop and editing to enhance and sometimes completely change her features, there is no doubt that the idea has been engraved in the minds of her young audience that this is the body that they must have. Her pictures often times are in front of her large house or one of her expensive rare cars, a complete contrast to the background used when photographing those with “disabilities,” for medical textbooks.
It is this lavish lifestyle that Jenner, as well as others on social media, promote that makes their audience think that to be successful and be as happy as these models, they must look and live like them. These images always show perfect skin, large smiles, and comfort with their bodies, all of which are features missing in the pictures of “medical subjects” described by Singer. A prime example of one of these pictures is an image that Jenner posted to her Instagram account on July 14th, 2019. The image shows Jenner alongside the Instagram model, Anastasia Karanikolaou, on vacation at the Caicos Islands. The two models are sat on a private resort as they pose for a picture in their bathing suits. The reason why this picture, in particular, got so much attention is that fans were able to spot a sure sign of photoshop in the image. The pillow behind Jenner has vertical black stripes that seem to be warped and curved in the image that Jenner posted. This is a sign that the model used photo editing to reshape her waist in order to make it look slimmer.
While this example is relatively recent, Jenner has been called out for photoshops many times, starting from as early as 2016, when she was only 19 years old. In a picture posted on April 26, 2016, Jenner is seen posing in a white shirt and Puma shorts as part of a paid sponsorship for the Puma clothing company. In this image, fans noticed that the curtains behind Jenner seem to be curved and warped, as was the pillow in the other photo. This was an obvious sign that this image, too, had been photo edited to make Jenner’s body look slimmer, further promoting unhealthy body image expectations to her young fans. It is also important to point out that one of these images portrayed a lavish lifestyle, on a private resort, while the other was a paid sponsorship. This luxurious lifestyle that is being promoted makes the audience feel that in order to live a life as nice as those of the models in the pictures, they must look like the models in the pictures. Lavish and expensive clothing, cars, houses, and vacations are all a common factor of pictures posted by social media influencers, which makes these things seem like “the norm,” and makes the audience feel inferior because they do not have these things. Companies such as Puma, for example, only pay celebrities such as Jenner to do these ads because they look a certain way online, with body types that, while nearly unattainable, draw immense amounts of attention. This attention is exactly what makes money for companies, even if it means a negative impact on the self-esteem of the audience.
It is the difference in the way that the pictures are portrayed on social media accounts such as Jenner’s Instagram and in medical textbooks that gives them the exact opposite effect; one type of pictures dehumanizes the subject, while the other makes the subject the “ideal human being”.
Another way that Kylie Jenner and other social media influencers reinforce virtually unattainable ideal body types, is by making their pictures extremely seductive. In Singer’s writing, he discusses how the photographs of subjects in medical textbooks are not seen as pornographic, as other pictures of naked figures would be, because of the body language that is being portrayed in them. The photographs are given more of a scientific, unnatural feel than a pornographic one, “because the posture of the body does not seem to invite intimacy, or because the middle of the face is obscured by a large black dot” (Singer, 604). The people being photographed in medical textbooks about atypical embodiment, sexual disorders, and disability, are photographed with their arms completely at their sides, body straight, and faces covered. This posture and the inability to see their faces makes them not appealing to the human eye because the audience is told that they are “abnormal,” and this obvious discomfort makes it impossible to find them sexually attractive.
Kylie Jenner and her fellow Instagram models, on the other hand, often post pictures with very little clothing, but their pictures are seen as seductive and attractive because they exude a sense of confidence in the way that they dress, pose, and made direct eye contact with the camera. In fact, Jenner’s large lips became famous because of the pouty look that they gave her, and the way that they made her pictures more seductive. On May 29th of 2014, Jenner posted her first Instagram picture after having gotten surgery to make her lips fuller. In the post, Jenner looked directly into the camera, and pouted her lips instead of smiling, making the image more seductive and drawing immense amounts of attention from the media. In the Instagram post, she has her hair dyed teal and has her makeup done, showing a large amount of confidence. This seductive effect that Jenner flaunted became the reason that the “Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge,” went viral right after this post, in which children and adults alike put their lips into shot glasses and bottle tops, sucking, and creating a vacuum which essentially caused their lips to swell and look as pouty as Jenner’s. Millions were influenced to join the challenge until hundreds of incidents occurred in which people severely injured and ruptured their lips, all in an effort to fit societal norms set my social media influencers. Had Jenner and hundreds of other celebrities not started the trend of large, pouty lips, having thin lips would not have been abnormal, and people would not have strived to obtain larger lips simply to “fit into” societal norms.
Though the trend has since ended, Instagram has recently been criticized for creating a filter that gives subjects large, cartoon-like lips, and narrows their faces. One of these filters specifically, called “Top Model Look,” became popular because of its complete restructuring of the user’s facial features and because of the popularity it had amongst social media influencers. Of course, Kylie Jenner, as well as many other Instagram stars used the filter, which was named after them, in their own pictures. This then led to the extreme popularity of this set of filters which mimicked the effects of cosmetic surgery. All of these are efforts to fit into norms of beauty set by certain individuals through the photographs that they post. The fact that the filter was named “Top Model Look,” says a lot about the influence that social media influencers have on the features that their audience desires. The posts of these stars, as Singer points out in his writing, “… are not merely ‘representational,’ but also resonate deeply with the social and material circumstances of life.” (Singer, 602).
When models and celebrities become the representation of “normal” and “ideal,” the world strives to fit these norms and attain these features that they see on their screens, which most of the time have been altered in some way. Photographs can easily reconstruct society’s idea of “normal,” and “beauty”. Pictures have an immense effect on the way their audience forms an opinion about certain things, including their own looks and their way of life. The degree of normality is often determined by the standards of beauty. Because the subjects of medical photographs are not seen as seductive, pornographic, or beautiful, simply because of the way they are photographed, posed, and dehumanized, the audience and society instinctively puts the label “abnormal,” on them, while Kylie Jenner and fellow social media influencers become the face of ideal beauty in the modern world.
In his analysis of the relationship between representational strategies and the social dimension of “non-normative-bodied-people’s” existence, Singer is able to accurately portray how influential pictures can be when it comes to defining beauty standards. This analysis can be interpreted both in terms of those dehumanized in medical textbooks because of their “abnormalities,” as well as, on the flip side, those looked up to, and sexualized, because of their desirable looks and lifestyles. In both cases, photographs set a societal standard for people to live up to, and while we sometimes look over and ignore this fact when it comes to medical textbooks because we always think that science is subjective, this idea is making itself extremely evident in the form of social media influence. Rates of anxiety and depression have increased by 70% in the past 15 years. In 2017, 70% of social media users reported that it has impacted their self-esteem in negative ways. That percentage has since risen to 81% in 2019 (Huffington Post). The reason for this negativity that has spread as a result of social media is the redefining of the concept of “normal” and the influence that figures such as Kylie Jenner and her fellow models have. We, as a society living amidst smartphones and photo-editing apps, must learn how to regulate and draw lines when it comes to the content that can be shared because, as Singer points out, there is always a societal effect to this content, whether it be in a scientific text or on Instagram.
While the banning of face altering filters on Instagram is one step in the right direction, it is important for us all, as a society to understand the points Singer makes and the way that they relate to our modern-day world, in which a waist of any measurement about 22 inches, and lips that are not full of silicon, are seen as “abnormal,” or anything less than beautiful.
