Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21
By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23
Staff Writer
It's 7 on a Friday evening, and I have a scheduled girls’ night video call with my school friends. My eyes are still baggy from a week’s worth of sleepless nights, my upper lip overgrown from months of not waxing, and pimples are rearing their heads on my nose and cheeks. I settle before my phone camera three minutes early, sifting through the different Instagram filters before joining the call. I settle on one that smooths out the blemishes on my face, giving it a slightly pink glow around the cheeks. It’s perfect for covering the dark circles and unibrow I have been sporting at home.
This ability of social media reveals a dangerous trend. The pandemic has provided people, such as myself, an opportunity to renegotiate previous beauty and body standards. However, social media’s overarching presence has prevented this change from taking place for many of us.
A year ago, the pandemic sent all of us scurrying into the confines of our homes, marking the start of a “new normal.” In this novel landscape, the lines between private and public slowly blurred, with all our interactions taking place through a two-dimensional screen from our houses and bedrooms. Beauty standards had to follow suit, and previous expectations gradually began to change. Without access to services or the need for them, many people stopped dyeing their hair or removing body and facial hair. Makeup products slowly found their way to the back of the closet. The pandemic definitely poses an opportunity to reevaluate certain beauty norms of looking clean and presentable. It also allows us to reevaluate certain beauty expectations linked to privilege, such as parlor services that might have been accessible to few, but which we now all have to do without.
While these changes have taken place, this does not signal a complete shift in societal expectations of beauty, especially for younger generations. Social media is a constant reminder that previous standards still exist. We ensure that it occupies a pervasive presence in our lives by using these applications. The filters on apps such as Instagram and Snapchat are notorious examples. They allow you to use filters while sending pictures to your friends and video calling them. Most of the filters smooth out the skin, reducing the visibility of facial hair, dark circles and any skin breakage. Some of them go even further and contour and sharpen noses, provide lip fillers and raise cheekbones. These might have been services available to a select few in real life (with plastic surgeries and expensive beauty treatments). However, this democratization of the ability to meet these standards only reinforces how single-minded ideas of beauty and presentability still exist. There is no denying that we use these filters during the pandemic, maybe even more so given our increased use of social media. During lockdown, I often use Snapchat with my friends to keep in touch and always inevitably find myself reaching for one of the filters. This usage reminds us that certain expectations surrounding beauty still exist in broader culture.
Filters are only one component. They are accompanied by a variety of trends that emerged during the pandemic governing how we should groom our bodies. “Glow up” and workout challenges are famous examples of social media trends forcing us to adhere to previously enforced body and beauty standards. Many influencers began posting their daily skincare, healthy eating and workout routines. Chloe Ting’s workout challenge emerged as one of the biggest trends, with everyone trying out her different seven-day and two-week fitness challenges for abs and a toned body. While on one side, staying at home meant being more accepting of our bodies, trends such as these reinforce that certain societal expectations surrounding the body still exist.
The pandemic has definitely caused shifts to occur, and we are more aware that practicing behaviors outside of our previous expectations is an option. We must also simultaneously be aware of how social media still pressures people to adhere to these expectations, and through trends and mass culture, doesn’t topple norms the pandemic might be renegotiating. With the awareness of social media’s power, we must use it to enforce changes in norms and patterns that are more inclusive and diverse.