Saying that TikTok promotes an unhealthy standard for young women and their body image is about as uncontroversial a take as you can get. Between videos touting buccal fat removal surgery and recommending Botox™ injections for teenagers, the platform is rife with content that could leave even the most conventionally attractive person in shambles after just a cursory scroll of their For You page. However, a special kind of damage is dealt by a prolific genre of “glow-up” videos: ones that show people, nearly always women, in a “before” and “after” side-by-side of their weight loss journeys.
The Hollywood labor strikes are over, but what has changed?
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike recently came to an end after 118 days, with actors celebrating the prospect of returning to work. The union came to a historic deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with the largest increase in minimum wage in 40 years, according to The Washington Post. However, because the deal is so new, it remains to be seen if it will be honored and if actual change will occur in the industry.
Instagram’s algorithm undermines smaller creators
For a platform that markets itself on building connections and sparking inspiration, Instagram isolates and exhausts its smallest and most vulnerable creators.
By destroying the visibility needed to survive on the platform by demanding that users follow trends just to be seen, the platform crushes creators’ efforts to reach new audiences and share their work. Instagram’s algorithm also rewards content theft in the form of video reuploads.