What Makes you Beautiful

When buying a magazine or looking at commercial ads, we are not thinking, wow,  they got a really good air brush. We think I wish I could look like that. Not even realizing the model just had a really good photo session and the finishing results was air brushed. The main point is for people to stop buying into the misconceptions of beauty because ninety-nine point nine percent of what is shown on television is fake!

 We need to have self-acceptance and be joyful of our God given assets. The sad part is that we’re taking absolute measures to emulate what we see. Kids in high school want to have plastic surgery and are suffering from bulimia, low self-esteem and self-hated. “Approximately seven million girls and women struggle with eating disorders and 1 million boys and men.” We are always trying to perfect ourselves as if there is something wrong.

According to this blog, Media Boost Conformity, it goes back in to Greek times. Back in the day  Greek God’s were measures of perfection. The people in those times aspired to be just like them. Yet the people never attainted what they had because they were all unattainable and can be rarely imitated.  The God’s did not even look like them. They made the artist design the statue of what their accrued image of perfection looked like.

It’s pretty ridiculous that, “80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance.”  Well I hope we feel that way because we are so focused on educating ourselves to do better in math and science. To solve our problem of this psychological disease, we must build self-confidence. People will save tons of dollars if they can simply be happy with self. This process can start with the parents for minors and a reality check for adults.

The media is so overwhelming that the masses end up believing everything it displays.  Everyone does not need to clone themselves into looking like Pamela Anderson, or whoever their favorite celebrity is. If we only we understood that social media beauty advertisements seen on televisions and on the web  as well as in magazines are computer generated; then  maybe society would  feel  and be a whole lot better.

There is nothing wrong with admiring a celebrity, wearing make-up and getting dressed up, the problem occurs when you become obsessed. When you’re getting Botox and having implants implanted, and your face reconstructed at 25,  I think there is something is extremely wrong. Check out the Dove hyperlink.  This was interesting seeing the Dove beauty campaign. It entailed the beginning and the end of what it takes to create an ad.

What makes you beautiful?

Breaking Beauty Stereotypes

The idea of not conforming to the beauty stereotypes are highly influenced in media is expressed in the article of Lexie and Linsay Kite located in Salt Lake City. An interesting aspect about what Lexie and Lindsay Kite did is that they launched a nonprofit charity called, Beauty Redefined, with the motto "taking back beauty for females everywhere."

The point they addressed about "body shame" which is hatred of oneself; is a very sharp and accurate because there are so many downsides such as skipping meals or eating disorder which are directly related to our health.
 

Appearacne Affect Your Work, Your Career, Your Life

The Beauty Advantage article, in the Daily Beast, indeed affects the way you think about yourself. Even though appearance is not as much as important than any other aspects of your temperament, the media conduce that we might think we can’t get a job because of our appearance.

The article is definitely unresonable and ridiculous because it states that babies stare longer at good-looking faces than ugly faces. If this is really true, what is the standard of good-looking face? How can they calculate why babies look at people’s faces?

Meanwhile, businesses hire better-looking people for work. What is the point if only good-looking people get hired? Is appearance truly the most considerable thing when getting a job? If this is really happening today, are we really follwing it?
 

Body Confidence

Jo Swinson from CNN states that images of idealized body have preoccupied every level of our visual culture. We are already familiar to have slim bodies and wrinkle-free skin in all  media outlets; TV, magazine, and advertisements. Even though we know that they are fake and unrealistic images, we still pursue and seek those kinds of beauty.

I really like the point of this article about that since the media industry is so powerful enough to affect our culture of perfection, we should raise the profile of the body confidence agenda and oppose to our appearance-obsessed culture. To solve this problem, the author came up with an idea of encouraging individual’s self-esteem with media literacy and body confidence lessons in department of education. Furthermore, I think if parents guide their children to be confident within themselves then they would not need to conform to the Westernized standards of beauty.

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The Prototype

Media affects the world positively or negatively and or both. Unfortunately, media sometimes distorts our perception of beauty by showing us unrealistic images of men and women. I will take a look at it and discuss this social issue which is serious because we're already accustomed to the prototype images. Through television, magazine and radio, people are pressured to buy products to lose weight, look younger, and have better looking hair. We have become so accustomed to the beauty advertisements to the point that we do not even realized what we're buying into. It has become acceptable in society therefore the media continues to surplus.

It is apparent to me that the media affects us consumers. Therefore, at this point we need to think about, why the media shows a peculiar type of beauty, what it’s teaching us to look like and how it’s affecting us.

By showing the ideal models, the media sends us implicit message that young woman have to be beautiful and men has to be handsome and muscular. They set up social norms or acceptance that people may think they must follow by stimulating their desires. Also, the media manipulates us to perceive others by only their physical appearance.

For example, Victoria's Secret model Candice Swanepoel who grew up on a dairy farm in South Africa, gave an interview saying that she thinks the media’s always asking her and her fellow models about pre-show diets and exercise. "It's always the first question, so, what have you been cutting out?'" she states. "I understand the speculation because [the show] is about our bodies and we take such good care of ourselves so people want to know how." But, she adds, "They want to think that you're unhealthy.” Media spends too much time showing skinny models giving information about their diet life.

Usually, media effects are described as cognitive, affective, or behavioral. The media distributes certain types of beauty and if we constantly are exposed to them, the images gradually become normal. Because the target audiences have become accustomed to the ads over and over, they have accepted the fictitious standards of beauty insentiently.

Woman has to be thin but suitably full breasts and hips, big round eyes, white skin while men have six-packs. Women are portrayed as weak so that the patriarchal man can protect them.

 Background history about the co-author

I grew up in South Korea and I moved to America nearly two years. My experience on American culture is very minimal. I learned what it’s like to be an American through the media. From watching movies, news, television programs, music videos and magazines I am naturally influenced by the media. From my point of view the media portrays that having clear white skin, big blue pearl eyes and tall and glamorous was what it took to be an American.

It was quite the contrary when I came to America. I was surprised to see the diversity of other races of people walking and talking amongst each other. My perception of America was totally off the mark. United States is extremely diverse; there are many different races, cultures and styles of beauty that cannot be defined with just one word. Looking at America outside in from the media’s standpoint it displays one type of beauty and it maximizes the Caucasian race as the prototypical image. However living here I can see there are tons of beautiful races of people. Even though the media broadcast different ethnicities domestically, it is not transcended internationally. It was just a stereotype.

Culture and Beauty (Shanieka Perrier)

Hub pages
http://hubpages.com/

1. Hub Pages was founded  by two individuals Paul and  Jay based in San Francisco.

2. Hub Pages authors earn money by publishing topics they know and love, and earn recognition in the community through the  hub score ranking system. They have both news and a commentary mix. They have
relatively neutral  content.
3. The site set for writers that would like to publish there material for both for personal interest and enjoyment purposes. It's not for profit, although there is an incentive but you're not going to become rich.
4. Content is published daily however beauty and culture is not  something discussed regularly.
5. There's a lot of information on Facebook and politics, not so much about beauty and culture.
6. This site most certainly has a social media site for both Facebook and Twitter. 

http://prettydarkhorse.hubpages.com/hub/The-concept-of-beauty-and-culture

Ivillage

http://www.ivillage.com/
1. iVillage Inc is apart of NBC Universal Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks Group, based in New York City.
2.Closely related to my topic, it's has tons of entertainment and wide variety of social media. It's relatively neutral unbiased site, although it appears to appeal more  towards women.

3. The site is designed for everyday women come to connect, share advice, find life tools and engage in conversations that matter whether it be about pregnancy, parenting, health, beauty  and entertainment
4. There's ton of content produced daily, that includes my topic about beauty.
5. There's tons of information regarding love and sex, parenting, home and gardening and astrology.
6. This has a site for facebook and twitter and yahoo.
http://www.ivillage.com/beauty-culture-one-woman-questions-our-obsession/5-a-146747


Google blog
1. Kacie is the author or administrator for  the Google site she uses for blogging.
2.  For this current blog it does bring out my topic which is about beauty and culture. Media represents beauty in one form, which is the classic blue eyes and blonde hair Caucasian look.
3. The site is a typically blog site for anyone to use and comment on.
4. She's a cynic, a believer, a writer, a thinker, and a global nomad; all includes what she blogs about.
5.Random earthy inquirer about nature,body image and life's adventures.
6. Google, Twitter, Facebook.
http://papuagirlindallas.blogspot.com/2010/07/cultural-standards-of-beauty-did-you.html

Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/
1.Jo Colman an individual person founded the site.
2. It's not necessarily too far but, it's not exactly related to my topic.
3. Psychiatrists, psychologists and authors to contribute their thoughts and ideas in troublesome areas.
4. Topic that include therapy, doctor, get help centers, magazines and resources of that nature.
5. It's more of health or medical web site.
6. Twitter and Facebook
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines/201105/beauty-may-be-in-eye-beholder-eyes-see-what-culture-socializes

Culture and Beauty |YEZI CHO|

Endless Beauty’s Endless Beauty

l  Company

l  There are four sections; style, beauty, wellness, and beauty on a budget. On the style section, the author updates new season’s fashion trends and ‘it’ items. Usually, the author introduces the item by showing the picture of celebrities wearing them.

l  The producers usually introduce the items and make links to connect the direct site of the items. This may promote the readers’ desire to get new items and clothes. It could be the personal interest, but it seems for making the money because there are many ads on the side of the blog than other personal blogs.

l  In the case of fashion style section, they post 2-3 times a week while the beauty section is updated once a week.

l  The comments usually say the posts are useful or helpful. Also, they share the websites which is related to the post with other readers.

l  This blog has Facebook and Twitter sites and also shows how many times publicly recommended on Google.

Krazy’s Fashion Rocks

l  Individual

l  The author updates mostly pictures of celebrities especially about their weddings, dresses, fashion and hairstyles. Therefore, the posts are usually news and just mention about when, where and what exactly like news.

l  The author writes about the date or place where the celebrities usually showed up. Also, the author highlights the name of celebrities and the place where they went.

l  The author shows pictures of the celebrities which they are looked cool and wonderful. I think the author just post for her personal interest but it really promotes the consumerism because fashion people or celebrities are more powerful than any other advertisement by just wearing them and show up to the public.

l  The blog site is just like news so the posts are updated almost every day.

l  It was hard to find comment but there are some people who like this blog through the Facebook page.

l  The blog has Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg this, StumbleUpon, etc.

IDiva’s News-Style-Beauty

l  Organization

l  There are several sections but I will focus on style and beauty section especially on beauty. The authors introduce new cosmetic products and give information for the readers’ health and beauty. Some posts seem like persuasive article or advertisement.

l  The authors are trying to inform the readers beauty tips such as how to wear makeups well or how to styling your hair. However, except the post which is about cosmetic products, the authors are really trying to let the readers know good information not for the make money. The authors give informative tips about beauty in general, but not only appearance but also inner beauty and lifestyle.

l  They posts 3-4 times a week.

l  On the comments, the readers sometimes shared their personal experience, exchanged the information.

l  There are Newsletter, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Elizabeth’s Fashion Beauty and the Media

l  Individual

l  The author uploads fashion trends, beauty tips, celebrities’ items and clothes. Mostly the posts are news which is about ‘how to’ tips or recent fashion trends. The author usually brings other websites that the readers get more information.

l  The author creates the contents for the personal interest because it seems she is interested in fashion and beauty so she is mostly likely to share good information which is also helpful to her with her readers.

l  Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday

l  This is an individual blog site, interaction between the author and the readers rather than other official blog sites. They greet each other and have more personal conversation.

l The blog has Facebook, Twitter, Google+, In share, Xing.