#beYOUteFULL: Social Media Perceptions

Hello Angels!

Many of you will know by now that I’m running a body positivity campaign and a campaign to love yourself called #beYOUteFULL. The original post I did on it will be linked here if you wanna give it more of a little read into it and know the background behind it.

One thing which I think affects us all in a way is social media; we see people photoshopped and edited to perfection. We see so many unrealistic body standards which we’re supposed to obtain. We see people with surgery saying it’s natural when bitch you cannot get an arse the size of Brazil while not having strong thunderous thighs, stop kidding yourself and other people. If you’ve had surgery, work it; you’re making you feel better about yourself, why hide it? You do you boo.

I’m gonna give you a little realness here: not everything is a perfect filter, angle and facial expression. The light doesn’t hit you right 100% of the time, sometimes (unless it’s just me) you get distracted when taking a selfie and it comes out looking weird or not 100% normal. It’s not all aesthetic themes and following a theme of using the same filter. It’s not perfect hair and makeup and skin. It’s not real to look like that 100% of the time. We all have our bad days.

I’m gonna call MYSELF out now in a way: I’ve been loving pinks and lilacs and pastel colours. I see pink pretty much everywhere I go. I take pictures of pretty, aesthetic things to separate my selfies because I get sick of seeing my face. I follow a pretty theme (not 100% by choice) and only show the best selfies. I only post the best pictures, and everyone does it, everyone wants to put on their best face and best version of themselves. If I’m feeling myself, I’ll batch take selfies for Instagram. One reason is the algorithm (it’s awful) another is because then if I’m having a bad face day, there’s still stuff to post. It’s rare to see my face on Instagram now without makeup on or a filter on.

I remember the backlash I got when I posted the pictures of me in a bikini. I’d never worn a bikini before and it was a really big step. I lost 50% of male followers (fucking pervs) and got a lot of creepy or mean DM’s. I’ve been accused of encouraging obesity (for reference, I’m a size 12/14 on the bottom half, a size 10 waist and a size 10/12 everywhere else with a 34C bust) when I’m no where bear obese- I’ve just got a little tummy. I was asked to edit my pictures so they would be more ‘goals’ and nicer for them to look at. If I was a little smaller I’d be shared on fitness pages, but here’s the thing:

Fuck off.

People are desperate to see perfection and we do feel the pressure to be perfect from ourselves and other people. We judge a lot, we expect things to fit the norm, we let ourselves look at the outer appearance on first impressions: it’s human nature, and we all wanna give a good first impression.

I think people need to combat that and I’m gonna be doing my bit too. I’m going to try and post things that aren’t edited too much or 100% perfect because I’m far, far from perfect. But when people see these pictures where there’s no hair out of place, no spot, makeup is perfect, and body’s are edited and photoshopped it can really effect people. You can usually see a filter and makeup, my eyelids aren’t naturally a red and gold mix. But with Photoshop and body editing apps, you can’t usually tell these days- I’m not guilty of that, but I know that I’m guilty of only using the pictures that are the best.

We don’t all have a polished, perfect life. We all have issues and problems, we all have our bad times. None of us will talk so openly about it because we want people to see the best versions of us. And that’s fine, I do it, but I want to change that; I want to make it normal to NOT be okay or not look perfect occasionally. You’ll see more unedited pictures, more pictures where I have no makeup on. More pictures that are real… Still see the “better” pictures of me and those batch selfie days, but you’ll see me being real too.

Sidenote: if you do a post on Instagram about this or about recovery from an eating disorder (whether it’s from undereating or overeating), tag me (@nini_wonderland) and use #beYOUteFULL and I’ll share it around; you’re helping me spread a message so I’m gonna share your support.

What I’m trying to say is, take everything on social media with a pinch of salt. You see filters on pictures and filters on lives. Fuck, I don’t broadcast my bad days here, I do it too. Just know that very often some shit can be going on or something isn’t perfect in those you see as perfect. Or, the people who look perfect don’t actually look like that.

I’m sorry for my ramblings, but I wanted to get the message out there and I wanted to do more campaign blog posts. This seemed like a good topic to let myself get back into it- I’ve got another one half written for next week so watch out for that!

Stay safe and stay happy Angels ❤️