Have you all seen those bright red apples at first sight, but when you buy them, bring them home, and keep them in water for a while, you find out that it was just a coating? The apple isn’t really that bright red. Every one of us knows about this, so did you stop buying and eating apples?
We are facing the biggest cultural alteration of decades, named Westernization. We have also faced the biggest educational alteration in a century. Environmental alteration of changing natural landscape into cities and calling it urbanization, genetic alteration, physical alterations, and many more... We never thought about banning this stuff... Why is it that every time this digital word comes up, social media comes up, and we are ready to ban some or the other thing? What kind of impotence is this??
All this Photoshop and stuff is used because people don’t want to see what is imperfect because that is what they see all around. We, as humans, psychologically like to watch idealistic things more than realistic things. If you go and check the comment section for those posts made by people without filters and photoshop, those comments are hilarious. The amount of body shaming and racial comments are the valid reasons for them to add filters. No one likes to be raw because that cannot be consumed in today’s world.
The primary issue at hand is its impact on youths. It cuts both ways. Research conducted by national institutions of health shows that out of their sample survey of undergraduate students, the ‘youths’ who watch social media influencers tend to hit the gym to achieve that body and opt for healthy diet options. Although the survey was for a limited area, the results show that 59% of people take this in a motivating way for them to work out. Now, is this wrong to eat healthy and take fitness seriously? We don’t need to look at the extremes always because that is not where you would find the reality...
As for talking about digital alterations to the body specifically, the number of viewers for Marvel is far more than that for Emily in Paris. People tend to watch sci-fi movies more than biographies. All the world’s a stage, rightly said Shakespeare; just today we don’t like the actors to play the roles for what they are but for what sells. After all, all this goes for money. All those social media posts are all just for money, and it has pretty well understood what sells.
You can see the changing trends of advertisement hoardings; they are getting minimalist day by day. These brands are hiring content creators to bring that minimal approach. Just a marketing strategy... However stupid it is, you won’t watch anything until there’s a model. These people themselves ask for digital alterations for them to feel confident and for them to feed happiness to their consumers. Who are we to interfere in this give-and-take to ban those things?
Have you ever thought about the implications it will have after banning these platforms? Firstly, a huge amount of job loss. Tremendous people are employed just to handle the marketing for one product in a company, and many of them work just for this segment of alterations. By banning all this, we are not solving the issue but just restricting something, someone, somewhere, but that is not going to reduce the insecurities among people. Insecurities are not limited; they will come from any other source. It is our individual choice to take it the way we want. Social media gives you the freedom to have freedom. ’ Why harm it? It is not just the alterations you are banning; you are also banning the freedom to express someone. In that case, you should also ban putting on make-up. The entire cosmetics industry should be banned. But you know the amount of losses it will incur for us.
Anyway, however good the ad is, with or without alterations, you are going to skip it. For now, let’s skip to the end. Social media is for entertainment, and casual things don’t last long. While advertisements are for marketing, you would definitely buy bourbon over a parleG because it’s sugar-coated.
-aditi
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