Logging into Facebook, it’s safe to say that your timeline might be a little more body positive now than it was a few years ago. Ideas of loving yourself as you are and prioritising health over outer beauty are gaining strides on social media. It seems that people are finally warming up to the idea of being comfortable in their own skin, and that we no longer strive to be of a certain image.
But is this really the truth? My first experience at one of the Bash pageants told me otherwise. Organised by the various NUS Faculty Clubs, the beauty-cum-personality pageants are a yearly tradition; something of a tie-up for Freshman Orientation. With all the hype surrounding the events, I was excited for my first time at a bash.
Instead, I ended the night appalled by what I witnessed.
The contestant for the bash’s pageant were your stereotypical ‘hunks and babes’ – the girls were all thin while the men displayed muscular physiques.
The contestants for the bash’s pageant were your stereotypical ‘hunks and babes’ – the girl were all thin while the men displayed muscular physiques. The catwalk segments were designed to emphasise this image, with the girls strutting in bikini tops and micro shorts. The boys shed their shirts.
Loud cheers and wolf whistles rang across the room but none came from me. Instead of feeling the crowd’s exhilaration, all I saw was the invisible criteria one must fulfill to join the pageant. I began to scrutinising myself: BMI is within the acceptable range, check. (What I consider to be) a healthy lifestyle, check. Yet, if you placed me next to one of the female contestants, I would have felt uneasy.
This is the irony of social media: we support and reject being comfortable in our skin simultaneously.
In this technologically savvy and increasingly liberal age, articles advocating a healthy body image go viral on social media, rather than those that adhere to conventional “beauty standards. But in the same breath, pictures of contestants participating in Bash pageants are shared as competitors are required to gather votes through the accumulation of ‘likes’ on Facebook.
This is the irony of social media: we support and reject being comfortable in our skin simultaneously. There is a desire to love our bodies as they are, but societal pressure keeps us from doing so. Through the intensive promotion of Bash pageant images on social media, the message that only type of body is ideal – one that is thin and conventionally attractive – is being sent out.
The media portrays an ideal body type (based on whatever’s trending) and it soon becomes the holy grail. On social media, I have seen an increasing number of pro-anorexia and bulimia groups. These groups are run by ‘experienced’ people with eating disorders and they attract a cult following, discussing effective hazardous eating behaviours.
Seeing our peers share pictures of contestants from various Bashes reinforces the pressure on us to conform to their ideals of beauty so we can be accepted by our friends.
It sounds exaggerated, yet this is a real trend that is gaining popularity. Social media has the power to affect and change how we perceive ourselves more than we could ever imagine. As people get more connected online, the unspoken pressure is not just from celebrity images. Seeing our peers share pictures of contestants from various Bashes reinforces the pressure on us to conform to their ideals of beauty so we can be accepted by our friends.
Does beauty come in only one shape and size? I don’t think so. You are beautiful as long as you feel beautiful.
The idea of judging a pageant by only one type of beauty is passé and it should not be continued. By going for these events, participants are endorsing the wrong ideals and could cause serious repercussions, such as unintentional body shaming amongst the student population. We should consider having participants of different body types to break the myth of there being just one type of beauty. By starting small, we could change the situation – one pageant at a time.
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