I was very please with how this piece turned out. I love being able to be create while getting my point across. I did struggle making this paper about myself and not more like a research paper, but I hope my final copy would suffice. On the fist day of College writing 2, my professor told me that many writers are never happy, because they believe that their piece is never complete. I would like to write more on my topic and improve, because I feel very strong about how social media changes our idea of what normal is. I really did enjoy playing with topics that weren't related to prove my point. I used Kim Kardashian's picture with a champagne glass on her butt, tampon commercials, and pornography. They all came together in the end to show that social media promotes individuality, but forces conformity. They weren't all completely different if we talk about Kim's sex tape. I really was a dorky misfit in high school, and I saw all of the people around me being generally effected by what they saw on social media. I hope the audience of my paper can realize that it is normal to be different. You will never be the same as someone else, and people will adore you for your differences not your similarities. People don't love Kim Kardashian because she is the same as everyone else. They love her because her life is strange and intriguing. Not everyone lives in a mansion, has their own TV show, and names their baby girl North. THAT WAS STUPID THOUGH. I condemn her for that. She will probably go about life and screw up that child, but at least she is unique. The most important thing i hope someone can take from my essay I posted below is be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.
Pixelated
Body Image
My High School experience was nowhere near High
School Musical. I did not get to sing and dance on a table which was a real
bummer. I actually got a detention for that. I could only wish that the
Glenbard North Panther’s anthem was We’re
All in This Together as opposed to Uptown Funk you all. Similar to the movies, cliques were extremely
prevalent. If High School was like Lion King I would have been
at the bottom of the food chain, or if
Glenbard was the Jungle Book, looks wise, I only made it by with the
Bare Necessities. Every day I dreaded going to school and I prayed that the
want-to-be Plastics from Mean Girls had gotten hit by a bus so the
tormenting would stop. My peers treated me like Carrie in the
prom scene, yes the part with the blood, begging me to be normal. By normal they meant stop dressing like a 60ies movie and singing
and dancing in the hallways without a care. What can I say? I loved Grease. They insisted for me to Stick
to the Status Quo, but I didn’t
want to be cool or follow their simple rules. Unfortunately for them I would not Let it Go,
and I channeled my inner-weirdness
through being in film club where we
would analyze movies and social media. Forgive me for my relentless movie puns. I
stayed an awkward chunky misfit
throughout my High School career, and
this inspired me to search for what normal is. Normal is that everyone is
different. Fat, skinny, ugly and beautiful are all descriptive words that
people are defined as. No two people are completely alike. Though our society
promotes people to be individuals, social media is also pressuring us to conform
to their idea of normal through pornography, commercials, and Kim Kardashian.
All of
the bullying and name calling from the four treacherous years of standardized
everything lead me to the question, what does normal mean? To others, normal is being a combination of
what you see on social media and on television. In reality, normal is an adjective that describes what the
majority is doing or interested in. Our society’s misconception of the idea of what
normal is has proven to be detrimental to people’s self-esteem across the
globe. Whither it is seeing Kim Kardashians large rear on one’s twitter, the
internet setting unreachable standards through the porn industry, or tampons we
are hurting because of our expectations towards ourselves and others.
A
recent topic of controversy is banning pornography. It brings unrealistic
expectations to the bed room and could potentially lead to violence depending
on what sort of stuff someone may fancy. The blame cannot all fall on the porn
industry, because some people are influenced too easily to tell the difference
between reality and fantasy. Not everyone wants chains whips in the bedroom.
Thank you Christian Gray. The internet is available to whoever has a computer or
smart phone. Women’s activist who realized this issue, Kaitlin Cottle and Gayle
Tyree, believe, “When trying to understand or even define pornography, one
thing is certain: it is misinforming us. Our socialized expectations for both
beauty and sex are being dictated by pornography’s extremely limited
perspective on what it means to be “sexy.” This shows that we are letting explicate porn decide what normal
sex should look like. In some cases it has been noted that the excessive use of
porn can lead to impotence. If everyone believes what they saw on a screen I
would be a virgin for life. My parents would thoroughly enjoy this. Those who
watch it religiously gain unrealistic expectations, therefore there is disappointment
in the bed room and morphing what normal intercourse should be.
When you are a teenager and young adult you are at a tender age
when you decide what you want in life. This is a critical period were events
can shape how you view things for the rest of your life, and the last thing
someone needs is to be forced into uncomfortable sexual situations. I grew up
in an extremely catholic house. I have been told to save sex for marriage
before I even knew what sex was. Believe me I was one of the last people to
know. I was adopted and thoroughly believed that babies were hatched in jars in
the Museum of Science and Industry. Let’s just say Babies in Bottles was a very
misleading exhibit. Even while one is growing into their sexual maturity the
simplest things are sexualized. The biggest example is tampons. It is bad
enough that girls are supposed to bleed once a months and pretend we don’t mind
it, but advertising agencies try to sell their product by making tampons look
fun and sexy with models. Yay, bloody cotton. I would be way more likely to buy
their product if it was a sick lethargic girl telling us to prepare for shark
week. This makes me feel like they have to be playful and sexy while on their
period as opposed to reeving chainsaws and burning down stuff. News flash, not
everyone is a manically happy model on their periods, has the rockin’ bod of
Chris Hemsworth, or the astounding curvature of Kim Kardashian (yes, we all saw
your sex tape), so why do we let them define normal?
Similar to Kim Kardashian’s bodacious booty, a majority of the US
has curves. The more popular curves are like the one’s I have. My curves are
more like Rebel Wilson and Johanna Hill’s muffin tops had a baby. My
self-loathing and low self-esteem branch out from the modern standard of
beauty. We all fall victim to tweets, likes, and follows. The social media
pages who maintain the most fan base are beautiful actors, models and other famous
people. Those are the people who also tend to post the most. Speaking of
posting last week I got ten likes on a picture of my sister’s first ultrasound,
while Kim Kardashian nearly broke the internet on a picture, taken by Jean Paul
Goude, of her balancing a wine glass on her beautiful behind.
Kim Kardashian shows off her unique curves by balancing a
champagne glass on the behind. (Fig. 1 Bentley)
I’m not jealous, well maybe
just a little. This picture was undeniably photo-shopped. It shows Kim in a
tight sequence dress popping open a bottle of champagne. The champagne is
flowing over head into a wine glass conveniently placed on her butt. Don’t you
hate when that happens? This shows that unnatural beauty is emphasize in our
society. People strive to look like their favorite actors in models, but little
do they know their natural looks will never be enough. We live in a day and age
where we know that pictures and magazine covers are photo shopped and
air-brushed, and we do not try to change it. Instead we except this as a normal
social standard, and try to deform out bodies to achieve the unrealistic. Lets
face it, Kim “doesn’t” have butt implants, and no matter how many squats the
average person does they will never achieve what she has.
My chest and butt are flat. My stomach in round. I hate wearing
heels, and I have no idea how to do smoky eye. I’d rather watch things with
zombies than get my nails done, and I do not care what others think about me. I
have never felt as hateful toward myself as I did in freshman year English. The
popular group’s mockery rang in my ears like the seagulls from Nemo going MINE. Their snarky comments
and inquiry about my friend with mild autism sent me over the edge. Just
because he was “weird.” One minute I was in my desk and the next all of them
were on the floor. The captain of the hockey team looked at me and with the
same ego driven mockery he displayed toward my friend he told me, “Maybe if you
could lose some weight and talk less you can hang with us.” I left the room
with my companion and never looked back, except for everyday when I had to go
to English. I had an epiphany that none of these people would ever be truly
happy with themselves in their constant pursuit of normal. Alex and I left
period 5 content, for we had found normal by standing out and standing up.
I am normal, and so are you as the reader. It is a part of our
society to make us feel different or not up to par. As a young women it is
nearly impossible for me to not compare myself to Kim Kardashian and porn
stars. These people we see as role models of beauty are a minority. They are normal
too. People should not think S&M is normal or that thigh gaps are
necessary. We are not weird, and neither are these celebrities with scientifically
questionable bodies. Everyone is different, and different is normal. We are
simply trying to stay sane in a world with insane expectations.
Work
Cited
Fig. 1 Bentley, Jean.
"Learn Kim Kardashian's Secret to Balancing a Champagne Glass on Your Butt." Zap2It.
N.p., 18 Nov. 2014. Web. 06 Feb. 2016.
Cottle, Kaitlin, and Gayle
Tyree. "A Humanist Argument Against Pornography.
"American
Humanist Association. American Humanist Association, 2016. Web. 02 Feb.
2016.
