Overall review of Pixaleted Body Image

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.