Can genuine self-acceptance come from social media approval? Not really.
Recently, I saw the terrific Australian film, Embrace: Kids by Taryn Brumfitt. The documentary features famous and not-so-famous people who have learnt to accept themselves and not be held back by their physical attributes or gender.
The film features wonderful people like Celeste Barber, who has promoted body positivity and rightly called out industries, such as the beauty business, which often sells more products through inciting fears of physical inadequacy. It also features many who have made their uniqueness a strength and built huge social media followings.
The film states you can’t be the change you can’t see. That’s true. But the act of change should not need to be performative to be valid. And one’s worthiness should not be dictated by the size or rapture of your audience.
And yet the film infers that one’s personal approval may emerge from one’s social media presence or one’s spectators. Even the accompanying workshop for children finishes with a showpiece about self-acceptance, delivered for a crowd.
I understand that films need performance elements. A movie about people who have made non-mainstream choices, simply going about their day, wouldn’t be too interesting.
Films reflect life and social media capital is synonymous with worth for many young people. It makes sense to include those who do well at the medium. Indeed, at one point, a child asks an influencer how they built their Instagram following.
But a sense of personal legitimacy should not be dependent on creating a large group of followers. Needing this approval will end up just as constraining as feeling you need to be a certain thinness or muscularity to validly exist in the world, or feeling limited to certain activities because you were born biologically male or female. Not to mention the risk of any large-scale virtual admiration being shadowed by large-scale virtual criticism.
Being ‘liked’ by many people should not the essential first action to eventually thinking you’re ok being you. A day that is undocumented on social media is still capable of worth.
Recently, friends recounted a trip to a Brisbane bar. As a couple in their early 40s, they were surprised to see that the young adults present didn’t seem to be catching up with each other so much as posting photos of themselves catching up. There was more effort in socially documenting the day’s fun as opposed to having fun. More tagging each other as interaction, rather than having meaningful conversations together.
Did the posters come home feeling emotionally nourished from socialising? Or did the popularity of their social media posts judge the value of spending time with their friends?
Were the connections and joy they were seeking with the people there? Or did their friends become a prop to create connection with virtual people who weren’t there?
Embrace: Kids is an important step toward societal acceptance of the choices and individualism everyone should be allowed to have. It is entertaining with an important message. I encourage parents to see it with their children.
But let’s make the next step purposeful. Societal permission to be yourself should not be dependent on your numbers of followers or likes. Pushing that goal risks another insidious, hollow competition promoting a sense of inadequacy in people.
I’d like to see people wearing swimwear, football boots, or tutus, with pleasure and purpose that’s not contingent on how many liked their Instagram or Tik Tok post about their outfit. Living their life with family, friends, and meaningful activity confidently, without needing a large online audience to assure them that their life has value. That would be true freedom for the next generation.
Takeaway for parents
There are many ways to promote body positivity.
· Don’t criticise your body or your features, in front of your children. Particularly if they inherited those same features that you are condemning.
· Point out any fakery of advertising when you can — the retouching of pictures and tricks of the trade.
· Make your children aware of the pitfalls of seeking approval via social media.
· Push the idea that bodies that accomplish things are better — and frankly more useful — than bodies that might look what some critics deem they should look like.
· As a family, watch women’s sport as well as men’s sport.
