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Twenty years in the past, I cried in my childhood bed room after watching the video to Christina Aguilera’s “Stunning.” I’d at all times thought of myself extra of a Britney fan, however Aguilera’s sophomore album, Stripped, had a maintain on me.
The unique video, which includes a Black lady poring over magnificence magazines amongst different clips of individuals with insecurities, touched on all of my self-doubt as a clumsy 15-year-old Black lady obsessive about teen magazines.
This was earlier than the #BlackGirlMagic period. Earlier than Beyoncé was BEYONCÉ. Earlier than Michelle was FLOTUS. It was simply me, my magazines, and a want to be, nicely, stunning. Or a minimum of blonde with blue eyes and large breasts like the thin pop stars on the duvet of my beloved magazines.
That was 20 years in the past—earlier than social media actually took off and have become an on a regular basis a part of life. I used to be evaluating myself to pop stars and supermodels whereas children these days are evaluating themselves to their friends and influencers. It’s a part of the explanation I think about Aguilera created a remake of the video depicting this new actuality.
“The unique ‘Stunning’ video got down to deliver consciousness and a way of compassion within the face of criticism,” the singer tweeted on Wednesday. “It nonetheless carries an essential message to recollect our core values exterior of what’s being fed to us…to discover a sense of steadiness and accepting ourselves for who we’re.”
The brand new model, which options younger women filming themselves doing their make-up, a younger boy lifting weights; and a gaggle of children within the ready room marked up for cosmetic surgery, has a poignant message on the finish, which reads: “Within the final 20 years, since Stripped was first launched, social media has remodeled our relationship with our our bodies, and in flip, our psychological well being. Analysis suggests that point spent on social networking websites is related to physique picture points, self-harm, and disordered consuming in youngsters and teenagers. This wants to vary.”
A current ballot revealed almost two-thirds of fogeys say their little one is self-conscious about their look. Among the many prime areas of insecurities? Weight, together with hair and pores and skin circumstances, reminiscent of pimples. The ballot additionally discovered that almost one in 5 mother and father of ladies stated their little one was self-conscious about their breasts.
The doubtless traumatizing impression of social media on physique picture was a concern that got here to thoughts once I gave beginning to my daughter final 12 months. Granted, her library is at the moment filled with books celebrating Black women and pure hair. And we watch animated YouTube hit Gracie’s Nook, notably the “I Love My Hair” track, on a close to every day foundation.
However there’ll come a day when she is going to discover variations and inevitably examine herself to any person—whether or not it’s her classmates, celebrities, or fashions in {a magazine}. And my prayer is that she stays daring, assured, and positive of herself. My want is that she’ll be capable to drown out the noise and shatter self-doubt. My hope is that she is going to at all times imagine she is gorgeous, it doesn’t matter what they are saying.
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