Beauty standards have always affected the way a lot of us think about ourselves. For years, the beauty trend at the time tends to have a nation feeling bad about themselves.
The thing about beauty standards in recent years is that they’ve all been almost impossible to achieve. From perfectly symmetrical features, to unfeasibly straight teeth or unrealistic body shapes (thanks Kardashians) beauty standards have been very exclusive as opposed to inclusive.
Then a surge of influencers took over the scene and started to change the way we see ourselves and what we consider as “beautiful”. That coveted label suddenly applied to a wide range of people – as it should. Beauty isn’t just some narrow standard, and everyone brings their own bit of beauty to the table.
Social Media and Body Positivity
Social media influencers are responsible for the body positivity movement that overhauled our beauty standards and changed the way everyone felt about the way they looked in a swimsuit.
This movement was all about being positive about how you look the way you are. No striving to lose weight or adjust your form in any way.
All of a sudden, brands that have always been about empowerment and boosting self-confidence gained even more popularity.
In fact this article on the Belle Lingerie site looks into how influencers were the pioneers in breaking stereotypes and creating body positivity. As you can imagine, with a bit a bit more self-love in the world, a whole new trend in lingerie came about. Larger bodies started to be considered and catered to.
Reclaiming the Word Fat
With the rise of body positivity came the “fat rebellion”. This was something I was so glad to see. As a larger person (often fluctuating between a size 18 and 24) I loved to see more body shapes like mine showing outfit ideas and just generally being proud of their bodies. It definitely made me more accepting of mine.
New influencers who identified as “plus size” were able to take back the word “fat” and strip it of all its negative connotations. They neutralised the venom the word was once was once spoken with and turned it back into a factual descriptor. These people called themselves “fat” and it was no longer seen as negative. It lost all it’s power.
This was probably one of the biggest moves in shifting the beauty standards to include larger people. It’s like the world woke up and agreed that you didn’t need to be model-thin the be beautiful. In fact, your body shouldn’t even be a factor in beauty and everyone of every size could finally feel beautiful.
Influencer Beauty Standards and the Future
By destroying traditional and restrictive beauty standards, influencers have wiped out low self-esteem in millions of people. So what’s next?
I’ve spotted some “skinnytok” videos on TikTok, where toxic messaging about body size has started to pop up. Thankfully it seems to be blowing over. For every single video I’ve seen on the subject, I’ve seen 10 more talking about how this is a worrying trend taking us backwards after all we’ve worked for.
I think body positivity is here to stay, and beauty standards as a concept in general will eventually become obsolete. It seems like influencers have changed the world through their inclusive messaging and I hope the younger generations can also benefit from experiencing an Internet with a lot less prejudice.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion influencers are constantly changing the beauty standards and it’s almost always for the better. They made a huge breakthrough for body positivity and changing the way the world views bigger people of all different shapes and sizes.
What do you think about how influencers affect trends? Do you think it’ll just keep getting better and more inclusive? Let me know in the comments.