Social Media And Eurocentric Beauty Standards

“When my skin is lighter, I just feel prettier.” (Major 2014) “Being lighter shows you belong to a different place on the social ladder.” (Elsa 2014) This is the thought process that many darker-skinned women have, especially African American females. It’s prevalent especially in our generation due to presence of the media in our lives. We begin to idolize lighter skin and eye color characteristics, thin nose and lips, and desire a different hair texture. The media very much changes our perception of ourselves and our standards of beauty. Black women are very vulnerable to the effects of eurocentric beauty ideals, because these standards emphasize mostly on a lighter skin color, and hair types which are traditionally European; this in turns

Social media is used in many ways to promote products for skin-lightening, and to promote Eurocentric beauty standards. For example, there has been many concerns over the popular social media company, Snapchat, over their “Beautifying” filters. The Guardian stated that one of Snapchat’s most used filter, flower crown filter, does not only apply a flower crown, but also lightens the skin and changes the user 's facial features. With twenty-three percent of its users ranging between thirteen and seventeen years old, they are indeed at risk of experiencing the need to change their appearance due to this kind of image altering. (University Wire, May 2016) One user tweeted: “Very disturbed by the fact that your “Beautification” filters make my skin lighter and my nose and jaw

For example, The Bollywood film industry is one of the most influential film industries in which the belief that fairer is more beautiful is widely held. (Alim 2014) You will mostly see the lighter color of different races in movies. For example, for African-Americans you 'll most likely see a lighter brown female with European features than a darker female with less Europen features. For example, the 1938 film called “Everybody Sing” the actress Judy Garland starred as an African american female throughout the film. She painted her body dark brown but not around her lips to mock blacks facial features. This made blacks, especially females inferior to whites due to how they were portrayed through