Lovelyish

The original title of this post was, “Honest Beauty.” Just thought I should throw that out there before anyone freaks out…

I agree with you. This whole “everyone is beautiful” thing is just BS. It’s more important to be smart and have a good personality anyway.

Beyond this, there’s the fact you won’t be beautiful forever. I mean you can certainly try, and a few do age well, but if you put that much stock in how you look, you’re fighting a losing battle. Beauty is temporary but intelligence is forever (until dementia)!

I hate the whole everyone is a winner and everyone is special attitude that goes around now days.  When children play sports, the winning team earns the trophies, the prizes, and yes, even the bragging rights.  It sucks to lose and you should try harder to win.

I agree that we definitely place way too much value on beauty, especially for women.  It is as if being beautiful is the only thing that matters.  We should not have to go around making everyone believe that they are beautiful just so they have enough self esteem to focus on anything else, but it is almost as if we do.  I know when I was younger (like much younger) I really believed that if I wasn’t pretty than people weren’t going to care about the other things I did.  It took me a while to grow out of that mentality.

@ShimmerBodyCream@xanga - Thank you very kindly!! 

Yeah, I agree with this. I see this a lot and it bothers me- both the lying (yes, you’re beautiful, because everyone is!) and the assumption that not being beautiful is equal to being told you’re not worth the air you breathe.

However, I exempt myself from the equation- I’ve never felt like I *had* to be pretty or had an unrealistic expectation of what a person should look like. I really, truly believe this has something to do with a much lower exposure to media than a lot of my peers had.

My parents wouldn’t let me buy beauty magazines like 17, for instance, or Cosmo, or Glamour, and as an adult, I might flip through at the dentist’s office- but that’s it. We didn’t have a whole lot of money during my childhood, so movies were limited. We didn’t get the internet until my late teens, and even then, my parents didn’t let us on often. TV was severely limited as well, and I don’t have it in my house now. All of this= I know what real people look like, yet I can still appreciate the fantasy of glamourized and perfected movie stars on screen.

I think the cure to this ill would be pulling our daughters’ noses out of the media vat for a while, letting them remember that entertainment is supposed to be fun, not neurosis-inducing.

@WaitingToShrug@xanga - I’m gonna do that with my kids. I grew up with mom’s beauty magazines, and I hated myself because  I wasn’t the image of beauty at the time… back then, only blond skinny girls were pretty, and I was dark haired and had boobs when I was 9. I’m glad these days there’s a wider variety of women who represent beauty, at least.

While reading this it kept making me think of the saying ‘beauty is on the inside.’  I have to agree not everyone is beautiful but it’s not always that outside appearance that makes a person beautiful.  It’s their personality that can make them beautiful.  I know too many people who think they’re the most beautiful on the outside but oh my Lord, they’re the ugliest because they’re personalities are not the best.  Everyone looks at beauty differently.  So I don’t know, it all goes hand in hand.  When talking about the make-up ordeal, I wish I knew how to tell a friend she wears way too much.  Anyways, good post and makes ya think about it.  :) 

I think more in terms of the fact that everyone sees beauty differently. I simply do not see Megan Fox as an attractive women. She looks too fake and boring. So my thought is, not everyone is attractive as far as the majory of societal standards do, but some people might find a conventionally “ugly person” as attractive and why should we discount their opinion? No matter who we are talking about, or how ugly YOU think they are, there’s at least one person on this earth who thinks they are beautiful. 

@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - I think it’s such a good idea to limit kids’ exposure to media of all kinds, for more reasons than just this. I am grateful to have so much readily available entertainment, of course, but when entertainment becomes life- that’s a bad thing. Kudos for learning from your own childhood what not to do with your kids!

@WaitingToShrug@xanga - You can’t just blame the media for kids having poor body image. I grew up reading beauty magazines and using the internet and watching TV and I never hated my body or what I looked like. It’s parenting too. My parents encouraged me to play sports, be healthy and to have a healthy body image. It’s not the media’s fault that some parents are just lazy these days.

@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - @WaitingToShrug@xanga - seconded.  by age 14, i was subscribed to Seventeen and CosmoGirl.  i never felt bad that i didn’t look like the girls in those magazines.  i usually read them to get reviews on beauty products, or hear about new fashion trends.  my mom never kept me from seeing things she didn’t approve of.  but she did make sure that i interpreted what i saw in a healthy, realistic way.  

@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - I definitely do not think it’s the media’s “fault”. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with media, just like I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with alcohol. Both are things that children shouldn’t be swilling in large, uncontrolled amounts. One must be taught how to enjoy certain things without letting them control one’s life- and yes, you are correct that those teachings should come from the parents.

Media and lax parenting aren’t the only things causing bad body image, but I think they are the biggies. Since I’m not a parent, I try not to presume to tell other people how to parent, which is why I didn’t address it much.

@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - You pretty much sum up my childhood, but kind of in reverse – I did NOT read beauty magazines, ever. The only magazines I have ever read were music magazines, and not regularly. My parents did shit all to encourage a healthy lifestyle for myself and for the family in general. And I did have body image issues. This was entirely due to how the other children treated me, not my own perception of my body being warped by what I saw on TV. And most of the shows I watched on TV showed strong women, especially Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and when I watched those shows I never actually paid attention to the women’s physical appearances (although there was a debate once over whether Spike or Angel was hotter, I was camp Angel). 

I love literature, storytelling, and believable characters. Maybe that’s why I was never that interested or invested in magazines and reality TV. Even when I did seek those out I never made any body-image connections. I was always read to as a child and read with my parents, I was encouraged to read beyond my reading level, I was allowed to watch whatever television I chose. I would never want to limit media exposure to my children, that’s just ridiculous. The smarter approach would be to allow them access to these things and ensure that I communicate well with my children so that if they have any concerns or questions they can feel comfortable talking to me about it. But at the same time it’s also about actively parenting and being involved, being a part of their acquisition of the media and knowledge, being there with them as they start to form their own opinions and beliefs and being there to support them if they ever come across problems. 

@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - I totally agree with everything you said. Blaming the media for girls having body issues is the same as blaming McDonanald’s for making people fat. If you don’t buy into it, then you won’t have a problem.

Last night one of Andrews texts had “you’re beautiful in your own way.” the fuck does that mean?

Wow, what a great article! “Let the beautiful people be beautiful!” – quote of the day! (that line is totally going to a poem I’m writing if you don’t mind). It’s funny because I used to be one of those people – I wanted to see everyone as beautiful (physically), and somehow I did – I was able to “find the beauty in everyone” – except myself (and this one other girl who supposedly looked exactly like me). That is when this fakeness broke. The fact I have promised myself not to lie to myself ever; that is when I realized that I was lying to everyone else. You’re right – we aren’t all beautiful. There are some gorgeous ones out there, and some, not so much (myself included). We really should quit this politically correct b.s. and let the beautiful people be beautiful, like you say. For the rest, we have other things (where inner beauty comes in and great personalities and whatnot). And anyway, average isn’t necessarily ugly; it’s just not beautiful.

@ShimmerBodyCream@xanga - oh I’m not with Andrew: those pulses (i privated them) were about my ex. Haha Andrew and I are supper good friends, we work together.

The word “beautiful” is not always related to appearance. In other instances, when someone says, she’s/he’s beautiful, one might mean it as they are a “beautiful person”, for one, beautiful might mean that a person is unselfish, kind, generous, etc.

I think I define what you’re talking about as being “pretty” or “gorgeous”. Beauty IS something deeper, purer than just one’s looks. As I get older, I’m finding that I define beauty more by a person’s spirit and personality than by anything else. Pretty is too subjective anyway. I modeled when I was younger and in that industry, I was told over and over that at 5’6″, 115 lbs, I was too short and heavy to be attractive. On the other hand… my grandmother use to swear I was the prettiest girl in the history of womankind! =p (Gotta love the grandma goggles!) 

I really appreciate this perspective.  This is coming from me, somebody who buys a ton of makeup and checks her appearance every chance I get.  I hate feeling this insecure about how I look.  I hate spending so much time in the morning getting ready.  Yet everything (based on personal observations and research studies that I read) reinforces that attractive people are more popular, get better jobs, etc.  I often think I’d rather be highly attractive than anything else in life and then things would be so easy…

I know I have self-esteem and insecurity issues.  Its just not right for me and girls like me to feel this way. I do blame the media and the images that it presses into our minds every day that are virtually unavoidable (it’s not like the choosing to buy McDonalds argument).  I also blame my mother for she often insinuates that I am not attractive and even comments that I need a nose job.  Finally, it is all the women that reinforce the importance of beauty: the frequently heard “you’re so pretty” compliments to little girls (rarely “you’re so smart”), the dressing room gossip “did you see what she’s wearing??”, and generally doing our utmost to look attractive.  Are we doing it to intimidate other women and lower their self-esteem?  It seems so, a goal perhaps more so than even attracting men’s attention.  It’s making me sick how overemphasized physical beauty is in our society, yet I play into it everyday.

@feelin_dizzzy@xanga - but maybe the media wouldn’t have that impact if you’d been brought up to love your body and if you weren’t told you were unattractive. If we all listened to the media about everything, we’d all be miserable and nobody would ever love themselves. How your parents raise you and teach you to react to the media and advertising etc, is what makes the biggest difference. I see the same images in the media as you do and I don’t feel unattractive or hate my body because of it.

I just wanted to say thanks for the link to the picture source. I have a graphic in my room that says “life is like riding a bicycle in order to keep your balance you have to keep moving” and I saw immediately that it is by the same artist.
I didn’t know that when I copied and simply printed it, and now I feel a little bad for doing so as they try to sell it. (well 24$ is quite a lot for me). I like to give credit to the artists I like but on the internet pictures are copied and pasted without referring to them, and then everyone else does the same, because they don’t KNOW who to refer to. 

Yeah, growing up, my mom used to praise me when I accomplished something or got good grades, and that was the approval I sought from her, from accomplishing things. If I grew up hearing things like, “O UR SO PRETTY!” I would have been more inclined to be pretty and focus on looks to keep getting that praise instead. I really appreciate my mom for that. 

I believe everyone was created beautifully by God and that every single person in the world has the potential to be beautiful in essence. We put too much emphasis on the physical side of things, but beauty is found in all kinds of personal aspects, from someone’s laugh to their kind character. Yes, I believe everyone has the potential to be beautiful, but not everyone is physically gorgeous. 

This is good. Rec’d.

agree and disagree.

everyone is beautiful, most people just have a very narrow understanding of what physical beauty should look like. 
we do place way too much emphasis on physical appearance though.

Well, I am definitely one of those people who finds a lot of things and most people to be beautiful (I am an INFP, I would be a terrible and an easy-going judge when it comes to beauty pageants )– I’m not an idealist when it comes to physical appearance, just more of an idealist on the spiritual side. So yeah, I agree with your article. 

I disagree and agree with points of this post. I feel like at a few times, it kind of contradicts itself, but maybe that’s just me. I personally think that there’s nothing wrong in saying “Everyone’s beautiful in their own way” because it’s true. They’re beautiful for their heart or their looks or their brains or something, and everyone’s definition of beautiful is skewed to their beliefs / preferences. I agree there’s too much emphasis on makeup and looks and such these days, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong in telling someone they’re beautiful.

I just think that that the term “beauty” is misunderstood, someone says that you’re beautiful we’re immediately led to believe that they’re referring to our physical exterior. Let’s face it, we age and our body starts undergoing some changes and then with time our body dies and rots in a casket. 

Hmm, i agree for the most part.

Just because you don’t feel that way about yourself doesn’t mean that when people tell you they think you are beautiful they are lying to you. Take a compliment! lol Like you said, “it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
But indeed, beauty is too emphasized in today’s culture.

I’m one of those people who says “everyone is beautiful”. Nobody deserves to be called ugly and unattractive.

I actually believe “Beauty” itself its something really relative, it has a LOT to do with the eyes of the beholder, but it also has to deal a lot with the others (The potheads that only look for what they have been told is beautiful) Lets thank porn and magazines (Media) for that. But anyways, in my on personal beliefs, I believe someone beautiful (Only at first sight) Is someone who looks healthy and clean, but one can’t really define healthiness just by looking at someone, only generalizing. So we have been taught a certain way by a society that our own race created, not everyone can look like that, but them trying already gets the industry a lot of cash, and I mean a LOT. Beauty products, operations, etc. Why do we fall for this? Were human, we want to be successful and accepted by others of our kind, and it’s quite obvious that good-looking people have the advantage when it comes to getting a job (Anyone even watched Ugly Betty?) But then I come to the  first thing I wrote, “Beauty” Is really relative, this is also true, I myself find that there are times when universally a certain type of person is ugly and a certain type of person is hot, but not everyone is a pothead that isn’t able to judge for themselves, so there are people who like short people, there are people who like blondes and there are people who like guys skinny with no muscle (That’d be me, I seriously dislike too much muscle in guys, so Ken isn’t really hot on my list) Thats why this subject is completely relative.

But now, think about it. Would you waste your life trying to be enough for some person that will look down on you when the inevitable happens? Because I can tell you for sure “Beauty” tends to fade away.
That’s why I believe staying healthy, learning and having passion for other stuff is necessary, get to know your own values and focus on your abilities and not so much on your flaws, but do stay healthy, exercise and good eating habits will make you shine on it’s own, so don’t let yourself go to waste. 
And to people that want to be like Megan Fox, believe me, let the woman shine (as it was already said) Because the truth is not everyone can be universally beautiful, why? Because media doesn’t work that way.
Take care of yourselves