In society today, it’s hard to remain positive about who you are and what you look like when there are millions of people judging you online. Cyber bullying and body shaming has become a societal norm, as more people use social media to share photos of themselves and more people slamming them behind a screen.
When you’re a child star growing up in the spotlight, the judgement is even harsher. People are looking to you for inspiration and you are truly defining beauty standards for an entire generation of young women. So, when Kylie Jenner went off and manipulated her body – lip fillers, plastic surgery, etc. – some people thought it sent a wrong message to young girls out there.
Recently, celebrity Keke Palmer spoke out in an interview with Yahoo Beauty about this specific situation – claiming that Kylie Jenner did send the wrong message to young women who look to her as a role model.
In the interview, Palmer said that in today’s day and age, it’s hard for anyone to remain authentic –
I think it’s absolutely so hard because everybody wants to make everybody so crazy, stupid, ugly, or dumb. People just become so judgmental, and it’s easy for you to be scorned by that or take those things personal when the reality is people are projecting. That’s also hard to believe, especially if you’re a kind person or want to understand where people are coming from.
So often people feel like, you know what, I’m just going to beat them to the punch and either degrade myself or be so damn perfect they have nothing to say. We’ve seen extremes of that.
And, in regards to Kylie Jenner, she said –
Specifically in the situation with Kylie [Jenner], where you’ve had a young girl people have seen on television since she was a kid and they literally told her she was so ugly … the ugly person in the family. She went and did apparently everything the world deems as beautiful. The even crazier part is that everybody loves her for it.
What I find interesting is that this is something that is being displayed to my generation — showing young girls, young guys that if you do everything that society wants you to be, not only will you be praised for it but you will make money for it. You can be profitable for not being who you truly are.
I have to agree with her here – she has a valid point. For years, people shamed Kylie Jenner for not looking like her sisters and not being “perfect enough.” And, in response to all of this negative judgement, she manipulated her body and her looks to appear exactly how people wanted her to appear. And, that’s the message that she sends all of the young girls who look up to her – listen to the negativity and define yourself by other people’s standards.
That is not how I want my future daughter to view the world and beauty standards in society. Preach on it, Keke.