The media's perception of beauty impacts the United States in multiple ways with the expanding technology advances. People find new ways in which to define what is beautiful through the new available resources. An example would be that the lives of celebrities “are chronicled on a daily basis thanks to Twitter, blogs, online magazines and other easily attainable media, creating an almost intimate relationship between the public and the stars.” People see "beautiful" actresses and actors and try to find out their secrets of beauty so that they can follow them and do the same things they do. People aspire to look like modern-day celebrities, but don't realize that the celebrities themselves don't look like their photos. As said in the article Be Realistic! How Technology Affects Your Perception of beauty, “thanks to Photoshop and other photo-editing software, photos may be manipulated to make their subjects look thinner or heavier, taller or shorter, bustier or flatter chested. Wrinkles can be magically erased and prized features, such as pronounced cheekbones, can be enhanced.” In other words, it is all an illusion created by the media and the growing technology world. Celebrities edit their pictures to the point that they can be considered “perfect” and people strive to reach that level of perfection.
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In the United States, plastic surgeries and other “beauty” procedures are common among celebrities and replicated by the public. The annual plastic surgery procedural statistics released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) made public that “15.1 million cosmetic surgery procedures, including both minimally-invasive and surgical, were performed in the United States in 2013…” Although this might seem of concern only to people that look into plastic surgery, it should be in fact a concern to anyone who cares about the impact it has on the public, especially in the United States. ASPS President Robert X. Murphy, MD. states that, "facial rejuvenation procedures were especially robust last year, with more Americans opting for facelifts, forehead lifts, eyelid surgery, fillers and peels.” Since the public notices that their favorite Hollywood celebrities never seem to age due to the many surgeries they get done, they want to imitate their behaviors. According to the website plasticsurgery.org, the top five surgical procedures were: breast augmentation, nose reshaping, eyelid surgery, liposuction, and facelift. These findings have important consequences for the broader domain of people who try to mimic surgical procedures.
There are many people that have realized the seriousness of society’s beauty expectations and are fighting against it. An example would be the Dove Self-esteem Project, which helps people who suffer from low self-esteem due to the pressure put on by the media. The website selfesteem.dove.us states that, “As they don’t feel good about themselves, girls who struggle with self-esteem and negative body image issues often experience more sadness and dissatisfaction in their lives.” The goal is to encourage that girls have opportunities to create positive experiences and have role models that can help them embrace their positivity and their unique bodies, as said in the website. Another example is Chantelle Brown-Young, a contestant on America’s Next Top Model who has vitiligo, a condition that affects the pigment of the skin. She joined the Dove Self-esteem Project to speak up about the need for women to accept their bodies no matter how they look. She knows from experience how hard this can be with all the pictures presented by the media and by the bullying that takes place since a very young age. The article on Chantelle says that despite being teased at school, model Chantelle thinks that the experience helped her accept her appearance, and gave her the confidence to pursue her dream of becoming a model. This is important because people like Chantelle and projects like Dove, can be the key to change society’s expectations of what is considered beautiful.