Weight Scale: A weight scale is a common household item that most people (mainly women) have in their homes. Beauty standards today have created a sort of obsession with these scales because there is a correlation in society with beauty and weight. Weight scales are mostly associated with women thus portraying the thin is beautiful beauty standard. Every year in January we are bombarded with new year resolution commercials from brands like Special K and weight watchers. Both of these brands (as well as others) contain weight scales in their ads and ultimately say that a lesser number on the scale will make you a better version of yourself.
Mirror: To some a mirror is just a regular item that people use to see reflections. Except in todays society a mirror is being used to see our imperfections. People use it to nit pick every part of their body and face that society says is not pretty like cellulite, stretch marks,scars, pores, wrinkles, dark circles, small breast, curves, etc. People let mirrors define their self worth and beauty.
Photoshop: We have all seen those photoshop fails, the ones where the model has an awkwardly long arm or is missing her knee. Or what about the ones where the model has no pores (everyone has pores!) and their thigh gap (this could also be an artifact! young girls have become obsessed with thigh gaps) is awkwardly far apart. The media has been using photoshop to portray unrealistic beauty standards in society which has caused many people to aim for untenable beauty.
You last artifact had me thinking about the different camera filters that comes with smart phones. You have beauty filter which gives your face a ‘made up’ look that can be applied to the photo. I think with the advances in technology, the more obsessed people have become with hiding their natural look. Everything has to go through some filter or program to be perfected before its is considered beautiful. Your artifacts asks the readers to take a look at the way beauty has progressed and regressed. Progressed in the way we carefully monitor our weight and constantly look for flaws to hide. Regressed because how the standards of beauty rule society and pushes for people to attempt to achieve a look. A person’s natural look is not celebrated it is shamed.
I thought your first two artifacts were interesting in that I disagree with the points you made. Weight scales do not universally have a standard of lesser = better. For many men who are trying to gain muscle, they desperately want to see the number on the scale increase. Further, for many women, when they are already thin, becoming thinner (and thus too thin) subtracts rather than adds to beauty. Secondly, mirrors are do not create beauty standards. They are only the medium through which we asses ourselves in light of society’s beauty standards. Society is the culprit, not the mirrors.
I think you’ve got some good ideas, but I think you can go a little bit deeper on this. Scales and mirrors have been around for a very long time, and while they have to some extent produced culture, I feel that there are some more modern artifacts that can better demonstrate your point. I think Photoshop is a step in the right direction, but it seems to be more of a case in which a program was designed to touch up pictures and has been utilized to promote some often harmful and fairly unrealistic beauty standards. Maybe I’m off-base. Like Kerliza said, photo filters is a great example of a cultural artifact. Regardless, I think you’re on the right track!