As I was scrolling through the social media app Instagram, I came across a photo of a young girl (probably 5-7 years old). The photograph illustrated the young girl with scissors pointing to her belly and a photograph of a model laying in her lap. There was also a caption that said “Girls aren’t born hating their bodies- we teach them to.” I had seen pictures similar to this before but today when I saw this picture many different thoughts came to my head. Perhaps this is because I have spent more time reading about beauty and body standards. I think that what the picture is portraying is the reality we are living in today but I also think it goes a little beyond that. Its true that most “beautiful people” portrayed in the media look a certain way but I think that in todays society everyone is also being taught that there is no such thing as perfection. With that lesson we are leaving out a crucial piece of information. Perfection is unattainable because the perception of everything lies in the mindset of an individual. However no one really tells you that its okay not to be perfect or that you shouldn’t compare yourself with someone else. Most importantly the way you look does not determine what you can and cannot do. Does it really? My question is, if we are actually trying to teach our youth to be accepting and content with they way they look then why are still trying to live up to beauty standards (because we are)?  I think part of our aesthetic  standards comes from our culture. I feel like we always want more (concerning with everything) and nothing is ever enough! Where does the beauty spectrum begin and end? You can’t be to skinny or to fat! You shouldn’t wear to much make up but you shouldn’t be completely bare! You should show a little skin but not to much! You should have flaws but only certain kinds of flaws. I think that we always try to blame the media for setting up what we call beauty standards but I think our culture has a bigger impact on the connotation of beauty.

Instagram is the main visual proponent of the beauty industry. Users can only post pictures and videos on the app, which means that everything has to be visually appealing in order to garner attention. This has changed makeup a lot. There are many different techniques used when applying makeup. For example, for theatrical makeup, you have to go a bit extreme because stage lights will wash out a person’s face. So, you have to go a bit darker with foundation color and define facial features with extreme definition because of the lighting and the distance that the audience views the actors. Everyone looks flawless onstage, but if you see the actors offstage, they look a bit crazy. This same thing translates to how people do their makeup for Instagram. You have to use different techniques than you would if you were going out into the real world. Lighting is really really important and it’s something that you have total control over when you’re taking a picture or filming a video. In real life, you don’t really have control over the lighting and therefor you paint your face a bit softer and in such a way that it looks flattering from different the angles that people see you. When you’re creating a look for film, you have total control of the angles and lighting and everything else that affects how the the viewer will see you. Because of this, you want to have perfectly smooth and flawless skin without and signs of pores or lines. This means that your probably going to start off with a smoothing primer, a smoothing foundation (which is probably pretty thick) and a fine powder to set the face. You may also use a photo finish setting powder to set the face or to bake. This is important because it should help to eliminate flash back (see here).

“Photo finish” makeup has become so popular that brands like Smashbox have created entire lines of products promising the most flawless skin in pictures. They sell like crazy because people think that they’re going to look like the people that they see on Instagram. But the unfortunate reality of that is that they’re only going to look like that in pictures. Makeup for film can become very heavy and cakey very quickly because it has to create a second skin on the wearer in order to smooth all the imperfections on the skin. The only way to have gorgeous skin is to take care of your actual skin instead of painting new skin on. Having a skin care regime is the only way to create what everyone has on Instagram and it’s a lot better for your skin than putting a cake face on everyday.

http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201503257429/research/beards-badges-honour

In a research journal about the ‘Badges’ of men and primates, we learn that flamboyant behavior among males is displayed in a way to attract possible mates. This can be applied to both heterosexual and homosexual men. The min idea is that, as humans, we are a lot closer to our distant cousins, the primates, than we might think. We wear flashy clothing, tight jeans, flannel shirts, and yes even beards to attract others to us. We do it for the attention. Hipsters aren’t the only ones who do this either. Men might wear tank tops to show of muscles, biker jackets to prove masculinity or gold chains to prove their wealth. In an increasingly populated society the need to stand out is stronger than ever. Men grow beards, just like monkeys, to display their attractiveness and to stand out. So does this mean that the grooming behavior we see in hipster males is nothing more than just basic instinct? Can it be attributed more to our genetics, more than it can be attributed to outside influences? What does this say about males in our society?

The beard acts as a badge that enhances male sexual attractiveness and increases the chances of finding a sexual partner, while giving them a better chance to stand out among a growing society. As a result terms like “Lumbersexuality” have become fairly popular online. Yes. It’s a thing. “Lumbersexuality” is a man who has adopted the styles and facial hair of a lumberjack. Usually this is done to attract females who find lumberjacks attractive. This is a thing because lumberjacks exude sexuality and masculinity. Think about it. Their colorful shirts, bulging muscles and their long beards. Now if related to the article, Lumbersexual is a result of a primitive desire to stand out when you’re surrounded by competition.

The article also explains that the busier and more crowded a community or society becomes, the more flamboyant the behavior becomes. Clothes start to become flashier and weirder to achieve a sort of peacock affect. Beards also become more stylized and outlandish in order to appear more attractive and groomed. Clean shaven men might be perceived as young and weak, while a beard is a symbol that holds more power and dominance, a trait female primates find attractive. Now I’m not saying all women like the whole macho beard look and think that they want a man who radiates power. Some women and men prefer different things. But overall it isn’t about what they desire, is it? It’s about what men who take this style assume these possible mates might be attracted to. Men might assume women like power and dominance, which is why they try to display it.

In the distant future, accepting the possibility of a humanity inhabiting multiple bodies in our Solar System, humanity would be faced with the reality of spending a lot of time in space. Concepts such as warp-holes or traveling at the speed of light are science fictions; they cannot be relied upon in the future to get humans from point A to point B. We’ll have to grapple with the reality of a space-based-human-race, if we are serious about achieving an interplanetary existence. I’m not trying to assert that every human being in the 2500’s or 3000’s will spend the majority of their lives in space, but only that many of them, even if that “many” is just a minority, will have to spend a considerable period of their lives aboard a spaceship. But a relatively small minority of humans may have to spend their entire lives in space. This will undoubtedly be necessary if we hope to become an interstellar species. The nearer stars in the galaxy to our own (not even considering whether they have viable planets or moons upon which to found colonies) are around 10 or 15 light-years away. Even if this meant that it takes 10 or 15 years to reach these stars, 10 or 15 years aboard a ship would prove to be an incredible display of patience and endurance. But the truth is, reaching these stars will take much longer than 10 or 15 years. A light-year is a measure of the distance light can travel in one year. Modern science rejects the possibility that humanity can ever travel at the speed of light. If we ever become truly serious about reaching other star systems and inhabiting the planets within them, we’ll have to accept a reality in which people will spend decades if not lifetimes upon spacecraft. The craft will, in effect, be their whole world. I doubt the human imagination at this point is equipped to assess this kind of human existence. If one takes a ship, ten times larger than the Titanic, and sets it in the ocean with gardens and sources of fresh-water and livestock and farms and all of the resources necessary to sustain human life, one will only just barely graze the surface of what it will mean to be light-years from earth in a man-made-world. Upon a ship, one still has the familiar sea, and the knowledge that the world’s coasts are only just somewhere over the horizon. Upon a spaceship, the human body has to exist in an environment so alien to everything the human body has evolved to inhabit that they very experience of a human aboard a spacecraft in interstellar space will without a doubt have an incredibly unique effect upon that person’s mind, and in effect his or her actions. The difficulties of ensuring long distance space travelers will remain sane will without a doubt be one of the larger challenges of the future of space travel, and will open up new perspectives into human biology and psychology.

People complain that the media promotes unrealistic beauty standards but what I’m realizing now (due to research for my topic) is that so do we. This week I was on Instagram and I came across a post (that was posted by a female) which said that “big” girls should not wear choker necklaces because they won’t look good on them. WHAT!? WHY?! Im not sure about everyone else but I can’t stand it when people create boundaries for someone based on their appearance. We on our own create beauty standards everyday. On Instagram there are pages dedicated to people with thigh gaps or people covered in tattoos  and each page has communities of people commenting on how this particular aspect is beautiful. Then you have other people posting negative comments that say that those different aspects are not beautiful. So who is correct? I have heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but what does that really mean when it comes to beauty standards. To me beautiful (when it comes to a person) is when someone just owns who they are but for someone else that word beautiful can relate to something totally different. I guess i don’t have a problem with a person having a different perception of beauty then I do but rather the discrimination against people who don’t meet their beauty standards (or any standard for that matter). For example on the topic of make up and beauty. There are some that believe that wearing make up is being fake . Then you have those people that love make up and consider it art. Within these two different thoughts there is a created beauty standard. The problem arises when either side speaks negatively about the other. Who is correct? Who will really care at the end of the day? Thinking about this makes me wonder about my paper and the stakeholders section. The way I see it is that we are all stakeholders but have different stakes when it comes to this topic but how do I conceptualize this.