Magic mirror on the wall

There are countless times that my friends pull out their phones and open Snapchat simply to fix their hair or analyze the way their makeup looks. Adults call it an obsession with our phones — I call it an obsession with ourselves. I don’t think phone cameras and a surplus of mirrors did this alone. However, combined with social media and cosmetic companies that want to advertise “perfect” features, mirrors are becoming way more than just a way to make sure we look alright. They are becoming a vehicle for mass insecurity, and a tool for companies that want our money to fix it. 

We place a tremendous amount of value on beauty. But I’m starting to hate this word. I don’t know what it means anymore. Between changing trends and “body positivity,” everything is losing meaning. We talk so much about beauty and who looks good and who doesn’t, that we’re caught on a never-ending treadmill. And we think so critically about ourselves that we start to analyze everyone else, too.  

If you don’t believe beauty runs the world, you’re probably living a more enjoyable life than I am. Maybe I’m living in a bubble in high school, where conventional beauty plays a role in who your friends are and how they treat you. But based on the way I hear people talk, I’m not sure this system is going anywhere even as I grow older. 

I look at the Sephora advertisement and I know the woman on it got casted over a woman that weighed a few more pounds. I look at relationships and know the people in them are in the same league. I look at leaders and politicians, and I know which ones will be listened to and which ones won’t (clearly, Donald Trump is an exception to this).  

I don’t resent people that have conventional beauty, granted, I don’t even know what it means anymore. I resent that on an individual level, we are trying to reach an unreachable goal. We can get plastic surgery, buy more makeup, and compare ourselves to others all we want. If we felt insecure in the first place, nothing will remedy it except a generous dose of confidence, which is hard to find amidst a society with ever-changing preferences. 

We may continue looking in our many mirrors and analyzing every inch of ourselves. We may keep buying makeup and over-exercising ourselves. But we don’t have to loop other people into it, we don’t have to talk about it constantly and we definitely don’t need to let advertisements misinform and confuse us. To a certain extent, we have a choice of how we want to let beauty run our lives. So, when you look in the mirror, who do you want looking back at you?   

Lucy Sanders is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.