Most children have crazy fantasies of what their role model should be like. Some want a person who can teleport, fly, become invisible, walk-through fire or even change the way people think. When they see actors doing it in real life, they start unconsciously admiring them.
Am I the only one who has spent their entire childhood wanting to be able to have a superpower? Psychologically, as we start ageing into teenagers, instead of these ‘superpowers’ we start to shift our admirations more to social influences such as models and actors, which may have a negative impact.
This mindset causes some teens to develop insecurities by just looking at edited and photoshopped images on social media platforms like, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and many more. Statistics show that 70% of girls feel depressed, guilty, and shameful after looking at a fashion blog for just 3 minutes!
According to Quora, “Girls are more insecure because everyone expects them to be perfect. Whereas boys can do whatever they want and or be judged, simply because they are boys.” Does that mean society is still held back, where girls are being judged based on their looks rather than abilities? But it also has a sense of filtering out young boys’ views, on how social media may affect them too, regarding this issue.
What this also means, is that if a boy is insecure, then it's possible they are less likely to talk about it or get help, all due to stereotypes which show women as being more fragile. As per Quora “Men are often told to tough out their emotions and are shamed for showing them.” This attitude is a major reason they may feel they need to put up to it, to illustrate society's expectations on them, which can be referred to as toxic masculinity.
Aadya
Boston High School