Finsta Filters, Beauty, and Truth

[video width="480" height="270" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy-2.mp4"][/video]Being part of the Buck family has allowed the granddaughter of John Buck(CEO of The John Buck Company), Malia to live(Chicago, Lincoln Park) in a life of relative(there is always someone richer and poorer) wealth. After spending the past year attending boarding school in Geneva Switzerland, Malia started high school at St. Ignatius, one of the older college prep schools in the city of Chicago. Her life of British International schools has opened her mind to a world filled with young people wearing Lacoste dresses to class and Gucci trainers daily.Though her social class has contributed to seasonal style choices, Instagram and Snapchat have allowed for a particular “image” to be achieved, maintained, and filtered. What is “true” has become what is perceived to be so, and what is “beautiful” is not in the eye of the beholder but rather the collective approval of other young adolescent women. In a recent frank conversation with Malia, it was admitted that she believes to have developed, on some level, body dysmorphia over the course of her increased use of filters on the varying social media platforms she participates in. For her, there is a clear direct line in how she has been influenced and affected by solely using social media of way to communicate with her community of teenagers.Malia’s Instagram is filled with selective images and captions which capture best the life which she herself values most, as well as the life which she believes others value. There you can find images of a thirteen-year-old girl having brunch in various countries along picturesque rivers and landscapes. The image broadcasted would be one of an extremely young world traveler who always, and only, packs the most in trend styles. But there is always more beyond the frame of an Instagram photo. The feed does not capture arguments with her mother and grandmother over buying a $200 fleece hoodie, or a pair of Yeezy Boost 350s. There is no post to describe the crippling anxiety which has come with the overwhelming desire to succeed in her freshman classes, nor is there a photograph the longing to “keep up” in style with her newfound friends from around the world.[video width="480" height="390" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy.mp4"][/video]In a recent article posted by The Cut Tavi Gevinson honestly shares her personal journey with Instagram. Similar to Malia, Tavi was also revised in Chicago(Oak Park) and became intertwined with social media at a young age. After coming into the public eye at age 12 for home grown fashion blog titled Style Rookie, Tavi has held her own while speaking for TEDx Teen, modeling, starting a magazine, Rookie(aimed toward teenage girls), and of most recent stepping into broadway. Now approaching her mid-twenties Tavi has officially spoken out this past September on the effects of growing up on Instagram.Titled “Who Would I Be Without Instagram? An Investigation,” Tavi bluntly shared how even though her styled outfits against iconic backdrops were and are attractive, there was and continues to be something else going on outside of the frame and behind the filter. Tavi starts out the essay sharing how she used to have “three Instagram accounts: a public one, a private one for friends and internet friends, and a private one that was just for me.” Each of these served a different purpose—one showcased her at fifteen living in Oak Park and editing Rookie after school, the other showed frustrations with the world and captured young angst, and the third told the private tale of young girl who was enraptured with “the world of wealth and prestige” that she had “occasionally been granted access to through internet fame.” Over and over she poses the reader the questions: “Where would I be without Instagram?” She shares how she would not have been invited to live in the luxury building to post about it for year and continues on to say, “Without Instagram, it’s possible I wouldn’t have gotten the acting job that moved me to New York, nor the relationships, experiences, and identity that followed.” Though what started out as innocent play at fifteen, Tavi herself admits that the more she participated in the world of Instagram, the more her identity became wrapped in the way she was being perceived by others via comments, likes, and follows.But it was not just the visual affirmation she after. In her personal essay Tavi compares the act of posing and styling to that of creating a character, a sim or avatar if you will, she says that “with a camera and a blog, I could be my own avatar. I could be myself.” She continues with, “Sometimes my photos were supposed to be of characters, but they were always a way of envisioning myself in times and places that felt more real and more special than our backyard.” As now an older and more self-realized young woman Tavi shares how when now looking back on posts she mentally fills in everything that happened off-camera. “Here’s my and friend and me dancing at a fashion part in very tiny outfits; today, we no longer speak. Here’s me in the pool at my Palm Springs Airbnb; I self-medicated so much I missed my flight home. Here’s me posing at the Met Ball; I sent my therapist an email declaring my spiritual crisis from inside the after-party bathroom…” and the list can and does go on.[video width="480" height="390" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy.mp4"][/video]Though Tavi is ten years older and has a much wider influence than Malia, their interaction with Instagram and their selves on the platform sing similar songs. Both have a deep desire to post what their followers believe to be eye-catching, attractive, and dare I say, beautiful. Malia secretly thanks the creators of filters because she is unable to imagine a world without them—who would she be known as without makeup, highlights in her hair, and casual photos in the Tiffany vault. Tavi, on the other hand, now questions if #nofilter is just another way of curating the current craving for #authenticity. No matter the case, it can be clearly seen through both young women’s lives, the way an individual learns to process the meaning of beauty and how they apply that meaning into life informs the way truth and “what is true” is understood.The concept of beauty and its relationship to truth is ingrained into the human framework. Historically(though usually not rightly) there is beautiful skin color—those who do not possess such skin tone are then considered something beyond ugly, that is bad, untrustworthy, and untrue. This can always be seen in the neighborhoods in Chicago where both Tavi and Malia have and continue to come of age. Armitage is known for beautiful storefronts and friendly streets while most things south of the loop are considered to be dangerous and undeserving of attention…one has been the narrative of beautiful and trust while the other has been told it is undesirable and so therefore not trustworthy. But what is beauty? And how is it so closely connected with truth?[video width="480" height="292" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy-5.mp4"][/video]The idea of beauty is a time-old tradition—it is an entity that has been gossiped over and fought for. Historically, women have desired to be it while men have sought to possess it. These roots of conversation and interaction with beauty can be found seeped into the making of any individual. The desire to know, possess, and be does not leave a family’s generational line. No matter how times change, how beauty is perceived to be or how it is exercised, it is always there. The current techniques for beauty and concepts for are built out of generational and historical understandings.In an effort to claim more for beauty than what history has allowed for it Natalie Carnes’ Beauty starts a conversation on the matter which provides a “double restoration of beauty and theology.” Beginning with Gregory of Nyssa, who started the first theological conversations on beauty, Carnes puts beauty on display for the reader to see how the current thought of her(beauty) were first formed. Gregory’s own understanding of beauty, and then so also God, was primarily formed by the influence of his eldest sister Macrina, who was a motherly figure. Carnes names her as the hidden heroine to Gregory’s theological development and overall story.In the case of Beauty herself, she has been known to “name, not a thing, but a person’s experience of a thing.” For Gregory, an understanding of beauty was central to providing an understanding of God—beauty names God. Or, if using the equation above, beauty should provide a word to the experience of God. What then is asked by Gregory is a question of the significance of the body; for when developing an understanding of God, believing God became flesh, using beauty as a name for God—there must then also be significance for the body.Historically bodies are known to be clothed(or not) in understandings of beauty. And just as bodies(physical tangible bodies) have not always been valued and treated well, neither has beauty.  Carnes shares how, “The new day glares on beauty, whose grandeur fades in the bright Enlightenment, It fades as beauty suffers transformations that by late modernity have feminized beauty, marginalized her, and left her vilified as market promiscuous.” At times the technique or outworking of the concept of beauty has been in hairstyle, hemline, and neckline. Beauty has been known as the opposite of this or that—beauty is not a short skirt and long jacket(CAKE). She has also been named in light of men. In the discovering of beauty, so then there was the making of femininity, and with femininity so came masculinity.The quest for beauty in the body is not new. The desire for beauty has lead to the devastation of millions at the hand of the Third Reich in pursuit of a master race; slave culture within the United States, and the modern epidemic of eating disorders among young women. These and many more, at one time or another, have all been adopted as truth(even if only for a moment)—that one heritage is purer, a skin color more holy, and a body more alluring. Carnes argues that “We can articulate the beauty of an object by naming an aspect under which it is fitting, and in describing its fittingness with that aspect, we will find that it does not just fit; it fits exceedingly well.” Though this is true and can be used towards the betterment of understanding beauty, it has often been used in the oppression of her, and so then also the body.In her work, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry argues for the relationship between beauty and justice, and then so also truth.  Beauty begets beauty, and it is in this “phenomenon of unceasing begetting” which leads to the desire and impulse for discovery and creation—both in body and spirit. But would the realities mentioned above be considered just? Could they themselves even be considered beautiful? Scarry argues “that beauty continually renews our search for truth and presses us toward a greater concern for justice.”Acts of oppression towards beauty are what Scarry would consider as “errors in beauty”. Errors are not noticed when something that was once considered to be other than beautiful(whether it be ugly, horrible, or undesirable) suddenly becomes such, or when what was once considered as beauty no longer deserves such a name for such experience. They, errors,“make finite marks in memory. They are not forgotten easily as they only allow for the perception of beauty itself to be shattered.” Not only is beauty shattered, but so the idea of truth, and “what is true.”Truth was shattered when it was decided(and still being decided) that the tone of skin does not matter in terms of beauty(keep in mind much of the outer world still struggles with this idea). What was considered to be true, that skin tone, race, ethnicity, and homeland determine value(and so then also beauty) was suddenly turned right-side-up. What has lead to much pain came from a desire found within all humankind; a natural desire to trust what is beautiful in many ways, is inescapable. But can full beauty be achieved, gained, or even measured?[video width="480" height="320" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy-3.mp4"][/video]As previously mentioned, beauty can be a word to name the experience of things—perhaps even the experience of God. What does the beauty of God consist of? Does it go beyond just the experience of and relationship to God? Or rather, is God complete and ultimate beauty? When looking at the dressing of God, clothing(pretend God has clothing) is spoken injunction with light, glory, and splendor—A light brighter than any other, a glory which is unseeable, and a splendor which draws all into itself. God is beauty and beauty is held for us completely and fully by God. And God, being the uncreated, who is beauty itself, is also truth. The trinitarian creator spares no secrets from each part, rather fully and completely they together create: beauty begets beauty, and truth begets truth.The glory of the Lord was and continues to be unseen by man—we cannot hold it, capture it, put it on display…it cannot be measured and in many ways, the word “beauty” then suddenly becomes lacking when put to quantify the indescribable. We are unable to hold the weight of glory and are so then only given reflections of the beauty of God. Reflections that can be seen on Moses’ face as the shadow of God passes before him. Moses’ face shines with such splendor as he comes down the mountain, as much so that he is at first unrecognizable to those around him.It was out of the pursuit of truth, and so then also of beauty, that a calf was created. The beauty of gold was used to define and make a new truth, and ultimately a new God. We too are not far behind the exiles of the Old Testament. So often is beauty made from those who were created themselves mistaken for truth. The mystery of the relationship between beauty and truth lies in the center of the trinity. It cannot be fully outworked by pushed paint, written word, or captured image—it cannot be fully realized on this side of heaven. It is in the oppression of beauty and truth that we see how the relationship while on earth will be distorted. In these terms, the reality in which we create from only shows a future of bleak deception dressed in pleasing color tones and soothing lines.[video width="480" height="288" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy-6.mp4"][/video]As a young woman myself, I cannot help but search for and value beauty. Similar to others, there is a particular style I enjoy whether it is in wardrobe or space. It is with a strong desire for beauty that I build a life of what I consider to be beautiful around me. I am not so different Malia and Tavi. I to present an image of who I am and who I hope to be—I clothe my life and selectively dress my existence into a new reality. The way a person dresses, the spaces they find themselves in, and the media they interact with are all tells for what is thought to be beautiful(in some way or another). These choices(whether completely subconscious or intentional) tell those around, “This is how I hope you will respond to me.” We know a change in aesthetics evokes a change in response—as winter comes in Chicago, so does the overall color palette for everyone's wardrobe. The change of seasonal(visual) aesthetics, we respond by adopting more black pieces than necessary in our closets(another old tell for mourning…maybe in a way we are mourning a change of beauty). And, we love this! We eat it up through participating in fast fashion; buying “true black” jeans, corduroy jackets, and heeled black boots. There is a fourteen-year-old girl inside all of us who enjoys orchestrating our own aesthetics. But who gets to say this is beautiful or that isn’t? Whose ideal are those wearing light-washed jeans in the winter being compared to?Whether it is neighborhoods in a city, body size, or where you buy your leisure ware, something or someone has determined what is more attractive, and so also what is better to participate in. Traditionally beauty, and what is better, has been formed from the construct of whiteness—including lifestyle just as much as skin tone. Every city has a “south side”. Every culture has a version of what they deem to be most beautiful. For many, darker skin means working in the fields, living a poor reality, and not having the means to possess anything of value or beauty. There is a reason why some people were originally called “red necks” in the south…they simply had red necks from working out in the sun. Beauty is well tied to not only the value and worth of things but also people. And from that value, an element of truth and trust is bestowed. Living in a mediated society allows for mass production of beauty—style is shared instantly and before you know it there is a Martha Stewart homemaker found in the trailer park.From movies, shows, magazines, and social media there has been made a “duty to be beautiful.” Within a five minute walk from the Moody Bible Institute campus, there is a dry bar(for stylized blowouts), a lash and brow bar, and multiple full-service salons(hair or the lack of is everything). Beauty is increasingly defining. Identity has been thrown to the perfect combination of where you buy your clothes, get your hair done, and go to school. It pushes even further by scratching what you study, what your interests are, and what your self-care regimen is. We have made a beautiful way to do everything: Glossier and Fenty are the more beautiful ways to “make up,” Burts Bees and L’occitane en Provence are the better way to lotion, and high waisted demi boot cropped jeans are the currently more attractive way to dress. And, if it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg then it must not be beautiful. Kmart simply cannot be trusted. But if a person were to shop at Kmart should they too not be trusted?Every person is raised with an idea of what beauty is and the natural desire to see those ideals come to fruition is not a bad thing. The hang-up happens when the other is considered to be ugly, worthless, untrustworthy, and not beautiful. It can be seen at weddings where the bridal party was selected not for friendship and community but the way together they will be photogenic. Instagram feeds are tailored to feature pristine photoshoots and Kodak moments. Even the “mess” on Instagram is curated to be beautiful. The relationship between beauty and truth is so evident that we accept these; that the only acceptable “mess” is a curated one, that Kmart has nothing worth buying, and that the weird girl from class shouldn’t be accepted. If all the rules are followed you can create a beautiful life that may or may not be true enough to who you truly are; you will be considered right, good, and yes even beautiful. But one does not have to negate the beauty of others in order to be so themselves.Truth is naturally connected to beauty on theoretical and spiritual levels. When attempting to escape societal constructs of beauty, new possibilities for truth must also be explored. What was once unbecoming must then be given the opportunity to be otherwise. The allure of beauty should not be avoided. Rather than rejecting all which is pleasing to the eye, the beholder must realign standards to that which does not deny the natural beauty of the other. By way of creating new techniques of and towards beauty, a new outlook on truth, rightness, and that which is good can be developed. In the end, the way an Instagram feed looks does not truly account for any whole person.[video width="480" height="202" mp4="https://mml.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/giphy-7.mp4"][/video]

Exemplification

The above gifs showcase a number of women, shows, and films that have recurring themes of womanhood and beauty from different time periods.Midge from the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel tells the story a young woman who over time realizes her nightly beauty routine does not matter.Andy in The Devil Wears Prada discovers how what is thought to be beautiful affects a person and how they interact with others.One is taken from reality TV and two others are from dramas in different eras of “what it means to be a woman.”I encourage you to watch some of these and others of the like as this relationship is truly seen everywhere.