Jennifer Pamplona, a 27-year-old verified Instagrammer, has spent over $500,000 on cosmetic procedures to look like Kim Kardashian. Pamplona abandoned the cosmetic surgery scene after a botched lip filler surgery left her with fish lips instead of selfie-ready duck lips.
Social networking sites (SNSs) have created a digital space where significance is directly correlated to popularity; users would be wise to delete their accounts before falling into social pressure and contributing to the transformation of a superficial society.
SNSs’ affordance of a digital community for users to share and look at posts has subsequently birthed digital social norms that discourage people from expressing an unpopular identity online. Free safety Jermaine Whitehead was cut from the Cleveland Browns three days after he posted a vulgar Twitter rant that some considered threatening. One of his tweets was defending himself in response to a sports radio show host’s comment on Whitehead’s defense following the team’s loss to the Denver Broncos.
Whitehead’s Twitter account is now suspended. He is left unemployed and with no source of income to support himself or his family because of a few simple taps against a phone screen and the push of the “Tweet” button.
By giving his opinions on a platform accessible to millions, Whitehead placed himself under the spotlight when tweeting to an audience of thousands of followers and millions of Twitter users. These tweets were not the first time he had used that language or that users had heard the use of that language. However, SNSs remove the aspect of privacy from conversations and instead broadcast them to an audience.
Oftentimes, SNSs are the battlegrounds for interactions between high-profile users that end up gathering a large audience, and they set the precedent for online confrontations.
Rebekah Vardy, famous wife of an English football player, also known as a WAG, tweeted that Coleen Rooney, another WAG, revealed details from Vardy’s personal social media accounts, to which Rooney responded on Instagram. Throughout the scene, Vardy was completely transparent about her five-month-long Instagram investigation, which consisted of uploading false information to her private Instagram story in efforts to find the “insider.”
Rooney responded to the accusation, reasoning that other people have access to her Instagram account, and even had the audacity to guilt-trip Vardy (and consequently, her followers) by stating that she was “so upset that you have chosen to do this, especially when I’m heavily pregnant.”
Each side of the argument was carefully articulated with the knowledge that they would reach audiences of millions of people. The fact that the conversation took place on a medium visible to virtually anyone shows users that if high-profile celebrities are handling their business on SNSs, they should too.
As a result of the lack of privacy online, there exists a set of social norms and expectations that users unknowingly follow; they follow to fit in.
These social norms are synchronous with trends and pop culture. With the introduction of Snapchat filters, users began to flood their newsfeeds with digitally-manipulated selfies that would make the user appear to have clearer skin, lighter-colored eyes, a more prominent jawline, and sharper eyebrows.
Twenty-four-year-old Jessica Myott has been getting dermal filler lip injections every three months since she turned 18; her decision was largely influenced by viral photos of reality TV show “Love Island” contestant Megan Barton Hanson on Instagram. London surgeon Dr. Dirk Kremer told the Telegraph UK that this is not a new fad.
“They tell me they want to look ‘filtered’, like on Instagram,” he shares. “[It] gets more ‘likes’ and more [social media] followers” — and it is known as the “rich-girl face.” The rise of this “rich-girl face” takes Instagram filters one step further and integrates them into real life.
The social pressure found on SNSs follows users outside of the digital realm as well. For instance, Instagram is similar to LinkedIn in that it connects brands seeking to market their products with social media influencers. These influencers build their self-brand by achieving celebrity-like status online. They feel that achieving such status is efficiently done by physically imitating A-list celebrities — that is, posting like them online and looking like them in real life.
Pamplona was able to achieve a verified Instagram account and over half-a-million followers after the initial attention she received for removing a few ribs and injecting foreign substances into her body. Often being mistaken for Kim Kardashian has landed Pamplona her own line of lipsticks, numerous interviews with different media outlets across the globe, and even red carpet appearances.
But, when asked how social media helps her, Pamplona told Metro UK: “It helps me a lot but sometimes I have to take a step back, as sometimes Instagram is not healthy… In the social media era, your looks can never rest. People can easily give their opinions and hurt you, and they forget that you are human.”
Although it may be hard to remember that each icon, username, and avatar represents a human being, Pamplona’s feelings towards Instagram echo what many influencers and celebrities face on a daily basis. For some, like Whitehead, these seemingly minute decisions can have long-lasting impact on their careers.
Users are expected to behave a certain way on social media as a result of the online culture that surrounds SNSs. Each culture is equipped with their own social norms, and consequent social pressure, which is rooted in conformativity. For some, users behave with the understanding that others are watching and judging them, leading them to act a certain way that is not a portrayal of their genuine self, but a part of the race to online fame.
Users should delete their accounts on SNSs to combat the rise of an autonomous society and promote the expression of an individual unrestricted by social norms — online and in real life.
