Episode Three - Mirror Mirror on My Feed

In this episode of the Everything Showers podcast, Sophia and Fiona discuss the impact of social media on high schoolers. They talk about the stress and pressure that comes from comparing oneself to friends and influencers. They also mention a luxury trip to Bora Bora that influencers are going on and how it creates feelings of envy. The hosts discuss the difference between self-disclosed influencers and narcissistic celebrities and how self-disclosure can create authenticity and connection with the audience. They mention influencers like Spencer Barbosa and Emma Chamberlain who embrace self-disclosure. They also highlight Adam Sandler as a celebrity who keeps it real and challenges stereotypes. Lastly, they touch on psychological concepts like self-esteem, self-image, and the spotlight effect. Hi guys! Welcome back to the third episode of Everything Showers podcast. I'm Sophia Pan and I'm Fiona Anderson and before we begin we wanted to thank everybody so far for watching. We put our first two episodes out last weekend and a lot of our friends have been listening and family and we just want to know we already really appreciate it and we hope that we only go up from here. So yeah we're very grateful for you guys so thank you so much. Yeah and on top of that we also want to let you guys know that feel free to reach out DM us on Instagram at everything.showers and leave us like comments of what you want to hear and kind of feedback. Whatever is relevant to you is what we want to talk about because that's important for everyone to hear. So on to the topic today. So for today's episode it's called Mirror Mirror on my feed and we're going to be focusing on social media. So as you guys know Fiona and I are currently we're in high school. We're juniors and it's the second semester which is kind of the most stressful time of high school and social media has a big impact on high schoolers. It kind of can lead to stress and pressure and you kind of compare yourself with other people whether it's friends or influencers. It's just really prevalent and especially in high school I think. Yeah so on the topic of social media did you hear about the Tar Bora Bora trip? I actually didn't. I mean I feel like I don't keep up with makeup. It's like all over my TikTok feed. Basically it's like 25 influencers. They each took a plus one and they're staying at Four Seasons Hotel in Bora Bora for $3,000 per night. Oh my god Bora Bora is like my dream trip except it's like all of the like insects there. There's so many insects. That's the one thing I don't want. I would love to go there and just like seeing them on Instagram, TikTok. I feel like they're so lucky and I just like look up to them and be like oh my god can that be me one day? I feel like that's the epitome of like influencer celebrity type vibe. Like they're there in Bora Bora. They're doing all these cool things and you're just like oh my god I wish that was me. Right? I completely agree. Taking the influencer perspective I wonder how they select people for that trip. Like from being an outsider and I really like admire these people. I'm like oh it's such a dream trip but being that influencer. Imagine competing for that spot or seeing if you're doing enough publicly or posting enough or whatnot. I feel like that's another stressful take. What if you like don't get accepted? Or you don't get invited. If you're like this big makeup influencer and you just see all of these people and you just don't get invited. I didn't think of that. I mean we don't we don't see the inside of these influencers lives. We only see the outside of it and I think what they post and what they post and whatnot. I think that's really what separates like especially this day and age influencers who are narcissistic as opposed to self-disclosed. I think that that's an important distinction especially because I think it really flips the coin on social media whether it can be a good thing or a bad thing. What I mean by like self-disclosed is kind of we learned about this in psychology. Me and Sophia both take it. Self-disclosure is kind of the idea of you excessively put all of your details of your life online and so people who are self-disclosed actually like post a little bit more about their personal lives. All of these extra details that you normally wouldn't see online or on social media. Like I do it a lot on snapchat on like our stories or whatnot. Yeah like I post on my private story on snapchat or Instagram just for like my followers but these people these influencers these celebrities they're posting like self-disclosed information to everyone out there. People who probably most likely don't know them have never met them in person. That's like a really brave thing to do and that's why I think that separates those kind of celebrities and influencers from like narcissistic ones. I'll give like a very plain example what we mean by narcissistic. We mean like Kardashian type narcissistic where they're posting the cleanest photos which you know aren't attainable. Like half of what they post is genuinely not they have tons of people working on their bodies working on every inch of the camera for them to post and everything. So I feel like the difference between that and I actually see more influencers being more self-disclosed than celebrities but I don't think that's super important to note but I see more influencers that are more self-disclosed and I think that's important for me especially in how I look at social media because the more I feel my feet up with influencers who are more self-disclosed the more accepting I kind of feel of myself and what I present on the internet. So I think that's just like a big thing that I've noticed. Yeah I completely agree. I feel like it's kind of seen more in influencers rather than celebrities and I feel like as influencers do this they kind of create like authenticity and connection with their audience. I think that's so important especially with how social media is being cultivated as a very like yeah crafted thing. One of my favorites and actually she's like my favorite person I follow is Spencer Barbosa. If you've seen her post she'll post like a bunch of pretty photos of herself but then she'll put like an not so flattering photo at the end or she'll put a photo of herself but around her a bunch of affirmations or like a bunch of these very subtle things that are very real and and for me she's had the opposite effect of looking at her and being like wow I wish I had that. I've had more of the effect of like wow that's inspiring that's how I should feel and it's very subtle like what I mean by that is that I'll look at her story one day and it's just gonna be like be kind to yourself it'll just be that message and yet I feel a little bit lighter about my day or maybe tomorrow I'll feel a little bit better about my day. Yeah another person who I feel like is really self-disclosed it's kind of in a different way than Spencer Barbosa but I feel like Emma Chamberlain. She just posts like it might not be like mental health stuff but she just posts very like relatable stuff like everyday person could relate to whether it's her laying in bed just drinking a cup of coffee or like her Harold Messy eye bags. It's like it makes the audience feel a sense of like comfortness and kind of like I can relate to this person and like she has her podcast Anything Goes which is super relatable and kind of fun and exciting for all of her listeners which is also like another example of self-disclosure. Yeah I think that's her biggest kind of thing because she like the whole concept of her podcast I think is that there's no structure to it there's literally nothing which is a hard thing to do like to be able to talk about random stuff for however long is kind of it yeah like I feel like she finds a really good like balance between the two because she will post like photos of her I like fashion week but then she'll also post photos of her like good morning you know good morning like laying in bed yeah and I feel like another going more to like celebrities which honestly I feel like Emma Chamberlain is kind of like a celebrity influencer. I think she does like border that yeah but like a big celebrity is like Adam Sandler like we all know it. Oh my god! Adam Sandler! He's the person who keeps it real. Like to the highest level. You see him on the streets what is he wearing? He's wearing the same thing he'll wear on a red carpet. Yeah it's like t-shirts baggy shorts like it just he we all know he makes so much money and he doesn't always have to have these like fancy items kind of being like showing off that okay I make this much money he's like accepted himself yeah and I'm very in the very like base level it just sends a message that to do certain things you don't have to look a certain way like if you look um well what is a TV show that are like there's a movie that he was in with Jennifer Aniston and they were like on the red carpet and we're watching a video where she's all decked out she's like glammed and all not and he's literally there in shorts and t-shirt and she's like oh I called you to make sure you weren't gonna show up like this and she didn't care I mean it's just going against like stereotypes I think that just sends a message of and he's come to this part point of like self-acceptance yeah it's just really awesome to look at also social media also it kind of harnesses this concept of yourself the word self it's like your center of personality it's like yourself you see you focus on self-esteem your self-image and self-disclosure all of those things you really like it really harnesses you also the spotlight effect so which we've been learning again in psych which we totally recommend you guys to take do it please it's a good class we have an amazing teacher it's just really brought us to like a different a deeper level of understanding of all these like psychological topics and conversations and it's why we we wanted to talk about this yeah so the spotlight effect is kind of like we constantly think of what others think of them so like a really good example would be like you constantly rethink what you're posting yeah because you think like this person it's gonna be like oh my god you're ugly oh my god why can I see like her hair flying out of place yeah I'll tell you when we have homecoming or any like sort of dinner together yeah like a lot of us I honestly think that honestly you're not bad to feel like you're like to this point where I'm just like okay I think like I'm it's like a self-acceptance right and I think I think so like I think honestly like that's why I'm like admiring you and I know I'm acknowledging it right now I'm acknowledging the fact that I think you have it more under control because like you'll talk about your post maybe five minutes you'll be like oh do you feel okay with this photo this photo this photo it's also come it's like been a long way for me to come and realize this like before I'd probably say freshman year I'd spend as much time it's not more than most of our friends on social media posts but like what I kind of realized is when I look on social media I only notice other people's good so like I don't know maybe they won't notice the good stuff about me but like we all have insecurities but when we look at others you don't notice like you're insecure it's like I'm not gonna be like let me just look at that girl what's her insecurity you know exactly and even if I try I don't think I'd be able to find the correct insecurities that's why like I feel like the spotlight effect on social media is actually so like crazy because we can't see these people's insecurities yet we're still thinking about it you know we're still thinking they can see right through me yeah when they genuinely can't I can't look at your post and say oh my god she definitely was having a bad day yeah or she definitely did not like that dress I can't think that but yeah I still look at my post and I'm still like anxious about likes and everything that's why I actually turned off my notifications for Instagram and when I downloaded tik-tok with me too yeah I actually I just took like a pause on tik-tok I was just like I'd look over my videos before I posted them I'd look at other people's videos and be like oh my god they're lighting and I kind of just took a break from that I think is really helpful social media cleanses are great yeah them they're like a routine thing it's also like difficult but like acknowledging our insecurities it will only help you come to terms with them and ultimately that's like what you want yeah you want to be self-secure and I think like the center of like insecurity and being self-secure as it relates to teenagers more specifically girls at this age or beauty standards yeah I think that is like it's not the center of it like everything else obviously revolves around it but you understand a big role right but beauty standards I think is so prevalent so so prevalent whether it be for different ethnicities or whatnot it's just always there on your back and I think that's the biggest hurdle that I've had to come over I mean that and like maybe social groups but I think beauty standards has definitely been my top one I'll look at posts and I used to do a lot of comparison I think I'm better at it I think at this point I can scroll and I can like admire someone's beauty without instead of comparing and comparing and I think it goes to this there's this saying and I've tried to live by it I love quotes honestly I love quotes because I actually start listening to them now but it says someone's beauty doesn't take away from your own and I think that's so important to acknowledge you looking at someone beautiful on the internet whether it be somebody from a different school New York's or your own school or miles away from here popular whatever celebrity or not looking at them doesn't automatically make you less pretty it doesn't put you in a lower category or all of that it just means they're different means that they have different features and that's why it's not even comparable like beauty standards are like really difficult really who comes up with these beauty exactly it's just why do we have it's just a structure that we've built up like for example pan and I are different ethnicities I'm white and I'm Asian so how am I gonna look at look at you and say oh you're beautiful like races have like different beauty within them like but then like you can be a certain race and want to have something something that a different race has and that's okay we're not saying not to but not to have once and not to be fully unhappy fully happy but I mean you're gonna spend your whole life you're gonna spend your whole life sad with yourself if you keep trying to do that and I think the more I've tried to accept myself and the more times I actually like do my makeup a certain way or my hair a certain way that allows me to look in the mirror and say hey I look really pretty today yeah the better I feel and I'm you go you go one body you gotta live with it if you don't find some way to accept it you're not gonna be able to live a happy life ever yeah because you're not getting it that's why I love like on those mirrors you'll see those people who have like the little sticker note and be like you look so pretty you look so good today oh my god during the pandemic I used to I tried to do that I tried to grab a marker and write on my mirror and then cleaners came and they wiped it off every time I was really upset but if I could do it again and I might start doing it again just to get into the habit it really boosts your self-confidence which is also a big thing and like which means beauty standards can really lower yeah and I think beauty centers like for me it's one thing but I think for you is a very big different thing because it's dance yeah so if you want to add I'll go into a little so like as a dancer I don't really focus on this much now but I probably say three years ago it was a big thing like dancer bodies in the dance world it's a really prevalent issue which it's like there's a lot of eating disorders for I'm not saying everyone but in the ballerina world there's a lot of eating disorders because ballerinas need to be this small tiny people who are super light can be lifted into the air and I would see that as a standard and I look at myself even though I'm not like just a ballerina I'd be like okay why don't I look like that and think about what I need to do to get there and instead I should be thinking about like what I can do to make myself happier which is like what I recommend to you guys like what do you want to do to make yourself happier not what other people want you to do and don't like base yourself off of other people and that's why I feel like the self is so much revealed by social media and all of this because again it talks about how like out of out of out of touch with yourself you are when you're focused about all of these superficial things like how other people look but then it can actually help you understand that you need to love yourself first before being able to love or admire anyone else like for me to be able to say hey she looks gorgeous without it taking away anything from how I feel about myself requires work requires work and it's a huge accomplishment because often you look at people and be like they're pretty and you automatically your mind goes why don't I look like that other people like Fiona said simply putting it other people can look pretty and you can too in a very different way yeah pretty is not one thing pretty is not long hair pretty is not straight hair pretty is not big eyes, small eyes, tall, short, like it comes in all different shapes and forms yeah exactly there's also a difference between beauty standards and like beauty trends like it's okay everyone wants to like look a little prettier put on a little bit of makeup in the morning just to make themselves feel good which we both do and totally love and there are these things like these trendy blushes like the rare beauty blush that she said looks good on everyone or mascara pillow talk lip liner looks good on everyone so that kind of just gets us into our next little topic about trends and like algorithms yeah I actually would beg to say that trends are actually one of the things I like more about social media because I find it I find it really comforting and I kind of feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself in a very like subtle level I'm not trying to say oh my gosh I'm wearing this clothes I'm part of a big cultural thing but it's just fun and it's on a very basic level it's fun and I mean there's actually a lot of like psychological reasons about like why trends are a thing and I mean the very thing I talked about these psychologists came up with the idea of in group out group theory within like the social theory of trends where we all want to be in this in group we want to all be following the trend because we are community species and we do like to be involved in groups like that's why we have friend groups that's why we have families that's why we work in like big companies that that's why we're just collectively better together and so on that level we just want to enjoy things together like I love when a beauty product is trending like the rare beauty blush I thought that was so fun because I have it and I know that all of my friends have it and it's kind of a way for everyone to come together like bonding yeah and I think it's so fun that way and like we actually interesting on interestingly enough we actually choose to be involved in these trends so looking a little deeper into it we choose kind of to be involved in trends because we want to feel accepted and like studies have actually shown which we've learned in psych that studies have shown that we can also discriminate those outside of trends which is looking a little more on to the negative aspect of trends but it's true we do this to make ourselves feel better and that's like kind of the negative side we're trying to get taken out of proportion the fun goes away and it becomes kind of like more competitive yeah and that's where like again there's such a subtle line with social media we talked about the self being so subtle and trends can be so subtle where it can be so fun but then it can also bring out a side in like human instinct to discriminate others to feel superior or exclude others to feel superior and that's obviously not what we want to encourage and that's why being aware of that and why you're participating in trends and what you're trying to get out of it is important to understand yeah what you're trying to do with that but speaking about trends bringing it back to like a lighter part of this conversation do you know the reason that trends actually come back is that because the society isn't like progressing or we're not constantly moving towards a goal trend wise where we actually regress so I actually read about this and I thought it was so fun um Selena Gomez in like 2016 she did this like coach shoes or something and she was posting a lot of photos about it and she had this like retro camera filter on and from there everyone started using it everyone started using it and that actually brought us back to this point in time where we use disposable cameras and digital cameras I don't know if you guys are obsessed with it but I am yeah we think it's so cute I bought one like two months ago it is my favorite thing I take I take it everywhere any like fun event I have I take it cuz oh I love that trend with my heart but I mean it just shows you how like fun things come back around yeah and like it's kind of like maybe because we didn't experience it back then when it was popular putting back that in quotes and now it's coming back and it's something that everyone likes to enjoy it's not even necessary like these old vintage things it's just like stuff we haven't yeah things we haven't done before so that's why it's like super cool to try all these new things and they just you see how popular like how quickly popular they become my mom got so mad not so mad at me but like you know so like I bought the camera and then my dad's like oh I had this like 20 years ago why do you want it and I was like well because I've never had it I thought I think it's fun why not so yeah and that's like a good way to bring like culture culture happiness like all together like to come together as a whole so I think like again social media has that ability to bring people together as a whole it has a lot of a lot of benefits but it's always such a subtle line and that's why it's so hard to navigate and this is why like social media can lead to overusing like people will spend hours on a day like I know we both have which is trying to be better guys I promise this is us being better yeah starting this podcast we're taking steps okay anyways do you know like teens spend 4.8 hours a day on average and truthfully speaking I said more so look let's just look at your screen tell me how she said less okay I said more okay I'm still more I'm 4.9 okay but okay it just takes away from like the other things that we could be doing I feel like like I often find myself I guess spending hours on tik-tok just scrolling through complete loss like I don't know what time it is and then I would book and my whole day has gone by not literally but like and I just regret it because I could have done so many other things and I could have been productive and it's kind of just what while it's like for entertainment purposes it can also lead to like night it can have negative impact yeah I mean like we are and then the reason why people are so addicted sometimes it's not because like it feels like you need to be constantly on your phone to be social and whatnot like for example we are more social than we've ever been because we have so many connections online yet like statistically we are we are the most social generation we're the most social generation but I got statistically we feel the most alone even though we have the most social connections that's why it's every battle through a screen exactly and it just so many people actually recommend like having your social connections in person so I want to walk with a friend or go into the coffee shop with a friend it's just because like we get so concerned we want to see like what's going on we want to keep up with it and we feel like social media is going to help with that but then at the end of the day it just pushes us further down that hole of feeling anxious FOMO missing out all of that and that's what like social media cleanses are like so good I do that more it's not easy to go on a social media plans we were used to like being in it's almost like a reflex like yeah I'm sure like Oh board phone I even just tried deleting one app on social media like what I did I believe to take talking I think that was so helpful yeah and once I deleted it I actually redownloaded it for that podcast guys she's coming I was strong until we got through this got to the podcast or have it screen time or just like put your phone in a different room just so you can focus on what you actually want to do or even watch a movie because if you're watching a movie you're not comparing yourself to the people you see or you don't have that brain like your brain isn't sending like signals give yourself a break yeah give your brain give your brain a break yeah brain break brain break I mean from my personal experience I've learned that when I detach I feel more satisfied with myself I feel better less anxious so less social media is what I need and I realized the more time I spend on it the more I feel like I shrink up into this hole of negative trends negative self-esteem all of the things we talked about you may not see it on the surface level but it does come with like a lot of negative impact so you need to be mindful yeah so today we talked a lot about social media and the self so while we've been talking about like self-esteem self-image self-disclosure the biggest part of the self like we want you guys to take away from today's episode it's self-awareness because if you were to take a step back and understand why you're doing what you're doing on social media and how much time you're spending it can reveal the root problem of what you're feeling beyond that like if you're feeling really insecure about features of yourself or insecure about your friendships or everything it can help you understand what you want to be getting from social media and where you need to see improvements in yourself and so that's what we yeah we recommend like you guys like taking it step by step step by step to come to those problems like come to turn oh yeah that's what I meant yeah and that's kind of it for today thank you guys for listening yeah and stay tuned for our next episode bye