Looking in a Mirror

      Everyone has an image of who they are, and who they want to be. Our ideal self is the idea of who 

      we want to be, where as the actual self is the person 

      that we actually are. I know for myself high school was really where I formed who I was and had my perception of who I am along with my insecurities which effected my self-esteem. Self-esteem refers

      to the positivity of a persons self image. You can either have low self-esteem and think you won't be able to succeed or you can have high self-esteem which allows you to think you'll be successful, allowing you to take more risks and do more

      things. A huge impact on our idea of our ideal self is social media. We are constantly comparing ourself with celebrities that have been photoshopped or gone through lots of surgeries. We take comfort in buying products that we think will help us become closer to our ideal self. It is a huge reason why females purchase so much make up, because we are constantly comparing our self and trying to improve what we can to achieve the image of our ideal self. For me personally it was purchases of weight loss pills and subscriptions to weight loss programs such as Weight Watchers.

The biggest problem with these kinds of advertisements is that it creates a difference that is felt between the actual and ideal self. That can cause many people to become very self-conscious and feel like they will never become their ideal self, therefore the do not deserve to feel pretty or thin. If someone becomes very self-concious they will then start purchasing things that they can control and will have an influence on how people view themselves. The idea of body image is clearly something that I struggled with and will continue to struggle with for majority of my life. Body image is how I look and feel about myself and my body. Due to low-self esteem lots of people tend to have a negative body image of themselves. While people that are extremely confident are more likely to think that they look amazing and feel amazing in their own skin. In today's society it is so hard to feel that good about yourself and that is so sad to say. We live in a society full of people trying so hard to become their ideal self and constantly compare themselves to supermodels. 

However, lately there has been a slight change by companies to try and change peoples view about themselves. Many companies are now trying to get "real" people as models to be a part of their campaign, to show consumers that everyone is beautiful in their own way. A huge company that was very successful with that was DOVE and their Real Beauty Campaign.  Dove real beauty uses real women as their models and helps focuses on repairing women's image of themselves. Another popular brand that tried to incorporate real girls as their models was Aritzia. Aritzia had people focus on posting photos of them falling in love with their favourite fall piece of clothing from them. Aritzia took away their models for a few months and had people post pictures of themselves in the brands clothing and were displayed on the website as a part of the campaign. Pictures were posted through Instagram and made lots of girls feel beautiful and fabulous, like they were living the glimmers life of a model themselves. 

Throughout high school most people experience bullying. Most bullying was focused around cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the easiest method of bullying because it allowed people to have multiple personalities. People were able to hide behind a screen. Having a virtual identity allows people to run multiple lives. Many people can feel empowered and unstoppable behind a screen, where as in person they could be actually really shy. Many people as they grow up found that they changed from hiding behind a screen to trying to keep up an image that people perceive about them. Many people for example from high school think that I am a huge party animal and experience life to the fullest, or that I am obsessed with brand names. Few of my friends on social media know that I am in school. This is due to the fact that I usually only post things when I am doing something fun and exiting, rather than posting about my school work. Therefore, so many people have this idea about me that I have allowed them to have by managing my social media profiles the way that I do. It is hard for social media to allow us to fully express who we are as a whole. Majority of people struggle with having virtual identities in  todays society. I found that in my personal life, it is easier for people to express themselves and their emotions more through text messages rather than in person. I even struggle with that sometimes. I think its honestly because so many of us are scared to fully express ourselves and let people in like that! So it's just easier to let people know us through our virtual identity, the way we want them to, and have them see things that we are able to manage and control.