This photo of me has been circulating on social media lately and it’s managed to get under my skin. I wasn’t going to acknowledge it – after all, haters gonna hate, yada yada yada – but then someone decided to go on my own Instagram feed and comment on a photo that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
On a serene image of me swimming in the middle of the Blue Hole in Jamaica, she wrote, “You need a nose job.”
The pressure to look perfect in this day and age is overwhelming.
Unfortunately, unlike her “genetically gifted” self (as written on her Instagram profile), I’m not perfect. I have a prominent nose passed down to me by my Sri Lankan dad. Of course, I have some issue with it, as well as the big cheeks I got from my Korean mom, but over the years I’ve learned to love my differences. In a city as diverse as Toronto, I’m proud of the fact that people are intrigued by my unique look, which owes a lot to these features and more.
Case in point, one of my favorite comments on that same sponsored post was this: “I only tolerate this unwanted ad bc it’s not another white model.” Although there is much more to that comment than my looks, it reassured me in a more meaningful way than the equally superficial (but endlessly flattering) “you’re so pretty” comments.
That said, out of the over 10,000 likes and nearly 100 comments, there were only five negative responses to the image – not including the one I deleted off my own feed. Yet those five responses were enough to make me question myself for a brief moment and, to be completely honest, feel a bit sad. The power negativity has!
I’m grateful that age and experience has given me a strong sense of self and some much-needed thick skin, but it saddens me that it’s young girls who felt the need to react so poorly. The pressure to look perfect in this day and age is overwhelming. My own curated Instagram feed doesn’t help, I know.
At the end of the day, it’s important to be aware: Be aware of yourself, be aware of others, be aware of what’s negative and what’s positive. And be aware that you’re spreading more of the latter. After all, you attract what you put out in the world.
