Sacred Self

Do these pictures and trends feel hauntingly familiar to you, or do they make you feel nostalgic?

Being born in 2000, I really feel like we grew up in such a strange in-between generation.

We remember what it was like to grow up without phones. I didn’t get my first phone until around Year 5, when BlackBerrys were the thing to have, along with Paul’s Boutique jackets.

Then suddenly came Facebook, Tumblr, Vine, Facebook famous, hipsters, thigh gaps… the list goes on.

I got Facebook when I was around 13, when there were barely any safety features and social media was still so new. But we were growing up alongside it, and it was impossible not to be influenced by it in some way.

Then came the makeup. HD brows, MAC, contouring, American flag leggings, Obey caps.

Then bodycon dresses, being skinny, then being curvy, sucking on bottle lids to get big lips 🤣🤣, tanned skin from Sunbeds, big bums and gym culture.

And we were still under 16!!!!

Then we got older, started earning our own money and began making changes to ourselves. Lip filler, cheek filler, bigger lips, bigger boobs, smaller noses… all to fit into whatever the current version of “beautiful” was. (Might I add many of us were underage victims of filler)

And now we’re back to natural beauty, clear skin minimal makeup, natural features. I can’t bloody keep up!

It really never stops, it’s happened for hundreds of years, but social media and growing up with it just makes it 10000X’s more toxic and influential.

I think Gen Z is such a complex generation because we got to experience life before social media, but also grew up while it completely changed the way we saw ourselves.

Maybe we were the experiment.

But maybe we’re also the generation that can start unlearning it.

Changing our algorithms, questioning what we consume and forgiving ourselves for all the ways we thought we needed to change to fit in.

Maybe we can influence what comes next. 🌀📱