Did you ever get bullied at school as a kid?
I did. A lot.
I’d usually go home after a rough day and want to tell someone about it, but often I’d hear a response like this;
“You know kid, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.” & that would be that.

Nowadays, opinions have graduated to influenceable, subjective, and biased ‘facts’ based on where you’re tuning in. If the ones at the top say you’re in, you’re in. However, enjoy it while it lasts because one day you might do or say something that the masses don’t agree with, and faster than you can upload your apology video, you’re out. ‘Cancel-culture’ in its prime era.
The era where people have somehow lost the discernment to form their own thoughts.
This timeline has been dubbed “The Age of the Influencer” – A time where you don’t need to actually have your own original thoughts because there are millions of people broadcasting theirs for you!
How credible they are is usually dependent on several different things, but here are the main 3.
If you check 2/3 of these boxes… you have a decent chance of “going viral” and becoming the internets next IT factor.

1. Social numbers; the amount of followers you have; the amount of likes and engagement you receive on posts; understanding how to manipulate the algorithms online to maximize your growth.
Numbers = Blind trust…. (LOL)
2. Money/business credentials (how much you ‘flex’ your fancy lifestyle)
3. Looks. If you’re hot, people want to look at you, want to know your beauty routine, your haircare, etc.

Now,
before I have some rando come for me again in the comments on my own personal blog where I post my own personal opinions and experiences… :), I’m in no way saying that these 3 things are the only ingredients needed to cook up internet, or modern day success. There are so many talented humans out there that do not fall into any of these categories. However, what I am saying is that if you have 2/3 of those qualities, such as looks and money for example, you’ve got a pretty damn good chance of building an audience based solely on the intrigue of your unattainable lavish lifestyle.
Bottom line– You have more of a chance of “making it” and becoming a successful brand if you’re already rich and hot.

Let’s imagine for example, someone who is trying to sell a book of original poems. Imagine that this person doesn’t try to blend into the ‘traditional beauty standards’ of today. Maybe this person is also quite introverted and not entirely sure of themselves. Maybe their only true outlet is writing and they put a lot of personal details and vulnerability into their work, and having the opportunity to share it with the world means everything to this person. This poet will potentially have to write hundreds of poems, go to readings, market themselves tirelessly, and will most likely continue to struggle until they get lucky with one viral creation out of a potential 500.
On the opposing end, let’s say a stereotypically “attractive” person makes a new Instagram account. They post 3-4 pictures of themselves on a yacht, in a huge private pool at a resort, flying out on their jet… and soon they start to build hundreds of followers per day on their page. The brand is born! They will then continue to post pictures mostly of themselves and their lifestyle, boasting how amazing it is to be them, and like magic, hundreds of thousands of young impressionable people will fall at this influencers feet and eat up absolutely anything they market to their growing young audience. They start with simple merch; you know, a few blank Gildan shirts and a Cricut. Very little creativity involved but again, The merch sells out, it’s time to restock. After reading up on the newest trends, the influencer decides that she wants to release a book of poems. She knows nothing about writing. She hires a ghost writer. Her literary contributions being minimal, she takes an aesthetic sultry photo of herself and plasters it on the cover of the book. She promotes the book on her socials and it sells out within 20 minutes. She’s now got millions of new followers, a published book, a solid business model and brand generating money she quite possibly doesn’t even need, being that her brand was built on the fact that she’s rich & hot, thus inflating an already too-large ego. I call this the Kardashian Effect. I’ve also heard this referred to as “Pretty Privilege”.

Those given a giant platform to voice their opinions on are just one example of this unearned leg up in life. Wealthy people and white men are 2 other examples. Being that everything is so magnified when it comes to politics and what has happened in the past now being brought to light, we as a society have become painfully aware of these unfair bias advantages. So if we are so aware, why do we perpetuate these ideas?

An example of this is known as The Halo Effect.

According to research, you might consider someone physically and mentally healthy based solely on their outward appearance. This subconscious association of confidence, intelligence & success, is based on good looks alone. You don’t pay attention to who they are as a person or how they treat others… because they’re pleasing to the eye? BFFR!
Studies have shown that even children experience the benefits of the Halo Effect, which allows certain children to develop more confidence than others. But this begs the question; what is society actually favoring? Is it because stereotypically attractive people are just easier on the eyes? Or is it the confidence we admire? The attitude of unbothered-ness? Is the confidence all part of what makes someone more attractive?
How closely does this tie back to early childhood subconscious exposure to the Halo Effect?
Is this what continues to perpetuate pretty privilege?
Yet another early human subconscious programming that we don’t get to choose for ourselves,
and will undoubtedly spend years of adulthood trying to deprogram.

After diving deeper into my research of pretty privilege on social media, I found thousands of videos of young people who shared stories about times they’ve received pretty privilege at clubs, in restaurants, and most interestingly to me.. in fast food drive thrus. Free food, free drinks that the didn’t ask for? Because they’re hot? Some people even spoke about getting out of traffic tickets. I stopped watching these after about 20 minutes because half of these viral videos seemed like absolute BS to me… but the other half actually seemed somewhat credible. I can see a free drink here and there maybe, or no charge at the door getting into the club… but entire meals bought? Men and women falling to their knees after looking at you and your “male gaze”… again, BFFR!!!

Let’s step back and look at this from a realistic perspective for a minute;

There’s confidence, and there’s arrogance. If the pretty privilege phenomenon is built on the latter, how can we maintain a boundary between being a confident human who’s comfortable in their skin, and a human who’s unintentionally coming off to others as arrogant or entitled?
Is there even a difference?
& if there is a the difference, is it based solely on whether the person is hot or not?

(hot + confident = arrogant) whereas (regular + confident = not arrogant)?

That doesn’t seem fair.
When we look at the situation from this perspective, the idea of pretty privilege is actually not in favor of the ‘attractive’ person, but is used more-so to form a subconscious negative opinion about that person.
So is it a lose/lose no matter what?

I’d like to also breifly touch on the fact that beauty is subjective!! What’s beautiful to me might not be beautiful to you, which is why diversity should be praised and not surgically altered into this margin of people benefiting from a bias that isn’t even always in their favor.

Allow me to elaborate on this side of things and open up the realm of possibility for you, the reader, to decide for yourself where you stand when it comes to the topic of ‘pretty privilege’.

Let’s take Megan Fox for example.
Megan has always been open and honest about her body dysmorphia, her insecurities, and what she feels are her shortcomings.
To anyone on the outside looking in, (which is about 99.9% of us), she is gorgeous, rich, and happy.

In this short interview with British GQ, Megan explains how she constantly gets looked at and psycho analyzed based on how hot she looks that day.
“Oh she’s a multimillionaire, she’s gorgeous, she’s flawless, she’s skinny…” *cue the eye rolls*
As if because someone is a celebrity, they can’t possibly have problems or be insecure right?
All this bullshit surface level material fakeness does NOT measure if someone is happy or not. It doesn’t measure how you should treat them, how intelligent they are, how hard they’ve worked to get to where they are in life.

If we can zoom out and realize this ‘pretty privilege’ is a made up construct that is literally destroying confidence of those who fall into the category as well as some of those who do not… maybe we can stop this toxic beauty-centered train people are killing themselves to either be on, or get off of.

Beauty does not equal happiness.
Beauty does not equal mental stability.
Beauty. Is. Subjective.
Beauty. Is. Everywhere.

I want to end this with something so beyond positive I saw while scrolling thru Facebook the other day.
I tried to go back on my feed and find it but I couldn’t remember the account and after 25 minutes of scrolling, I gave up. So try to use your imagination here.

On my explore feed, a random account recommended to me posted an invitation to chat with new people from all over the world.

They posted something like this:

“Hey! If you’re single, post a selfie in the comments with your name and age!”
Me: *Clicks on the comments to see how mean people are being to each other today…*
-Which IN RETROSPECT, was a completely pessimistic and rotten thing of me to do. To not only assume, but intentionally lean in to the intrigue of bullying and bad selfies.

Despite me waking up that day and craving hate for some bonkers reason,
what I saw in those comments was so lovely.
I saw hundreds of humans, all different ages, posting beautiful pictures, looking confident and real.
Under each selfie, there were hundreds of likes and positive comments lifting people up, complimenting them, starting conversations, making connections. I did not see one mean comment amongst literally thousands of interactions.

This post gave me hope in a weird way.

In a world where it’s getting difficult to differentiate between what’s real and what’s fake, this post was a reminder that if we disconnect from the virtual world and start connecting back to ourselves, we’re going to remember how beautiful we really are, not just on the outside but much more importantly, on the inside. After all.. our insides last a hell of a lot longer than our outsides… if we’re lucky.

Looks will always be fleeting, but the legacy of a kind soul will be immortalized by spirit for eternity.