The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Beauty Influencers

If you walked into the average American high school right now and asked a handful of students what they want to do when they grow up, you would likely hear many of them say become a YouTuber or an Influencer. It is no secret that to have a certain number of followers, likes, or brand endorsements gives young people status or power or privilege.

Beauty influencers are at the forefront of this online influencer community. They have created hardworking careers and professions literally out of being beautiful and transforming their hair, bodies, and faces through various products. But that power they hold comes at a cost for many.

There are a lot of positive benefits that having a robust beauty influencer community has on us. For one, we are able to learn so much by beauty influencers. The vast majority of us don’t have an expendable makeup fund. To be able to listen to the legitimate reviews of new products to see if the hype is worth it or not worth it can be really helpful.

It is also extremely helpful to receive free and step-by-step instruction on how to achieve the perfect makeup look. Watching videos and tutorials from the pros is a helpful side of the beauty influencer community. I learned the perfect cat eye by watching Jaclyn Hill teach me how.

There are benefits of having beauty influencers, definitely. There are also significant downfalls of having such a vast community of beauty influencers accessible through social media.

The beauty influencers seem to struggle to get along, often. They are often found to be arguing about “he said” and “she said” situations. They are inappropriate and border on abusive towards each other at times by calling names, creating rumors, and attempting to sabotage each other’s brands and careers.

What is this teaching our young people? I can tell you that it doesn’t appear that it is teaching our young people, who truly idolize these influencers, how to get along and build each other up.

Additionally, many of these influencers rely on more than just makeup to achieve their look but are not so honest or straightforward about doing so. Many of the beauty influencers have had plastic surgery or have chefs and personal trainers that help them to achieve flawless physical presentations.

This ideal body that they show us is often almost impossible to achieve. Often it could be the result of FaceTune or other photo editing apps. This sets us up for feeling inadequate about our body or self.  This feeling of inadequacy could become disordered or dangerous if we put so much emphasis on physical presentation or beauty ideals and standards.

Ultimately there’s a responsibility for the person engaging in social media to understand that what we see isn’t always the truth and to keep that in perspective. There’s also a shared responsibility that our beauty influencers have to be more honest and transparent about how they achieve their presentation and also that there is so much more to the world than owning a body categorized by ideal beauty standards.

I wish more influencers reminded us that to hold any body is pretty cool and it matters more what we put out into the world than the way we look.

What about you? Which influencers are your favorites? Leave us a Comment below!