NEXUS ISSUE 09 2014

nexus magazine
The Conforming
Bullshit of Beauty
NINA FOX
Think how many industries would go out of business if women just decided they loved
their bodies. Nina's sick of being told you have to conform to be beautiful, so ladies, put
down that mascara and read on!
Being a girl is fucking hard work. I am in no way trying to dismiss the thigh-gap came to the forefront of social media. Girls all over the world
struggles that the opposite sex encounters, but do they have to shave their started posting Insta shots of the scenery that could be seen between
legs, groom their eyebrows, dye their hair, wear a cake-tonne of make-up their legs, while others starved themselves to ‘fit in’ with this fucked up
and stress about their weight in order to not be an absolute social outcast? ideal, which is actually most commonly achieved through genetics. 4Chan
No. But then again, do us girls really have to? Probably not. We are just caught onto this ridiculous trend, with one user creating the ridiculous
made to feel like we have to, so that we conform to the bullshit propaganda ‘Bikini Bridge’ as a sort of social experiment. The bridge refers to the gap
of what beauty is.
between a girls bikini bottoms and her stomach, with hips protruding. The
Girls are ambushed daily by media, celebrities and even their peers to 4Chan user created fake celebrity twitters about it, and soon the image of
look a certain way i.e be wafer-thin, tall, preferably blonde, athletic looking a ‘Bikini Bridge’ was viral. It became the new thigh gap: girls everywhere
but not too muscly, wear
were actually falling for this
make-up but be naturally
hoax and trying to achieve it.
pretty and don’t even get
me started on the thigh-gap.
Naturally, this is unattainable
for most of us unless
we were to go under the
knife and get total reconfiguration
surgery, or in my
case put stilts in my legs
to take me from my 5ft 1”
status to a stature similar
to Miranda Kerr. And even if
“KATE MOSS’S CONTROVERSIAL AND OVER-USED
QUOTE, “NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY
FEELS,” SET THE TONE FOR A GENERATION
OF GIRLS, WHEN REALLY IT SHOULD HAVE
BEEN DISREGARDED AS THE MOST BULLSHIT
STATEMENT OF ALL TIME.”
How sad is that?
People often applaud
Marilyn Monroe for her
curves and how she ‘stuck
it to the system,’ but even
she was a victim to the conforming
bullshit of beauty.
The media even penetrated
Monroe (not in a JFK way)
but so that Norma Jean felt
she had to bleach her hair
we did this, we’d probably come out like a washed up Pam Anderson and from brunette to her famous blonde, just to get jobs. People have been
be called ‘fake.’ There’s just no winning.
bullying women to look a certain way for years, it’s just reached a climax
Kate Moss’s controversial and over-used quote, “nothing tastes as good with the power of social media.
as skinny feels,” set the tone for a generation of girls, when really it should If you think about it, women’s insecurities are a multi-million dollar business
with people making money off diet pills, those suck-in undies and
have been disregarded as the most bullshit statement of all time. Clearly,
Moss had been living off of her Saltine Crackers for some time and was in a make-up, just to name a few. The pressure exerted on us to conform to
deranged state of confusion, having lost all ability to taste. Because I know a stereotypical ideal ‘beauty’ is so strong because people are making
for a fact that a C N Cheese from Burgerfuel tastes a fuck load better than money off it. Imagine how much money would be lost if girls and women
saltine crackers, which you have to eat in order to ‘feel skinny.’ Thus, my just became confident with themselves and embraced their differences?
logic prevails. But it appears other girls took her words to heart, believing Society’s ideas of ‘beauty,’ really is just a whole lot of bullshit that ultimately
that protruding collarbones are “beautiful,” dedicating ‘Tumblr’s’ to pictures makes money off our insecurities and leaves us feeling like shit, so I say
of malnourished girls awkwardly posing to capture light on them. Then the fuck that. You’re all beautiful, don’t buy in.
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