Having been part of the generation that grew up both in the time between technology and social media taking off but still having the nostalgic of what life was like without technology (using paper maps and dealing with the agonising dial-up internet connections), I’m grateful for the experience of both. Nowadays, there’s a lot more pressure for the younger generations due to social media being so prominent. There’s more expectations, even though there’s a social battle to try and celebrate uniqueness and to shut down conforms that discriminate certain indiviuals for their belief or lifestyle, their sexuality or colour. And that got me thinking recently about my childhood obsession of magazines and how that impacted my childhood and growing up.
*This is a collaborative post.
Social media has been a big influence on my life in many ways. It helps to inspire me in my personal growth and in my home. I’ve bought products before because I’ve seen them online being promoted by others or taking inspiration from people’s creations and designs for home interior. I’ve had custom made furniture done for my home as well as finding unique and independent businesses online to collaborate with and to buy from to support their businesses. And as much as social media is fantastic, it also has it’s negatives. There’s a lot of online hate and trolling and that’s something that you didn’t get back when the media industry was in print and shown on television.
But as much as social media has it’s toxic elements, I feel it can never be as bad as us having had no voice in the magazines and publications that were and still are created by these companies. Now this isn’t a hate campaign against magazines and newspapers because they provide entertainment and content that I find engaging and inspiring. There’s a lot of magazines that put power behind movements that are positive and needed for our modern-day world. But growing up, I certainly had an entirely different experience with magazines because it was all I knew and social media online wasn’t a thing.
The biggest thing that I was probably exposed to from a young age was sex. I wasn’t interested in boys or anything sexual at that age (high-school) and so it certainly felt that it was something that was constantly being shoved down my throat with every magazine I got. Using my £5 pocket money, I’d spend it mostly on magazines. I think these were Seventeen, Cosmo Girl and Shout. If you look at the magazine covers on Google, you’ll quickly see a familar theme and it’s all about the perfect body, the perfect hair and how to dress. So much of it was defined to one type and not like today where pretty much everything is celebrated and there’s more role models and examples of different shapes, sizes and ways of dressing. A lot of the stuff that was printed wasn’t really something I thought had deeply rooted into me until later on in life and that’s what I think quite a few of us who grew up with these magazines are trying to battle nowadays.
Being confident in my body is important because growing up I was stick thin and then university happened and I gained a lot of weight. The first thought that always creeps in when it comes to losing weight is wanting to make sure I compare to what I see is the norm or ‘the average body type’. However, it really should be more about feeling confident in the body you have, not trying to achieve a body that you don’t and won’t probably have. Again, a lot has changed now and even though there’s still progress to be made and new challenges to face as technology and social media changes, it’s better than what it used to be.
I think what I’m trying to get across is that the media growing up was different and certainly something that affected me and others more than I cared to think at the time. I’d be interested to know if any of my readers felt the same growing up? Let me know in the comments below.
*Disclaimer – This is a collaborative post. All words are my own.
