25 people you should follow on social media to diversify your perspectives on beauty, bodies and sexuality
A few weeks ago I was on a family reunion trip and I got to actually spend more than five minutes with my sixteen year old half sister cause - you know - she’s 16 and, like, way too busy for me IRL (in real life).
She was scrolling her phone as teens do and so in a bid to interact with her I asked her to show me her feed - I wanted to see what kind of stuff she was seeing in a day. My husband always jokes that he gets such a different perspective on the world when he taps into my FB by accident on our shared computer and I really wanted to see what was in her world.
I wasn’t overwhelmingly shocked. It was a lot of (what I would call) stupid meme accounts and other random stuff. But what struck me was the number of suuuper skinny highly sexualized images on her screen. She brushed it off saying it was just on these meme accounts and “yeah yeah I know that’s not a real unphotoshopped body” but I grabbed her phone and said “That’s it! We need to add some feminism and some body positivity to your feed girl!” I wanted her to see images of different body shapes and sizes and colours, positive messages about sexuality, and feminist ideals and politics. And so we did.
Side note - this awesome image gallery about young men and stupid meme accounts came across my FB this week. Check it out here if you have teenage boys and are not sure how to support them in processing and questioning what they read.
If you remember the blog post I wrote last week about spectatoring (read it here) or check out the FB live here. We also talked about curating your beauty porn so that you can feel more confident about your body by comparing it to more realistic ideals. So whether it’s for your teens or for yourself, here are 25 of my favourite accounts to follow on Insta or Facebook to diversify your feed.
Here they are in no particular order. This list is by no means all inclusive. I follow these people, admire their work and their posts have broadened my world. What folks do you follow on social that we should add to this list. Let me know in the comments.
Body Love
Sex Positivity
Feminist Empowerment