Am I pretty?
Girls asking, ‘Am I pretty?’ in online videos face thousands of vitriolic responses
The young girl shows off her big, comfy koala hat and forms playful hearts with her fingers as she drops the question on YouTube: “Am I pretty or ugly?”“A lot of people call me ugly, and I think I am ugly. I think I’m ugly, and fat,” she confesses in a tiny voice as she invites the world to decide.
And the world did.
The video, posted Dec. 17, 2010, has more than 4 million views and more than 107,000 anonymous, often hateful responses in a troubling phenomenon that has girls as young as 10 — and some boys — asking the same question on YouTube with similar results.
Some experts in child psychology and online safety wonder whether the videos, with anywhere from 300 to 1,000 posted, represent a new wave of distress rather than simple self-questioning or pleas for affirmation or attention.
How could the creators not anticipate the nasty responses, even the tender tweens uploading videos in violation of YouTube’s 13-and-over age policy? Their directness, playful but steadfast, grips even those accustomed to life’s open Internet channel, where revolutions and executions play out alongside the ramblings of anybody with digital access.
Examples:
Hey Catchfire, the Washington Post link is dead , but I found the same article in the [drumroll] Jakarta Post!
YouTube phenomenon has girls asking: Am I Pretty?
A video done by Grade 11 students as a project for school.
I'm not sure it really addresses this YouTube phenomenon specifically.
It's interesting - as an adult who started doing social media well into adulthood, there a difference in culture between the way we as adults interact on social media, and the way teens and tweens do.
Because I've seen this "Am I pretty" phenomenon among adults on social media as well, but it is done a bit differently, not quite so direct, not quite so obviously, but it's still very prominent. Adults, to varying degrees, are also posting pictures of themselves constantly on their social media accounts, and the expected response from their friends is admiring comments about how they look so great, love that new hairdo, etc. It can be a real ego boost if you have real friends who post affirming things, and most adults have the self-confidence to only invite friendly people to interact with them on social media and to block anyone who acts like a creep.
The thing about tweens and teens, though, is that they have every kid in their entire school on their friends list, and that includes the nasty kids who say mean things about them. And at that age, even kids who are friends can become non-friends so quickly.
I don't think people ever grow out of asking their friends, "Am I pretty?" Adults just do it differently.
Thanks for the link, Unionist!
I agree, Michelle. The videos I've seen have struck me as so beautifully adolescent and precious. Part of me thinks that the stories about this "disturbing YouTube trend" is just the latest issue of "How hopelessly lost is the next generation?" that have been published since time immemorial.
That's a really good point about posting photos of yourself (or, er, of your baby...) on facebook and the unspoken understanding that your friends will "like" it or tell you how stunning you look, etc.
The thing that does bother me is the general tone of unbridled misogyny on the internet which opens young women and girls to a new brand of hatred and aggression (not that they didn't have this before in other forms, just that it has a new character). It's moments like this when we view the whole spectrum of violence which is waiting for women on the internet.
Isn't this how Facebook got started - and in fact gave it its name?
Yes exactly. Zuckerberg stole personal information from the school records of female students, and got young men to rate them as 'hot or not' or some such wording.
Yeah it is disturbing - it is bullying. By posting the photo, one shows others one is willing to be vulnerable and voila, a human is there to squeeze that vulnerability and be aggressive. It's like a feeding frenzy for psychopathy - kind of a twisted dynamic.
i really can't grasp why someone with self esteem issues would do something like that. even if you weren't "ugly", the second you take it to youtube you can assume there will be thousands of people looking to insult you and demean you and call you all kinds of names.
just look at all the vitriol directed at people about their appearance who are by all accounts very attractive. musicians movie stars etc. tagged as hideous because people don't like their clothes or makeup or hairstyle or something they said...
Part of me wants to resort to that cliche. After all I am "old" now and don't really understand kids these days.
But that would be an easy and cheap answer. Despite the fact that my high school days (I graduated from High School in 2003 ... ahh 10 year reunion soon, WTF!) were before Facebook, Google Plus and You Tube, there were embryonic and somewhat popular forms of social media back then (things like ICQ, MSN, Friendster and Asian Avenue were popular at my high school). Whenever someone posted something on them, it would reverberate in the real world and people would notice for better or worse (often worse). This is probably a universal reaction that can't really be stopped since kids (and usually in a less obvious way adults too) are mean, always have been and always will be.
Personally, I never felt the need to debase myself on social media as a teenager. I don't really do that very much now - in fact all my Facebook pictures (other than my profile pics), for better or worse and it is often worse, are uploads from other people. But, I don't know, I'm probably just weird in that respect. That type of self-aggrandizing on social media just doesn't interest me and frankly it wasn't as if I was (or even am right now) a particularly confident person who just doesn't need validation. I just don't seek online validation because it seems unseemly, weird, tacky and way too time consuming.
So I guess what I'm saying in a round about way is that it probably isn't a generational issue, so much as a judgement issue. People seeking attention, and lacking better judgement, have always existed and always will. I know this sounds kind of callous, but I don't really think there's a whole lot that can be done about a bunch of anonymous idiots posting mean comments on a You Tube video other than giving the uploaders real life validation and explaining to them why they probably shouldn't upload their personal information. That and the recent moves toward anti-bullying legislation (in certain situations). Ultimately though, people ought to consider whether or not they want to open themselves up to ridicule and is it actually worth it. You Tube in particular is notorious for asinine comments.
i liken it to celebrities complaining about the intrusions in their lives. They know that being a celeb is having people care about the most boring aspects of your life and following you to the grocery store and taking pictures of you any time you're in public, criticizing your appearance, choices etc.
so if you decide on your own to work at and eventually become famous, you can't complain about how annoying it is to have people pay attention to you all the time, since they were aware right from the start what's involved.
in other words, when you toss yourself to the public, you get the bad with the good. if you can't handle that, don't put yourself in that position in the first place. it's a choice!
who i actually feel sorry for are the people that didn't ask for it, and still have to suffer. like the star wars kid.