Being a woman is a never-ending rat race.
It started off so innocently — I just wanted to refresh my blonde highlights. After a particularly bad night on Manning Street my freshman year, I decided to reward myself with a trip to Sally’s Beauty Supply in Jackson to take the edge off the Hillsdale winter. I had seen a YouTube video of a girl doing the same thing to “glow up.”
Two hours and the wrong product later, I stared at myself in the McIntyre Residence vanity: I had bright orange, fried hair. In the name of “self care,” I had unintentionally launched myself into a two-year-long pursuit to return my brunette locks to their natural state.
I think about this every time I see a piece of content online trying to convince me to make some major adjustment to my physical appearance or diet. When entranced by seemingly perfect women with morning routines so strict they’d put a soldier in basic training to shame, I almost start to believe it. Maybe I should be journaling for three hours a day and “protecting my peace” while simultaneously whitening my teeth and making cleaning concoctions that could nuke a small city.
I begin to scroll. I crawl onto my wheel.
Wake up with the sun to reset my circadian rhythm (the sun isn’t out seven months out of the year).
Eat a properly balanced breakfast (some tell you to drink raw milk, others swear by yet another nut subjected to the milking process).
Exercise to align with what phase of your cycle you’re in (rest when you’re menstruating but run a 5K if you’re ovulating).
Go shopping weekly to keep your cravings at bay (but if you touch a receipt the BPAs will seep into your skin and make you infertile).
Buy a hair gloss so you can make your hair look like it’s been laminated (don’t read the ingredient list because everything is toxic and you will die in seven days if you do).
The endless slew of lifestyle content from different extremes will trap you before you have the chance to notice. If you don’t have the awareness to jump off your mental wheel before you start to lose feeling in your legs, you will be trapped feeling like no matter how air-tight your morning routine, no matter how clean your diet is, no matter how beautiful you are — it will never be enough.
It’s important to remember that in the age of influencers, even the most well-meaning and relatable figures online are selling you something. And if an Amazon storefront isn’t already linked, count your days.
There’s nothing wrong with consuming lifestyle content — I’ve learned more about my body from Instagram reels than anywhere else. But I also have the media literacy to consume this content with a grain of salt, to consult further sources when presented with obviously groomed studies, and to have the discretion to notice what works for my life.
Younger generations are beginning the slow process of honing their own media literacy skills, and we should continue to encourage a healthy amount of skepticism with content on the internet and to know this goes for more than just news headlines. If you don’t, you could end up like me, a Carrot Top look-alike.
Ally Hall is a senior studying rhetoric and media.
