We’ve all seen it. A friend of a friend of a friend tags you on social media, begging you to rate them using a numeric system that allows you judge them based on their personality or beauty. These posts are called rate me posts, and are uploaded to Instagram by thousands of teens everyday seeking the opinions of their social media peers. Sometimes the feedback is good, and sometimes, well, it’s not. The rate me post has the ability to both inflate confidence and crush it, and by giving social media users the ability to critique the uniqueness of another in a public domain, many young men and women are finding themselves focusing on being accepted rather than being themselves.
Most obviously, the problem with rate me posts is that they ask for judgement. Those who upload rate me posts are asking to be accepted by their internet acquaintances, and invite randoms to expose their insecurities and point out their flaws. Many times, followers are asked to critique an individual solely from their Instagram pictures. Users will quickly rate the personality (i.e. Funny, Weird, Creative) of a person they’ve never spoken to, and that person, craving personal critique, might take those words to heart. It is as if teenagers are going against everything they’ve ever learned about individuality and uniqueness: Instead of living life like nobody’s looking, they’re putting themselves under a world spotlight, not to be admired, but to be judged.
Furthermore, rate me posts are completely subjective, rendering them invalid and indicative of nothing. It is well understood that a “beautiful” woman may seem hideous to one man, while a “hideous” woman may seem stunning to another man. Beauty has no image, despite what people think, and is anything that you decide it to be in a given moment. Today’s culture has disillusioned many young people, making them believe that to be beautiful is to look like Kim Kardashian, Megan Fox, or Jennifer Lawrence. If this is your image of beauty, then, subconsciously, you will compare every woman to these celebrities. Your perception of beauty is subjective, meaning that it is the sum of every idea, opinion, and experience you’ve ever had.
It seems that in today’s social media sphere, teenage men and women have begun to compare themselves to celebrity beauty, instead of loving their own, equally as beautiful, uniqueness. Under the rules of subjectivity, every human is both the most beautiful and ugliest person in the world. So, it doesn’t matter.
The men and women of pop culture who are commonly considered beautiful today, never cared about drecks like rate me posts. Many say, in fact, that the most attractive quality in a man or woman is confidence, and by uploading rate me posts, thousands of teenagers are showing the world that they’re lacking self-confidence and need the approval of the internet. The beautiful ones are those who disregard their beauty, and who, instead of looking for acceptance, simply accept themselves. Rate me posts are problematic to our social culture, for, like a plague, they are teaching teens to be what other’s want them to be, instead of who they really are.
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