CRITICAL ESSAY
Densely diving into what the media and its components are compressed with, we are more prone to recognizing how toxic and complex it can be. Knowing how it is exponentially developing and growing, we tend to forget or perhaps ignore how it can echo into our younger generations. The younger generation, or what we call Gen Z or Alpha, are deeply influenced by what is happening on the media, whether it comes from Television and its series of shows, or the social media platforms. Throughout this essay, I will promote a timeline between the older days until our current days, the social media influence, and lastly, the psychological influence this all has on our young and flourishing girls.
Commencing with the old days before there were any TVs or electronics, life was much simpler, and the radio was most prominent for its two-way communication. However, things began to differ once Television was brought into the market during the 1930s (Miller, 2010). The start-up of Television was a tool that worked with a one-way method of communication without making it possible to receive instant feedback, unlike the radio (Miller, 2010). With time, the impact of Television began to appear once it turned itself from ‘painting peacetime pictures in quieted living rooms to the lethal jobs of war’ (Miller, 2010). In other words, we can translate the image of the Television into an object that killed the times of creativity and turned it into a room of eyes glued to a screen. Based on Wallace’s article, Television in the 1990s already owned the best demographers that managed to determine who the audiences were, their wants, and desire to see. Hence, Television managed to promote what we, as audiences, wanted to see in ourselves and stated that it is all about desires (Wallace, 1997). Therefore, the strategy they developed, commonly attracted lonely people as Wallace stated, 'Television is an absolute godsend for humans that love to attach people but hate to be watched' (Wallace, 1997). The lonely people mentioned deal with Television as an escape from reality and fear to be surrounded by others. Hence, this makes us realize the strength of Television in our daily lives and it is truly based on the personalities of people surrounding us. Moreover, the desires that Wallace mentioned turned its audience into a nation of ‘sweaty, slacked-jawed voyeurs’ (Wallace, 1997). Furthermore, allowing Television to be the dominant object, women were given highly constraining solutions to the challenging roles of gender and sexual identity (Spigel, 1992). Hence, this makes me recognize what the trigger of the male gaze could have come be from and the start of female uncomfortableness within the society.
Although we are aware that what we see on Television is not visible in real-life situations, we still choose to be ignorant and fantasize about our desires in real life based on what we see on a screen. Furthermore, we tend to eliminate the fact of knowing that everything on Television is profit-based and its influence causes more damage than we think it is done (Miller, 2010). However, this strengthened the media conglomerates to partake in this technological development and dive deeper into associating themselves with the damage of the Television (Miller, 2010). I truly believe in this and can comfortably say that the damage we are in is because the audiences consented to let the media take over and control our Television nights. Agreeing with Spigel who states that Television did become the center of our lives and a replacement for the traditional fixtures we once had in our households (Spigel, 1992). The claims stated by the authors trigger the thought that if Television was powerful enough to control its audience from the start, then how worse can it be in our current days with all these technologies and electronics in our hands?
Moving onto our current days, the media is progressively becoming something to do rather than just something to watch (Tuerling, 2018). In other words, this means that audiences hardly just watch television but instead, we practice it in our daily lives, by participating in it through tweets and other social media platforms, writing blogs and commentary under recaps (Tuerling, 2018). In my opinion, the thought of this is intimidating and concerning, knowing that the young teenagers are on the media and are turning into active viewers rather than enjoying their innocent age. The teenagers of Gen Z and Alpha should have had their childhood be conceived as a time of innocence (Spigel, 1992). Having the child’s mind as tabula rasa, it is more prone to be imprinted with the evils of an overly aggressive and sexualized adult culture (Spigel, 1992). In my personal opinion, I do believe that the children, as well as teenagers of Gen Z or Alpha are being brainwashed with what they see on the Television and social media platforms. Even through shows, like Papa Pig, are endorsing children with aggressive attitudes and teaching them words that are not meant to be taught at the age. Nonetheless, the violence we are also witnessing in our flourishing generation, do also come from the media and what is being played on Television. What I currently see, is that there is no innocence in children and also, no right time to learning certain things as they are given the access on the Internet to search and hop from one video to another. Although, if parents can restrict this, the children still have a chance of being influenced from their surroundings. This allows us to realize the level of corruption we are threatened by from our electronics and surroundings.
Moreover, the growing female teenagers are also losing the spark of their age while being able to recognize male gaze. Hence, due to the male gaze, parents have become more overprotective on their girls while letting them go out. In addition, to cat calling, which apparently has turned to a trend, in my personal opinion, is in itself a scary attitude to normalize or accept in our society. However, if something goes wrong, women have to prove truthfulness in their speech, when it is something that should be trusted and earned by both genders, and not men only (Banet-Weiser, S., & Higgins, 2021). It is unfair how our society never puts men at fault in certain situations, and instead call for the woman to be the accused person. Also, an honest woman never seems to exist in that sense but exists in a manner where a woman commits to monogamous matrimony with the man she slept with (Banet-Weiser, S., & Higgins, 2021). Furthermore, a man does not expect women to be truthful as they do not have the need to (Banet-Weiser, S., & Higgins, 2021). Of course, as long as we have a male-dominated society, I will continue to think that we, sadly, will not get anywhere with improvement. Therefore, the overprotection of parents might lead to the demolishing of their young girl’s voice, privileging them to speak on her behalf, due to her gender (Banet-Weiser, S., & Higgins, 2021). The unlimited courage males now have in approaching girls, while discarding the innocence of their age and absorbing fantasies through the Television and media, is causing great danger to our society. However, the woman or young girl, is not the one to blame in these situations and claiming that it is her fault that the man in front of her developed fantasies while she is walking. The blame should not be put on what she was wearing or how she was walking, instead it should be on the man who was not raising properly and was taught to traumatize girls like that. Also, not to forget, the social media influencers who are setting the standards and norms of girls by identifying the amount of cleavage that should be shown, or what fashion is currently moving towards. Furthermore, the idea of promoting the ideal image of the perfect life are being implicitly published by influencers. The reason why influencer claim that it is normal to promote this ‘ideal lifestyle’ is because it is part of their job. In my opinion, I believe that this is completely wrong, and it should not be permitted to happen in any case, whether it was the idea of fashion or the ideal lifestyle. Instead, maybe these influencers should be smarter with what they promote and maybe choose to motivate girls to achieve their goals and dreams. Moving back to Spigel’s article, she mentioned ‘the Modern Woman: The Lost Sex’ which launched an ideal image of a housewife which consists of her being the caretaker, mother, and sexual partner (Spigel, 1992). If this image of a women was portrayed in the 1990s, it means, in my personal opinion, it has enlarged the scope within our day and males still view women to be in this way.
However, the causes of these actions have been leading to many psychological impacts on both, our young and elder women. Brainwashing our generation with fantasies and desires because that is what is available on the media is an unacceptable norm in our society, yet we still encounter individuals who want it to be accepted. A woman is more than what a man’s desires are, with the massive potential she has to input within the society, but of course, male-dominance will always be the thing of our society. The psychological impact has also been found in audiences living in a toxic way with toxic thoughts, in particular lonely people (Wallace, 1997). As Wallace mentioned, it sets an alienating cycle which triggers inner thoughts of why are we not like the people we see on TV (Wallace, 1997)? Or how do they look this way and have a good body while we do not? The question is who allowed these ‘standards’ to be set if we are all of the same people but with different body shapes and characteristics. Moreover, the influencers on the social media do not shape or categorize our social norms. Therefore, this has led many young girls to fall into depression and trigger a variety of insecurities while trying to fit in to what has been put out as norms or standards. As a reaction to these depressing thoughts, we continue to find comfort in continuing to watch Television and scroll through the media as a coping mechanism to not confront ourselves with reality (Wallace, 1997). Wallace also mentioned in his article that we tend to have our significant quality of being truly alive by watching and that genuine human worth is not just identical with but instead, it is rooted in the phenomenon of watching (Wallace, 1997). Hence, this also leads to the development of weakened communication skills and inability to see what these young and flourishing girls are gifted with talents. As well as, the social anxiety and panic attacks these girls get when they are not feeling comfortable with their surroundings for many internal reasons, such as body, fashion, etc..
To conclude, women are built in a powerful way where we tend to forget that they can carry much more than men can. In other words, no man can do what a woman can by multitasking the house errands, job performance, socializing and being a mother. Women are more than what they think they are, therefore, not one should be oppressed or underestimated. Instead, they have the capability to change the society we live in with their smartness and trustworthiness women have in themselves. Moreover, every woman should find her comfort within her body by herself and not through Instagram influencers and Tiktokers because at the end of the day, we all have different bodies and characteristics to empower. It is important for parents to also look after what their young children see on the media and Television, as it is a corrupting method in raising a child. A child is a tiny figure that should embrace the innocence of their age by being creative with activities and not dancing on Tiktoks, as well as, doing challenges that fit in with their age. We all despite our gender, have the power to change the society we live in into a healthier environment where we each, can embrace our own differences comfortably.
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