InstaGloomy

Conclusion

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 19:38:00 +0000

Feeling overwhelmed yet with the information overload?

Well, this is it, your reached the final post of this beneficial blog. With all the information you have obtained about IG, you can now finally say "I am IG certified". You now know all measures to take and not to take through the use of this social media platform.

First and foremost, we now know how much of a drastic effect Instagram can have on each and every one of our lives. Mostly... NEGATIVE! Also, you have have realized that most of the negative effects are produced through the posts of female Instagram celebrities and through the misuse of the users. By now, you have knowledge of what we mean by negative, and that is the mental health issues arising, dangers of following strangers, effects of image content and the list continues.

We need to put a stop to this misuse of IG once and for all through various methods of prevention. One way to stop this is to minimize the amount of people followed, specifically celebrities. This highly applies to the individuals with intense levels of celebrity worship. As for the other Instagram users, all we can say is to be careful of how you interpret the image content of these well known celebrities on Instagram. An individual can also take precautionary measures when providing certain information on this social media platform. There are also many other ways to prevent the negative effects from arising, by reading the previous posts, you probably already know all the other way to be careful.

Until next time Instaglamers!

Dangers of Following Strangers

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 21:39:00 +0000

Users of social media in the U.S. do not realize the risk they're going through by following individuals they don't now, such as celebrities. Following unknown users could be harmful to the Instagram user since the other individual will now have access to his/her whole online profile. Teens especially post personal information like first name, location, and age on their profiles(Lenhart and Madden, 2007). Despite the seemingly very obvious risks, there is still a startlingly high number of posters that actually include their home address, phone numbers, and other information that could aid any stranger on their friend list to locate them.

A survey was done on certain focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It demonstrated instance of teens providing or protecting personal information on their online profile. Teens aged 14-17 are more likely to share personal information on their online profiles: with 76% including their school name, 23% including cell phone number, and 94% including personal photos(Madden et. al, 2013). Comparatively, teens aged 12-13 do not provide as much information, with only 56% providing school name, 11% providing cell phone number and 82% posting personal photos (Madden et. al, 2013). It was also concluded that 63% of teens believe that a motivated person could eventually identify them from the public information they provided on their online profiles (Kong, 2015). This could pose a serious threat to IG users since they might not be aware of a follower actively trying to determine their location.

The higher the personal value for number of followers on IG, the more likely the person is to request following strangers. A following frenzy can be started by following celebrities, and depending on the intensity of celebrity worship, they may start to look through other followers of that celebrity, adding them to their own following. The degree of celebrity worship can also be a determining factor to the amount of personal information shared. Sometimes users will believe that in order to get recognized by the celebrity, he/she must provide enough information about themselves, so that he/she will grow familiar and eventually the celebrity will initiate contact.

With the research provided, one should always take precautions when posting information on their Instagram profile, or really any type of social media. IG users in particular should minimize the intensity of their celebrity worship to reduce potential risks.

References

Kong, S. (2015). Instagram: The Real Stranger Danger.

Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Teens, privacy and online social networks: How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace.

Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Duggan, M., Smith, A., & Beaton, M. (2013). Teens, social media, and privacy. Pew Research Center, 21, 2-86.

Ethical Behaviour and Policy in Relation to Product Endorsement

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 20:51:00 +0000

So now that you know about some of the gimmick products female celebrities endorse, and how often people fall for those gimmicks, how do you feel? Probably angry, probably betrayed, maybe even a little bit distrustful. You’d be right to feel that way! While these women are cashing in their millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of women across the U.S. are shelling out their own hard-earned cash on products that make false claims. In fact, women are twice as likely to buy celebrity-endorsed products than men (Kirkova, 2014).

Not only is it deceiving to endorse gimmick products, but more often than not, posters don’t even disclaim that the post is sponsored and paid for in the first place! On one end of the spectrum, it’s sneaky and illegitimate, but on the other end, this can be downright dangerous (Knoll and Matthes, 2017)!

Perhaps most notably, in 2015 Kim Kardashian posted yet another selfie of her holding up a bottle of Diclegis, a supplement for morning sickness, and spouting off praises for this miracle drug to her then 40 million followers. She even continued to say “And most importantly, it’s been studied and there’s no increased risk to the baby!” What Kim KW didn’t disclose, whether intentionally or not, was any of the side effects or medical risks of the pharmaceutical supplement, a MAJOR clear-cut requirement upheld by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) (Kroll, 2015). As a result of the severe violation of the crucial legal rules regarding how drugs may be marketed, the FDA sent a warning letter to the pharmaceutical company saying the post was “false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for Diclegis, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts” (Kroll, 2015). Doctors and the FDA have statistically confirmed that there is no drug that comes without any medical side effects or risks, not to mention possible other drug interactions (FDA Testimony, 2001). This is a huge safety issue and luckily, the post was eventually edited and finally deleted.

Legally, advertising practices in the U.S. fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission. However the guidelines updated in May 2015 are merely that, guidelines (Wu, 2016). It’s a rough regulation system with no civil penalties involved and yet it has still been met with so much resistance. Ordinarily, all sponsored content is supposed to be marked clearly as such, but IG users don’t like to disclaim if a post is #sponsored or an #ad, because they feel that it makes their posts less organic*.

We can totally understand how disclaiming that your picture with a collection of twelve $55 tubes of lipstick (sent to you for free, along with $100,000 in cash) might make you seem less organic...

References

Kroll, D. (2015, August 11). FDA admonishes drug maker over Kim Kardashian instagram endorsement. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2015/08/11/fda-spanks-drug-maker-over-kim-kardashian-instagram-endorsement/#12dc5412b1b7

Testimony by John. M Taylor on Health Fraud. (2001, September 10). Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Testimony/ucm115204.htm

Health scams: Don't take the risk. (2015, September 28). Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForWomen/FreePublications/ucm137080.htm

Wu, K. (2016). YouTube Marketing: Legality of Sponsorship and Endorsements in Advertising. Journal of Law, Business Ethics 22, 59-92.

Knoll, J. & Matthes, J. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2017). 45: 55. doi:10.1007/s11747-016-0503-8

Kirkova, D. (2014, May 30). Are you swayed by a celebrity? Women buy twice as many celebrity-endorsed products as men. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2641476/Susceptible-women-buy-twice-celebrity-endorsed-products-men.html

Video I

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 01:31:00 +0000

Gimmick Products Used for Beauty, Body Image, and Weight Loss

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 20:50:00 +0000

With Instagram celebrities starting their own companies, and with more and more business adapting their marketing strategies to employ social media, it's not really that surprising that there are going to be a couple of products out there that are not so genuine. Combine that with the female perception that their physical appearance has to be flawless and continually improved or else they risk a life of unhappiness, and you get the gimmick products of the beauty world. A gimmick product is one that is primarily designed to attract attention, but with no substantial value. These products will offer something that's desirable to audiences, such as a hair product that will cause your hair length to triple in a week. As long hair is seen as a desirable trait in women, those who want to grow out their hair may fall prey to the marketing trap. Of course, these product claims are completely falsified and have no scientific evidence to support their claims.

Essentially, the gimmick product is a marketing ploy to trick unsuspecting, and naively trusting consumers to spend money on a useless pipe dream. It's bad enough seeing $80 vitamin supplements designed to make you lose 10 pounds in a week, but it's even worse when it's publicly endorsed by celebrities who should really know better. The problem is, they do know better, but they're also using their appearance and widespread popularity to make obscene amounts of money doing very little work.

Fit Tea, BioLips, Mr. Blanc Professional Teeth Whitening, and Waist Trainers, are all examples of specific gimmick products that celebrities endorse on their personal social media*. Generally speaking, these products tend to have a great interest in the external appearance of the buyer; thus, they are seen as solutions to the body image problems by celebrity's followers on Instagram.

While a number of celebrities actually use these products and believe that they work effectively, in reality, many of these spokespersons do not use these products and they promote them just to get paid for doing so.

Khloe Kardashian, showing off in a Waist Trainer

We all know that women love to have long and thick hair, and when they see a beautiful picture of Becca Tilley holding “Sugar Bear Hair” vitamins in both of her hand palms, they probably think that they have found the optimal solution for their weak and damaged hair. Becca Tilley encourages her followers to take two Sugar Bear Hair vitamins by ensuring them that “they taste like scooby doo snacks”.

Another cheap trick used by top influencers in the fitness world is calling "convenient timing". Often we see posts about specific fitness products, claiming to help lose weight in a very little amount of time. While it may seem too good to be true, there are plenty of photo testimonials proving the miracle product for weight loss. Except that there are a number of factors like lighting, time of day, time of last meal, clothing choice, and posture that can drastically change someones appearance in a matter of hours.

References

Levi, A. (2017, January 31). 12 before and after photos that will make you rethink everything you see on social media. Retrieved from http://www.health.com/fitness/body-positive-before-and-after-photos

Brown, K. (2015, July 21). The big bad world of products celebrities promote on instagram. Retrieved from http://jezebel.com/the-big-bad-world-of-products-celebrities-promote-on-in-1710470780

Bautch, H. (2016, July 25). 14 celebrity-endorsed products we would actually buy. Retrieved from https://www.dailybreak.com/break/celebrity-endorsed-products-we-want-to-try-list

Munson, R. (2015, August 17). Coco white: the teeth whitening kit the celebs are loving. Retrieved from http://www.look.co.uk/beauty/coco-white-the-teeth-whitening-kit-the-celebs-are-loving-37635

Specific Product Endorsements by Celebrities

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 20:23:00 +0000

Besides the effort that celebrities put into their professional careers nowadays, they also engage in supplementary projects that allow them to pursue their passions as a business endeavour, since their social status enables them to become the representative of their own brand. Most female celebrities undertake projects that involve fashion, beauty, or cosmetic products given that female celebrities are consistently critiqued on their physical attractiveness. Seeing that female celebrities are financially capable of funding their projects, they can hire specialists that possess essential knowledge, skills, and competencies in order to design, produce and manufacture beauty products. Some of these projects are currently well acknowledged and believed to be helpful and profitable in the customer market.

Top beauty influencer on Instagram, Huda Kattan, with approximately 17.5 million followers, created a career for herself by showing her followers how to enhance and reveal their beauty. The 32-year-old makeup artist owns a three-year-old product line named Huda Beauty. One of her most widely known products is a pair of false eyelashes that were launched in February 2013, which sold very fast in the Middle East, and have since been launched in the U.S. at large scale makeup distributors like Sephora. In her interviews, fashionista and entrepreneur Huda has said that the false lashes are all constructed by hand, and that the sales exceeded records on their first day of release. Huda launched her new liquid matte lipsticks in July 2016 after the release of her Huda Beauty Lip Contour Pencils in March 2016. The 16 liquid matte lipsticks come in one package and have the same shades as the lip contour pencils. The Dubai based makeup artist constantly posts pictures and short video tutorials on her Instagram account, showing how to apply the brand's products and teaching followers how to use them in order to get the desired makeup look.

Our second Instagram celebrity is known as Lilly Ghalichi, another beauty influencer with 2.5 million followers. Lilly is a businesswoman and uses her qualifications as an attorney and her role in the Shah’s of Sunset to her career advantage. In addition to Lilly’s co-ownership of the two well known fashion companies, Have Faith-Swimgerie and WantMyLook.com, she also plays a great role in designing for these two companies. Lilly has expanded her business ventures by developing her own product line, called ‘Ghalichi Glam’. Ghalichi Glam produces luxurious false eyelashes and voluptuous human hair extensions created and customized by Lilly, and are known as Lilly Lashes and Lilly Hair, respectively. Additionally, Ghalichi recently launched a new line of fashionable jewelry, that is known as the Lilly Ghalichi Collection by Avitan and Glampagne. Most of Lilly’s Instagram posts are pictures and videos about her and testimonials of her followers wearing her products.

References

Boyd, S. (2015, January 12). Ghalichi glam CEO Lilly Ghalichi adds to business portfolio. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/sboyd/2015/01/12/ghalichi-glam-ceo-lilly-ghalichi-adds-to-business-portfolio/#2fa3d6db4dc5

Wischhover, C. (2015, November 17). How entrepreneur and beauty sensation Huda Kattan handles insta-fame. Retrieved from http://fashionista.com/2015/11/huda-kattan-beauty-blogger

-->

12 celebs that have their own beauty lines. (2015, June 17). Retrieved from http://lookdamngood.com/12-celebs-who-have-their-own-beauty-lines/#

Negative External Effects on Instagram Users

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 21:42:00 +0000

--> Social media has been proven to negatively affect mental health and wellness, as well a general satisfaction for ones life. Moreover, we might all notice that Instagram is a waste of time, as studies show that when an Instagram user receives a notification about a new post, it then takes them about 20 to 25 minutes to get back to their previous task (Totka, 2016). But besides the effects on mental health (not like that's important, right?) IG can also have a heavy negative impact on your financial wellbeing, physical health, and personal relationships. Not only that but studies have shown that at least 127 deaths have been caused by taking selfies (Rocheleau, 2016). So, maybe put down the selfie stick for a bit? #deathbyselfie #yikes So we've already mentioned how ridiculous the celebrity endorsement side of IG is, but did you know that Instagram made $12.4 billion dollars last year (Griffith, 2016)? A majority of the revenue earned was from IG users 18-24 years old. Which, if you think about it, are definitely not the highest paid age group, considering they're mostly university students. So not only do celebrities trick you into buying products that don't work, but they get to keep your money, which probably would've been better spent on things like paying off your education, or investing for the future. Additionally, Instagram has the notorious ability to ruin social relationships. As discussed earlier, with celebrity worship, a lot of time gets sucked into "becoming a new you". Also, as a result of trying to become more like another person, you lose a part of yourself in the process. This leads to terminated friendships and romantic relationships because your friends and partners grew to love you for who you are, and not for the celebrity identity you're trying to portray. Popularity does not equal happiness. And neither does Instagram. With that said, IG can also ruin relationships through user image content and comments (Ridgway and Clayton, 2016). Many relationships have been ruined because of mistrust arising when a user gets a sexually suggestive comment on one of their photos. With younger and younger women posting sexually explicit or suggestive content, it becomes an issue of 'Where is this behaviour coming from?'. And the answer to that dilemma can be revealed in three words: their role models. -->

References

Griffith, E. (2016, December 12). Wall Street wants to know if instagram can make money. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2015/07/29/wall-street-wants-to-know-if-instagram-can-make-money/

Ridgway, J. L., & Clayton, R. B. (2016). Instagram unfiltered: Exploring associations of body image satisfaction, Instagram# selfie posting, and negative romantic relationship outcomes. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(1), 2-7. Rocheleau, M (2016, November 21). Deaths while taking selfies, 'killfies', are on the rise. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/21/deaths-while-taking-selfies-killfies-are-rise/LRAIYi4XdG7g3ox0IT46hI/story.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Totka, M. (2016) Is social media a crucial waste of time? Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/insights/2015/02/is-social-media-a-waste-of-time/

Video II

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 01:50:00 +0000

Psychological Effects for Instagram Followers

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 21:42:00 +0000

Constantly being exposed to pictures of highly sexualized, disproportionally skinny but curvaceous, beautiful scantily clad women all day, every day is exhausting. Not only does it make you feel unsuccessful, it forces you to compare yourself to others in an extremely unhealthy way (Langlois, Roggman and Musselman, 1994). This has contributed to high reports of body dissatisfaction in female IG users (de Vries et. al, 2016). While we’ve already discussed plastic surgery instance on women, we haven’t fully delved into the negative impacts on the psyche. Not only are women less confident in their body shapes, skin colours and sizes, they actually report a higher statistic of depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviours, and even aggression towards other women (Thorsteinsson, 2014). From a social comparison perspective, strangers’ positive posts on social media are expected to negatively affect viewers’ emotions, but from an emotional contagion perspective, strangers’ positive posts should positively affect viewers’ emotions (de Vries et. al, 2016).

Jealousy is the green-eyed monster nobody wants around, but that everybody experiences. However, for those who spend countless hours of the day staring at women with “better” lives, it’s something we’ve grown to live with on a daily basis. Depression and anxiety are often accompanied by feelings of inadequacy and a disconnect between reality and, well, paid advertisement (Vogel et. al, 2015). Instagram use was positively associated with depressive symptoms, and positive social comparison was significantly negatively associated with depressive symptoms (Fleck and Johnson-Migalski, 2015). Amount of strangers followed moderated the associations of Instagram use with social comparison (significantly) and depressive symptoms, and significantly moderated the indirect association of Instagram use with depressive symptoms through social comparison (Epstude and Mussweiler, 2009). People tend to present themselves in the most favourable light on social media and it's dangerous to compare someone else's "highlight reel" with your own journey to happiness.

References

Arnell, C. (2015, September 7) Instagram or instascam? Four ways instagram is having a negative impact on teenage girls. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/instagram-instascam-four-ways-having-negative-impact-teenage-arnell

de Vries, D. A., Möller, A. M., Wieringa, M. S., Eigenraam, A. W., & Hamelink, K. (2016). Social Comparison as the Thief of Joy: Emotional Consequences of Viewing Strangers’ Instagram Posts. Media Psychology, 1-24.

Epstude, K. and Mussweiler, T. (2009). What you feel is how you compare: How

comparisons influence the social induction of affect. Emotion, 9, p. 1-14.

Fleck, J., & Johnson-Migalski, L. (2015). The Impact of Social Media on Personal and Professional Lives: An Adlerian Perspective. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 71(2), 135-142.

Kleemans, M., Daalmans, S., Carbaat, I., & Anschütz, D. (2016). Picture Perfect: The Direct Effect of Manipulated Instagram Photos on Body Image in Adolescent Girls. Media Psychology, 1-18.

Langlois, J. H., Roggman, L. A. and Musselman, L. (1994). What is average and

what is not average about attractive faces? Psychological Science, 5, pp. 214-220.

Thorsteinsson, E. B., & Davey, L. (2014). Adolescents’ compulsive Internet use and depression: A longitudinal study. Open Journal of Depression, 3(01), 13.

Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Okdie, B. M., Eckles, K. and Franz, B. (2015). Who

compares and despairs? The effect of social comparison orientation on social media

use and its outcomes. Personality and Individual Differences, 86, pp. 249-256.

How Image Content is Unfavourably Affecting Adolescents and Youth

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 21:36:00 +0000

One of the most familiar forms of social infrastructure is Instagram. As parents, friends, and siblings we don't realize how large the negative impact Instagram content has on adolescents and youth. Just because social media sites have widespread popularity and growth, doesn't mean the various social platforms can be exercised in a healthy manner. Social media is now considered to be the norm, and is known as the "most common activity" of adolescents and youth. But the negative consequences of social media do not have to become the norm for adolescents and youth of today, as long as we can educate others on practices for mental wellness and positive body consciousness.

Image content on Instagram could lead users to visualize themselves comparatively to the images posted. As previously stated, this can depend on the level of celebrity worship. "Celebrity worship has been linked to body dissatisfaction, a higher frequency of voluntary cosmetic surgery (Maltby and Day, 2011) and eating disorders (Shorter et al, 2008)". Most image content viewed propagates the overt sexualization of females, a concept that equates a woman's personal worth to her physical attractiveness. Sadly, a majority of this content is perpetuated by the postings of female celebrities. These posts are viewed by hundreds of millions causing mass global influence and affect of imagery promoting female sexualization. The pictures of the 'perfect' bodies and faces posted on Instagram also have a harmful effect on the education of many teenage girls. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and obesity are often a result of negative body image. Often the resultant feelings of inadequacy associated with negative body image will result in the development of eating disorders, mental illness, exhaustion, decreased social involvement, and weak performance in school.*

Consequently, as a result of both male and female audiences, both genders end up with highly corrupted ideals, causing them to think that all females should look like society's impossible beauty standards suggest. Beauty standards include body structure and proportion, facial features, skin tone, clothing style, degree of sexuality, etc. This causes females to compare themselves to ridiculous standards, and whichever ways they don't match up with those standards will cause their self confidence levels to decrease, eventually leading to poor mental health development. Females in particular will feel pressured to take certain measures to change their physical appearance, in the hopes of boosting their confidence and self-esteem. Studies show that social media is the top influence when it comes to advertisements*. Instagram pictures and videos of the diverse gimmick products influence followers to spend money in order to achieve some desired attribute. This involves the purchase of beauty products, dressing in a different (often more sexualized) manner, and most worrying of all, undergoing plastic surgery to change physical appearance. The resulting sustained belief is that material objects and a traditionally beautiful appearance will lead to infinite happiness.

References

O'Keeffe, G. S., Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), 800-804.

Crossman, A. L. (2016). An investigation into the relationship between celebrity attitudes, social comparison and social media use.

McGillivray, N. (2015, October 12). What are the effects of social media on youth? Retrieved from https://turbofuture.com/internet/effects-of-social-media-on-our-youth

Celebrity Answers on Instagram Popularity & Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 21:42:00 +0000

Each one of us has a desire to discover more and more about celebrities’ personal life and their latest news. Celebrity interviewers are able to update us on what is going on with celebrities; they obtain the most appealing and interesting information from the stars.

Let’s share some of the interesting questions that were asked to some of the top IG celebrities...

The following questions were asked to top beauty influencer, Huda Kattan:

What has been your most popular Instagram post?

"The one that got the most comments for me

was a video I did on boob contouring. I think

I got 15,000 or 20,000 comments."

Do you edit, filter, or photoshop?

“Of course. I use Facetune. I always use it to

smooth out my skin. Everybody uses it. If they say

they're not I find it very hard to believe.”

Does it really take dozens of shots to get the perfect one?

“Oh my gosh, totally. I have taken a hundred pictures before.”

To IG celeb, Lilly Ghalichi:

How long does it take you to look so beautiful?

“Well, that depends, a glam day like today will take

anywhere from 2 to 2 and half hours but I don’t do

it myself, my hair and my makeup artist glam me

out and that takes a long time.”

Beauty product you can’t leave the house without?

“Hair Extensions! I love big hair so much, I even

created my own line!”

If you had to choose just one, what beauty product

has most changed your life do you think and why?

“I would have to say the beauty blender. It has literally

changed the world of makeup and how we apply it.”

To IG mega star, Kylie Jenner:

What is the biggest misconception you think people

have about you?

“Probably that I'm just super fake and that at 16/17, I got

my full face reconstructed and that I only care about

materialistic things.”

How does it feel to be considered a worldwide style and
beauty icon for generation Z?
“It's really crazy. I never really think about it until I'll do a
hair colour and then I'll see all my fans in the same hair colour.
It's just crazy how much influence I have. It's cool.”

When was the first time you realized the level of influence
you had on fans?
“I think it all started with my lips when I would overline them.
I didn't see one other girl wearing nude lipstick --
I didn't even care about the lipstick, I just wanted my lips to be bigger
-- and then I started seeing a bunch of girls wearing nude lipstick.”

References

Schreiber, A. (2016, April 5). Next jenneration: Kylie Jenner talks fame, family, and the future. Retrieved from http://www.papermag.com/kylie-jenner-paper-magazine-cover-story-1709513310.html

Wischhover, C. (2015, November 17). How entrepreneur and beauty sensation Huda Kattan handles insta-fame. Retrieved from http://fashionista.com/2015/11/huda-kattan-beauty-blogger

Video III

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 01:51:00 +0000

Top 10 Female Instagram Celebrities and Endorsement

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Sat, 04 Feb 2017 20:50:00 +0000

When it comes to the world of the celebrity, the worst thing is becoming irrelevant in the eyes of the public. Enter Instagram: a social media platform that allows celebs to post content for the whole world to see. As long posts are updated on a continual basis, followers are constantly reminded of the success, popularity, and of course, relevance of the celebrity Instagram user. This is also a clever way for corporations and celebrities to work together to promote both their fanbase and the newest upcoming product or brand.

Endorsements work like this: a company approaches a well-known influencer of the public to release a statement recommending a brand or specific product in exchange for a sum of money. Companies are banking on the influence of the endorser to increase overall advertising effectiveness and reach a larger audience, and on the fact that a recommendation from a celebrity will convince more people to buy their products. This is becoming a widely used marketing tool for companies in the beauty industry, especially because female celebrities are so celebrated for their physical appearance. In fact, statistics show that women are twice as likely to buy celebrity-endorsed products than men*. So naturally, many companies will pay top dollar in order to sign celebrities for even one Instagram post, because they will likely experience an increase in their return on investments due to increased sales levels, and potentially even an increase in company stock prices (Bergström and Bäckman, 2013).

Just how much money can a celebrity make for one endorsed Instagram post? Well, that depends on the number of followers they have. It makes sense that the greater the following, the greater the asking price, and with top celebrities having follower numbers in the hundred millions, that price can get pretty high. According to online sources, Beyonce Knowles made $50,000,000 for a multi year contract with Pepsi (Aubrey, 2016). It’s estimated that Kylie Jenner makes about $400,000 per sponsored Instagram post (Toronto Sun, 2016). That’s a lot of money for 100 characters and a selfie, but then again she does have an Instagram following of about 85.3 million and counting. So if you think you’ve got the stuff to overrule a celebrity, here’s a list of the Top 10 Most Popular Females on Instagram along with their current number of followers.

Don’t forget to fill out our poll for your favourite celeb!

1. Selena Gomez – 109,000,000

2. Taylor Swift – 97,000,000

3. Ariana Grande – 95,800,000

4. Beyonce – 93,900,000

5. Kim Kardashian – 91,800,000

6. Kylie Jenner – 85,300,000

7. Kendall Jenner – 73,700,000

8. Nicki Minaj – 73,300,000

9. Katy Perry – 60,200,000

10. Miley Cyrus – 60,000,000

References

Aubrey, A. (2016, June 7). This is how much celebrities get paid to endorse soda and unhealthy food. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/07/481123646/this-is-how-much-celebrities-get-paid-to-endorse-soda-and-unhealthy-food

Bergström, T., & Bäckman, L. (2013). Marketing and PR in Social Media: How the utilization of Instagram builds and maintains customer relationships.

Kardashians can make $400K per Instagram post: report. (2016, March 29). Retrieved from http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/29/kardashians-can-make-400k-per-instagram-post

Theories Associated with Celebrity Worship

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 20:41:00 +0000

The celebrity world is developing and being viewed through various resources of social media. This led to many people being interested in the idea of 'celebrity worship', which came about when research conducted suggested a strong correlation between celebrity worship and poor mental health (Crossman, 2016). An example of a source of social media that displays this correlation successfully and provides numerous resources to prove it, is Instagram.

Through habitual Instagram use, a load of users have been addicted to following popular and well-known Instagram personnel. It starts off by simply pressing the "follow" button, and the other Instagram user accepting. Once following occurs, there will have a high interest level, causing them to keep track of every single image or video posted by the person they are following. This may lead to an interest in becoming like the influencer, through attempting to look like them, dress like them, communicate like them, etc. Most of the time, these influencers are celebrities.

As previously stated, celebrity worship can be very detrimental to the individual worshipper. "Celebrity worship has been linked with body dissatisfaction, a higher frequency of voluntary cosmetic surgery (Maltby and Day, 2011) and eating disorders (Shorter et al, 2008). The intensity of worship leads to many theories coming into recognition. One proposed theory is named the 'parasocial relationship' (Rubin and McHugh, 1987). This theory explains the factors of a one-sided relationship, as the celebrity doesn't know that the person worshipping them has developed an obsession. McCutcheon then came along and added that this could also be described by his "absorption addiction" model which proposes that an individual unsatisfied and disappointed with various aspects of their life, can cause them to be 'absorbed' into the life of the celebrity (McCutcheon, 2002). This relates back to the individual having a poor mental health by causing "Emotional Contagion" (Epstude and Mussweiler, 2009). Essentially, the Instagram user will start to mimic every aspect of the celebrity's life, which could involve losing weight, distancing from loved ones, and more damaging long-term consequences to the individual.

Another way to justify the correlation between high exposure to the social content of others and poor mental health is the Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954). The theory suggests that Instagram users will start to compare themselves to celebrities for validation purposes. When the user starts to compare themselves to someone they wish to become based on their perceived success, it is called upward comparison*. This often contributes to the user feeling negatively about themselves, and with regular divulgence, it evolves to the extreme.

References

Crossman, A. L. (2016). An investigation into the relationship between celebrity attitudes,
social comparison and social media use.

Epstude, K. and Mussweiler, T. (2009). What you feel is how you compare: How
comparisons influence the social induction of affect. Emotion, 9, pp. 1-14.

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7,
pp. 117-140.

Maltby, J. and Day, L. (2011). Celebrity worship and incidence of elective cosmetic
surgery: evidence of a link among young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 49 (5),
pp. 483-489.

McCutcheon, L. E., Lange, R. and Houran, J. (2002). Conceptualization and
measurement of celebrity worship. British Journal of Psychology, 93, pp. 67–87.

Rubin, R., and McHugh, M. P. (1987). Development of parasocial interaction
relationships. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 31(3), pp. 279-292.

Shorter, L., Brown, S. L., Quinton, S. J. and Hinton, L. (2008). Relationships
between body-shape discrepancies with favoured celebrities and disordered
eating in young women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(5) pp. 1364–1377.

Introduction: What Is Instagram and What Are The Negative Effects?

noreply@blogger.com (Ledya Gorail) — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:02:00 +0000

With 600 million users and counting, Instagram has become an influential and widely known form of social media (Aslam, 2017). Instagram is essentially an online mobile photo-sharing site that enables users to post images and videos either privately or publicly. It also allows an individual user to share whatever they have posted to other social networking platforms. These platforms include Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr. Instagram is compatible for almost any device system (iOS and Android). It also allows online access from a computer, yet Instagram users are only permitted to upload and share videos or images from smartphone devices, on the mobile app. Instagram also has features like allowing posters to send vanishing photos and videos to followers, private messaging, and uploading short video "stories" visible for only 24 hours.

Users include people from countries all around the world, but is most predominantly used by citizens in the United States of America, with 77.6 million users (Aslam, 2017). Participants can include teenagers, adults, children, and even the elderly, however a large portion of these individuals are celebrities. This is one of the newest and most widespread trends of social e-marketing, and because of this, celebrities on Instagram are often accompanied by a massive following of online fans. As a result of their wide-scale popularity and the sheer volume of followers, celebrities have a big impact on their Instagram followers, and as we will discuss, that impact is primarily negative.

Current trends suggests that a correlation exists between celebrity worship and mental health, specifically, the more extreme the idolization, the higher the negative impact on psychological well-being (Mariella, 2014). Our social beauty standards are altered negatively through social media that involves countless photo sharing and comparison, the exact premise of Instagram. In terms of psychological and physical well-being, Instagram could potentially affect areas of dissatisfaction such as body image, self-esteem, elected cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, compulsive spending habits, and more as the list continues for other long lasting damages to mental wellness (Crossman, 2016).

Research has proposed multiple theories that validate the negative correlation, encompassing social comparison theory, parasocial relationships, symbolic capital, McCutcheon's theory, overweight preoccupation, and escapism. These theories will further be discussed in subsequent posts.

References

Aslam, S. (2017, January 23) Instagram by the numbers: Stats, graphics, and fun facts. Retrieved from https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/

Crossman, A. L. (2016). An investigation into the relationship between celebrity attitudes,

social comparison and social media use.

Mariella, A. (2014, June 24). How instagram is affecting the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/x-pro-ii-valencia-instagram-choose-neither/614571/