No one said it better than pop singer Pink in her 2006 song Stupid Girls when she sang: “What happened to the dreams of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 Cent.” Indeed, while at the time of the song’s release many critics slammed Pink and told her that hers were just croakings of a doom that would never be allowed to come to pass, in 2017 there are few people in the world who haven’t heard of Kim Kardashian and even fewer who would be able to tell you what Alice Munro won a Nobel Prize for.

Spreading like an unchecked cancer, the commodification of everything under the sun, from our food to our literature, to our own bodies and thoughts is not only designed to keep us busy with the business of being as petty as possible but its end aim seems to be to keep our young as dumb and as superficial as possible – and what’s more, it’s proving to be incredibly successful. Just last week, there popped up a video of a woman dancing and having what appeared to be a good time; a few minutes later at least 20 young women were taking the time to laud her for being “inspirational” for being willing to dance on video although she wasn’t a size 8. And to be honest, I felt a little sick.

Nowadays, any idiot with a selfie stick and a nose job who’s able to make quick money out of selling their body is elevated to the tenuous heights of role model

In the not too far-off days of my teens, we were taught that women like Mother Teresa and Marie Curie were women to imitate: we aspired to read better books, understand more things and were told that our self-worth and self-confidence were more important than how “on fleek” our eyebrows looked.

Nowadays, however, any idiot with a selfie stick and a nose job who’s able to make quick money out of selling their body is elevated to the tenuous heights of role model. Confidence too is just another buzzword thrown around randomly by people who use social media likes as a currency. People go around saying that it’s brave to go out without make-up and I can’t help but despair.

Of course, it’s not wrong to admire someone for stepping out of their comfort zone and it is true that many people have their own very personal struggles with regards to their looks, but telling everyone who is not criminally insecure that they are inspirational just for dancing on video is doing much more damage than good, feeding the belief that they are in fact extraordinary despite the fact that have done nothing out of what should be considered to be entirely, painfully, ordinary.

There’s nothing wrong with looking at carefully curated photos and videos but once you start to conduct your life by those standards and expect everyone, including yourself, to look like Barbie, maybe it’s time to step away from the filter.

A little bit of perspective from every single one of us could go a long way and just in case some of you have lost it: people who find cures for diseases are inspirational, someone who’s greatest achievement is making a sex tape usually isn’t.

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