While users certainly need to be wary of anyone who looks too perfect to be real, there are some great TikTok accounts and trends that help to promote a positive self-image.
Flaws are Beautiful
The TikTok trend known as “Flaws are Beautiful” is all about loving yourself and seeing even your least favourite features as beautiful. Users share photos of their least favourite physical attributes alongside photos of famous pieces of artwork that feature people with similar features. For example, as a curvy woman I might post my picture alongside famous renaissance paintings of women with similar body types. This trend serves as a reminder that all people are beautiful and that current social media beauty trends are nothing compared to the examples of timeless beauty found in history.
Celebrating Yourself
There’s nothing better for your self-esteem than appreciating all parts of yourself. The TikTok trend that answers the question, “Have you celebrated yourself today?” prompts users to post a video showing their strongest, sexiest, favourite, and most important parts of their bodies as well as a part of themselves that they would never change. TikTokers happily join in with their own self-appreciation of their strong legs, smart minds, and kind hearts. Not only does celebrating yourself feel great but cheering on others who are doing the same is an incredible boost as well.
Taking Control of Your TikTok Feed
There are quite a few TikTokers to follow that are focused on self-love and acceptance. To keep your TikTok feed full of positivity, make sure that you are interacting with videos that promote self-esteem and acceptance. If you follow, like, and comment on these types of accounts, the algorithms that curate your TikTok feed will show you more of the positive videos and fewer of the videos that you are trying to avoid.
Purposefully looking for a variety of TikTokers to follow helps you to feel more included and accepted in the social media world. Search out accounts that include differently-abled TikTokers, people with different body shapes and sizes, individuals from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, and a wide range of strong women who you admire. Search for #selflove to find some positive accounts to follow to get you started. From there, you can branch out and explore the accounts that your favourite women also follow.
Social media can be terrible for self-esteem, but it is in your power to make it as positive as possible. Join in on the trends that help you to feel great about yourself and skip over the accounts and trends that don’t. Remember that TikTok and other social media platforms should be fun and enjoyable! Ignore the content that seems fake and/or highly edited and focus on real people living their real lives.
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