ui.cantik : a perspective from someone who isn’t

Imagine 25 to 30 years from now you’re sitting in your front porch with your child who just got accepted to university and to give him/her a little picture of how university life would be like you and your spouse start reminiscing those good old days and then a memory pops out of nowhere about that time your best picture along with your name and major got posted in that prestigious account.Your kid would teasingly not believe it, or he/she would have no idea whatsoever about those accounts. The three of you would just laugh it off because it is something entertaining, funny and just does no harm but why is it a big deal now?

The rage started when one of the account admin was accused as being politically affiliated with…something or someone (sorry i did not fully keep up with the story) and it made people furious because of many reasons, especially him/her getting money by endorsements and ads by posting pictures of people who might not even know about it. I remember people making posts about it, analyzing it, debating and even threatening with evidence, theories and even testimonies from the people who were in it.

Before this happened, nobody had a problem with the account. It was just for fun and some girls took it seriously because being in that account, you would get more recognition and fame than being in those huge banners in front of the train station, in my opinion though, i’ve never been in those two things. To be honest, I was once in a situation where my friends and I were DESPERATELY trying to get my friend in, hey you would also take pride and joy by being close to an ui.cantik right? and also since my faculty’s girls rarely get in, (we all know where them ui.cantik at) it would also be an achievement ! It was just for fun and she never got it in but it is okay. Thankfully we were okay, joking around and was only determined for a night. But,

What if someone, somewhere was very very obsessed with the title ui.cantik?

What if she gets upset by not being in it?

What if someone wanted the title since she was in highschool?

What if she got jealous of someone who was in it?

What if she feels less confident by being next to someone who is?

Those are terrible thoughts nobody should have in their minds! I hope nobody has them, obsessed and upset because of an account who doesn’t even have a clear and right procedure of selection.

In my opinion, I get it that in college years we want to be seen, validated and many more, we want so much, we demand that we should achieve more, look better and have an excellent profile all around. The account is just a media to fulfill those things but in my opinion, it is very hard to change people’s perspective about beauty, in a very short amount of time. Let the account’s admin think that the girls he/she posted is beautiful, but the account is very popular that we unconsciously believe that looking like them is the only definition of beautiful.

Since we can not change the mainstream standard of beautiful why don’t we start by ourselves, promise to be beautiful in our own way, time and never feel down because nobody “claimed” us to be categorized as beautiful. Keep in mind that unlike health, beauty doesn’t really have clear indicators to categorize someone with “very beautiful”, “beautiful”, “less beautiful”, “not beautiful”. I know it sounds like bull’s crap but what I’m trying to say is people’s definition of beautiful will remain similar through the years and it is very hard to change it so don’t force yourself, hurt yourself to fit the definition because it is too boring and mainstream, be your own kind of beautiful, you don’t need someone, an account or even an institution to set the barriers and standards. Here and there people will have opinions about how you look, your face, your body as long as you’re confident you do know how to respond to it, the positives ones and the not so positives one.

No one is to be blamed in this case, the account is based and grew large because of people’s perspective of beauty and if the whole political thing did not happen at all, I’m sure the account will be just fine because, who cares about young woman’s self esteem and online safety, right? Even if someone did care, why didn’t it blow up so much it would suspend the account?

It is a relief that the account got suspended, I’m sure we learned a thing or two from this case