How do you feel about the relationship between social media, body positivity and buying products?
Laura Callaghan: It makes me feel a bit tired. Like any organic movement it’s only a matter of time before it is gussied up, stripped of political meaning and sold back to us. Body positivity seems to be flavour of the month with fashion and beauty retailers in particular, but somehow it’s been edited down to 'it's ok to have a slight muffin top now!' leaving race, ableism and trans issues at the door.
We’ve now got an endless stream of conventionally attractive hourglass shaped size 14 women being used as poster girls for “smashing the industry's beauty standards”. Change in the fashion or beauty industries happens in imperceptibly tiny increments so you could argue any progress is good progress but the idea that body positivity is somehow linked to buying body lotion and underwear is cynical in the extreme.
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/31153/1/the-artist-calling-bs-on-your-motivational-instagram-feeds
