A few days ago my friends and I went to Gradball - we got dressed up and went out to this end of year event because we've finally finished university (YAY!). We had a great time and took tons of pictures.
Today I decided to upload one of those to my Facebook as my profile picture; this one to be exact:
In this photo, I feel confident. I love my smile, I love the fact that I have a tan (a rare occurrence), I like my hair, my makeup, I like everything about this picture.
What I didn't expect was to upload it to Facebook and get comments about it being 'too revealing'. Albeit most of these comments were from family but to me that didn't make it any better.
Yes, this is not the kind of photo I would normally take or post on social media but, whether that is the case or not, what is to say that I shouldn't when I feel hella good in it?
There was a comment that said I needed to put more clothes on, another that said it was a bit revealing and one that said I should put my boobs away. First of all, there is barely any boob on show in my opinion, just skin, and why can't I post a picture where god forbid there's some kind of skin showing in it anyway, when it's okay for a man to post a picture of himself topless? Or it's okay for another girl to post a picture of herself in a bikini? Are neither of those revealing? Because I rarely see comments on those photos telling them so.
Personally when I see pictures of other people, like the one I took, or even just pictures where someone's wearing a beautiful dress or looking very dapper in their suit, I tend to look and think 'wow, they look amazing'. Not once have I ever considered telling them they have too much skin on show.
I'm a self conscious person at the best of times, so the fact that I looked at this picture and thought that I looked confident and happy in it made me happy, but then comments telling me to 'put it away' made me question that, leaving me feeling less than happy about the photo in the end. I debated taking it down and just changing it back to my old picture (where I'm wearing a jumper so there can be no arguments about revealing too much there - although if I was to have had that picture taken standing up I was wearing a skirt, so I guess that outfit would probably be too revealing as well), but then I came to the conclusion that why should I?
Not nearly enough people in this world have enough confidence, never mind body confidence and, I'm not going to lie, it's not something I have a lot of either, but if I feel good in this picture then I shouldn't let a few comments change my mind about that.
I know that none of the comments made were meant to make me feel less confident or less happy with myself but that doesn't change the fact that they did. They made me question myself. It may not be the kind of picture I would normally post but that doesn't mean I shouldn't post it. Since when did showing off some skin become such a taboo thing in the 21st century? I've seen plenty of celebrities online and in magazines wearing outfits that are a lot more revealing than a bit of my chest so surely I cannot be seen as a bad influence to any of the young people in my family that might see this photo - surely, if anything, it should be a good thing for them to see someone looking confident and happy with themselves.
So many people of all ages, but especially younger people, have problems with their self-esteem because of celebrities and their friends at school. They need to know that it's okay to be happy with yourself. One young girl in my family has just got Facebook, she's only eleven but she pouts in nearly every photo and everybody is always telling her she doesn't need to pout to be beautiful but she always replies saying yes she does. Is that how we want such a young generation to think? That they have to be like everyone else and think they have to act a certain way to be beautiful? They don't. Everyone is beautiful when they're themselves.
Confidence is beautiful.
Katie x
