So, I have been watching this app for a little while now, and I stopped watching it because it was funny, but I started watching it for research purposes. I talked about in another article on here the way that it was taking sexuality and making videos basically coming out to their family and friends and turning it into a casual thing that in any other time, people would not just scroll through. In this article, I am going to talk about how it exposes people, willingly, obviously they are the ones making the videos. Also, how I made a video just to test it out, and while it was extremely hard to make, and I am now questioning my computer skills, it did, in some way, help.
I have been watching these videos on the app, that are to sad songs, or songs about how they have changed. I know that there is the 'personality change check,' but there is this new one that again, combats gender roles in the media. These kids, and I have yet to come across someone that was my age or anything, are making compilation videos/pictures of themselves crying, and then when the song picks up, shows how they are doing now, usually happy and having fun with friends. To me, this is combating gender roles in the media, because although most of the videos are made by girls, there are guys doing it too. Showing themselves crying over a girl, and then them happy once they got over the breakup. Or guys crying over guys, and girls crying over girls as well. Gender roles that have been in place are the threatened masculinity of men being emotional, like they aren't allowed to have feelings because it doesn't make them a 'man.' Girls, who are supposed to be emotional over breakups, are now getting used to, at a young age, the concept of being rejected/broken up with, and even though they are dealing with it in a very exposing public way, they are showing all girls that men (or other girls) aren't going to ruin your life, and that relationships aren't everything. There are even videos of girls crying over guys, they were so messed up from the relationship that they started turning to girls, and talking about being bisexual or lesbian.
Gender roles in the media are always going to be on the forefront of most images, but for an app that was meant for comedy, this has turned out to be the place where most of these younger teens are learning early on in their life, more about their sexuality, gender roles, and emotional responses then people my age that took us ten years to learn. Social media is not always good, but there are parts of it that are totally changing the way that gender roles and body image can be made into a positive thing.
