Vanity Or Self-love
My mother owns a Land Rover Defender with a sexy dark green exterior and an interior suffering from a few run-down appendages she calls “character.” The seats are fabric and wide, the passenger side permanently stuck in the farthest position it can slide back. It’s no companion of silence, rumbling and grumbling in protest like a grumpy old man watching a group of skateboarders. But besides its few flaws, this German World War II vehicle is a force on the road, attracting the attention of the people it passes.
On a random Tuesday, my mother and I loaded our dogs into the Defender and drove up to a field on one of our local mountains. Once the dogs tired out from running back and forth chasing balls and the odd squirrel making a break for it from one side of the field to the other, we loaded them back into the car and headed home. Zoned in on the world within my phone, my thoughts were naturally elsewhere than putting on my seat belt. My mother looked at me as if asking, are you forgetting something?
Did I put on my seat belt? We aren’t going that far, and I actually think it’s stuck, I said. I made no effort to try and unstick the [insert finger air quotes] “stuck” seatbelt. Did I think about what would happen if we got in an accident, that I’d fly through the windshield, scarring my face forever? Was that what I really wanted? Although her voice pitch increased at the end of each sentence indicating a question, it was rhetorical. No, I guess not, I said. Who wants to look in the mirror every day and see a face covered in scars? No one, I said.
On the short drive home, seat belt nice and tight, I reran the conversation through my head over and over. It was interesting to me how one of my mother’s main concerns of getting in a car crash that could accumulate enough force to send a human body through a windshield was a scarred face. Also interesting was how this was too a main concern of mine. I wonder if it was some sort of freaky mother-daughter union of vanity or if it was also a main concern for the general public. You know what they say, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
It’s no revelation that today’s society is deeply consumed by looks. Compared to many centuries ago, the progression of jobs based on appearances has increased exponentially. Not to mention our recent generations’ upbringings alongside social media. We are truly living in a society so consumed and reliant on appearance, that it can even hinder one’s ability to get a job. Appearances such as the way our skin looks, as I am sure many Millennial and Gen Z kids grew up being told by their parents, “no one is going to hire you if you’re covered in tattoos.”
A recent Tiktok video has surfaced the idea of “pretty privilege.” The concept that the better-looking someone is, the more privilege they are likely to have. It’s no surprise that in today’s society, something that people have basically no control over could be dependent on the opportunities available to them. In society, it would appear that we oftentimes judge people on the way they look, the exterior, before understanding the interior, similar to my mother’s Defender. People are more focused on the car’s looks than what actually makes it function, noticing the way it stands out on the road and the shiny dark green paint job, without understanding that on the inside it’s actually not doing too great. Today, many people are faced with the reality that they have to uphold certain beauty standards to ensure they mold into society. We are all chasing after something that is plainly a portal to vanity and narcissism. Or is it? Is this flaw in society a way for us to express vanity or is it potentially an opportunity for us to demonstrate self-love?
Prior to the 14th century, vanity simply meant futility. As the years progress and appearances became more pivotal to life, it has become a term surrounding the basis of narcissism and self-obsession. With the new age of social media and the desire to present a perfect life through posts and photos, it’s no surprise that a scarred face would be the main concern. The growth of the online world allows users to strategically post photos and videos that display only a small percentage of one’s life, making it easier to show the good parts over the bad. In an article by the Guardian, however, psychologist Lucy Clyde state she believes due to the new age of social media, we are more aware of the narcissistic tendencies that everyone has. It’s not social media that is uprooting society’s vanity but rather it is only highlighting them. Is the new digital age an obvious expression of people’s vanity and self-obsession or is it a form of self-love? Since Clyde believes we already have a certain degree of vanity within us, could posting pictures and videos of yourself be a way to show positive self-love? Or is it only an outward expression and display of one’s vanity and narcissism? There is no definite answer as to whether our infatuation with appearances is either. It would seem plausible that the only way to answer that question would be through the individual. We live in an era of individualism, a sort of renaissance honoring the individual self and body. Therefore, to seek an answer to a question of vanity and self-love based on the collective would be redundant as both terms are singularity-based.