Decoding the Instagram Beauty Standard | Day 32 of 90

Beauty standards, like fashion, change over time. In the days before we had social media, beauty habits were dictated by where you lived and your ethnicity. You were pretty much isolated. Your only influence could have been your mom, the town’s local hot girl, or her royal highness, the Queen.

But in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, magazines became a thing and women were exposed to a new form of being influenced. However, it wasn’t until the 40s and 50s that Hollywood stars began appearing in magazines and on TV. And it was in that moment that celebrities in traditional media began to dictate the ideal beauty standard.

Fast forward to 2019 and these days social media IS the media. And platforms like Instagram can tell us exactly who is the most followed and therefore the most influential at this very second. Naturally, these influencers have now become the new beauty standard. But what exactly is the new beauty standard? Like when people in the future look back at 2019, what will they say was the ideal body type?

Well, I decided to find out for myself! And I wanted to make it as scientific as one possibly can when looking at beauty standards. First, I made a list of the Top 100 female Instagram stars purely based on following. FYI the #1 spot currently goes to Ariana Grande at 164M followers, next is Selena Gomez at 156M followers and Kim Kardashian at 148M followers.

Then I came up with 22 attributes that each woman would be judged on. These included things like:

Hair color
Hair length
Neck length
Face shape
Body shape
Eye color
Clothing size
Flatness of stomach
Lip size
Eye size
Nose size
Skin color
Chest size
Prominence of butt
Age
Height…etc

I worked with a fellow researcher to get as accurate an answer as possible per attribute. Things like height were straightforward and easy to find online. (Thanks Google!) But other things like chest size and prominence of butt were more subjective, so we had to do our best by analyzing the influencer’s latest pictures on Instagram.

After a couple weeks of gathering data and categorizing data, I can tell you that there is most definitely a formula and a specific beauty standard that the 100 most followed women on Instagram adhere to. It’s fascinating but also, incredibly eerie in a time when you would think social media has evened the playing field for women of all body types, sizes, ethnicities and skin color.

So, are you ready to hear the results? Here’s the beauty breakdown of your top 100 most followed females on Instagram!

The most common age is 22 years old.

The most common height is 5’7”.

She has dark eyes. 75% of the Top 100 female Instagrammers have brown or black eyes.

She has big eyes. Only 15% of the Top 100 female Instagrammers have small eyes.

She has dark hair. 78% of the Top 100 female Instagrammers have black or brown hair. Only 20% are blonde and 2% are redheads.

Her hair length reaches mid back. Mid back is the most popular cut, coming in at 48% while the 2nd most popular hairstyle is shoulder length coming in at 30%.

She has a flat stomach, but she is not muscular. Only 9% of the top 100 female Instagrammers have abs with definition. 79% have plain flat abs with no definition. Only 11% have soft bellies or rounded bellies.

She does not have thin lips. Only 29% of the top 100 have thin lips. But in the top 10, thin lips drops to only 10%.

She is a light skinned Caucasian. Only 8% of the top 100 female Instagrammers are black.

She does not have a flat chest. 89% of the top 100 have a have boobs that are a B cup or higher.

She has a heart shaped face with a pointy chin. Heart shaped is the most popular, then oval, then square, then round.

She has a small nose. 93% of the top 100 have small noses.

She has an hourglass figure. The most popular body shape is hourglass followed by thin and straight aka rectangle.

She has a long neck. More than 72% have long, slender necks.

I think you can begin to see the ideal Instagram beauty standard in your head, right? But in case you’re having trouble visualizing, no worries, I’ve already done the work for you!

To take this whole project a step further, I decided it would be interesting to turn myself into a Top 100 female Instagrammer. But I needed a little help.

I picked a makeup tutorial on YouTube that had the craziest before and after thumbnail and pretty much just went for it. I used this video called “How to be a catfish in 2019…GLAM AF MAKEUP TUTORIAL” by Hannah Renée. This was the first time in my life that I have ever followed a makeup tutorial from start to finish, so I was kinda excited and kinda terrified.

For clothes, I went shopping at juniors fast fashion stores like Forever 21 and Love Culture and picked the most outrageous influencer-y looking things I could find – like lots of gold jewelry and these ridiculous (but I have to admit, kinda awesome) rhinestone sneakers!

After I put on my clothes and stuffed my Victoria’s Secret industrial strength pushup bra with chicken cutlets, I asked my Instagram husband (Sam) if he could shoot some photos of me looking like a typical influencer. This was actually really funny to do!! Then after 20 minutes of self-indulged posing, I picked the most influencer-y looking photos and sent them off to our resident artist Daniel and asked him to photoshop my features to match those of the top 100 female Instagrammers.

Are you ready to see what I’d look like if I were a top 100 female Instagrammer?

My face:

Below you can see from right to left, me with no makeup, me with Glam AF makeup, and me with Photoshop. You can see that my face is more heart shaped, my brows are cleaner, my eyes look more caucasian, my nose is smaller, my lips are bigger, and my boobs are bigger.

My butt:

As you can see, my boobs were pushed up and my butt got some major enhancement!

My body:

From right to left, me with no makeup, me with Glam AF makeup, and me with photoshop. Wider hips, bigger boobs, heart shaped face, bigger eyes, smaller nose, longer neck.

So why did I go through all the trouble doing this research? Well, I wanted to see how the beauty standards of today’s era have changed – if at all. I find it interesting that being blonde and blue eyed is no longer the desired beauty ideal according to Instagram. But I also find it interesting that in the era of the body positive revolution, only 5 out of the top 100 female Instagrammers were plus size. And in the top 10, ZERO were plus size.

It’s weird because Instagram is a place of free will. We choose to follow who we idolize. No media company or advertising agency is telling us who’s beautiful and who’s not, and yet we still are somehow adhering to the old beauty standards of idolizing light skinned, large chested women with big eyes, and small waists.

One could argue that many of the top 100 are females in the entertainment industry, so the beauty standards are actually dictated by men sitting in a conference room at some big record label or movie studio. But even so, the first two non actress, non singer, and non Kardashians to break into the top 100 is Hudabeauty at 39 million followers and Lele Pons at 36 Million followers. Both are light skinned, large chested women with big eyes and small waists.

Interesting right?

I wonder what the next beauty ideal will look like 10 years from now and 100 years from now. Leave a comment below and make your predictions!

Yesterday’s Recap:

My Fit Journal entry says that I am STILL BLOATED!!!! I called up my friend who has written books on Keto and he advised that I start taking probiotics and get this – eating more salt! He said it sounds counterintuitive but my electrolytes are probably off so I need to monitor my salt intake.

Yesterday I started off the morning with an 8am circuit training class with Sam, Jason, and Lucia! I am starting to get better at pull ups and faster rowing! WHOO!!!

When I went home, I had some raspberries. Look how beautiful they are.

Brunch consisted of 3 mini egg thin quesadillas with salsa plus a side of bacon with butter lettuce.

I was in major editing mode and needed a fun drink, so I made myself a matcha collagen drink with nut milk!

Since brekkie was on the smaller side, I made another meal! I made cauli rice with paleo sausage and butter lettuce with jalapeño sauce. Oh yes, and sriracha, DURR.

I was def in a snacky mood yesterday. I always am when I have to be on the computer so much! I had been editing the beauty standards video for a day and a half at this point, so I needed more brain fuel! I had seaweed crisps with baba ganoush and…

Keto ice cream!

For dinner, we ordered from a steakhouse and I had koobideh with mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, grilled broccoli and grilled squash. SO good!!!!

Okay off to drink some tea to calm my belly. No idea what is going on but it hurts still, and I am bloated still. SO WEIRD!!!! I’m currently reading through your suggestions on my last blog post – thank you for all of your help!

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