Recently I have been beginning to see photo uploads that have bothering me, and it all has to do with women uploading pictures to public networks with minimal clothing. My issue here is that intelligence is far more beautiful than showing excess amount of your skin in a mirror as a like drive.
We want ourselves to be respected by our peers and respected by men but we allow ourselves to fall into the trap of exactly what we have fought so hard against.
I am not by any means condemning women for uploading all photos of themselves wearing next to nothing, but I believe the purpose behind those uploads is what needs to be looked into further. Of course fitness professionals and models have pictures of themselves online with barely any clothes everyday. And their messages are very different from, “going to the gym to work on my abs”.
We all know that sex sells. It is easily the quickest way to memorably market your product. However you must remember that when the product is you, you are sending the message that you would prefer people to like you because of the way you look as opposed to your intellect.
I’ve got abs, I could upload a cheesy gym selfie in a crop top or in my bathes at the pool, but I don’t. I don’t because to me that is something that should be left for my private audience or even left off Social Media entirely. Let’s be clear, I am not hating on the private bathes shot on the isolated beach. I am simply bringing to light the amount of women who believe that public marketing their bodies is an effective way of gaining likes. I will not use my body on my public Social Media networks to drive my following.
What you decide to do on your personal Facebook with your friends is up to you, but what you do in the public sphere is completely different. Perhaps it is that coming from a background in Education, where a simple bathes shot could cause you to bring the ‘profession into disrepute’, that I believe that there is much more to a woman than her abs in a mirror.
I think of the public Social Media world as LinkedIn, you would never upload a profile photo of you in your bathes on LinkedIn. You would not do it because it is not professional and it does not send the right message. But on your public Instagram, you will upload several pictures of you just hanging out with your mid drift bare. Do you see the correlation?
Fitness professionals with fantastic weight loss stories, body building triumphs, marathons or swimming heats are more than able to upload skin revealing shots. As they create a story and send a message of becoming a powerful woman, however I still will make the statement that many of those shots will be just as powerful with fully clothed. (See example below) For obvious reasons, the swimmers should remain in bathing suits, as technically this is their professional uniform and totally acceptable.
To reiterate my point here, if you are marketing yourself through the use of your skin, be very careful about the message you are sending. Because as for me that message is much more credible if it is cultured from intelligence.
~Mango
“Send your daughter the message that she is intelligent and she will conquer all.”
Below is an example of a great gym selfie that we should see more of, as it sends a really strong and realistic message:
Mangoes World 
June 18, 2014 at 4:22 pm
Nice post!
The simple issue with this kind of behaviour is the draw to instant gratification and narcissism that unfortunately a large percentage of the younger generation who are drawn to social media are subject to. That in it’s self is another subject entirely but the two are closely linked, whether we like it or not.
Whether we think scantily-clad selfies on a social media outlet is a good strategy or not (I agree with you on this one) doesn’t change the fact that it works… a least in the short term. As a fine-art photographer who uses social media as my current primary marketing avenue, I see this first hand on a daily basis. While my work is now to a world-class standard, sales and marketing response in this particular arena remain low, while artists who can trade on their sex appeal (and who’s artistic work is quite often, but not always, below par) continue to gain more and more momentum. Whether the end user is hitting the like and share buttons based on the work being represented or in response to a holiday selfie with a hint of skin, at the end of the day doesn’t matter… in the short term. The product has gotten in front of more of an audience than if the product/artist/commodity/whatever is marketed off it’s own merit.
Thankfully word of mouth and viewing of my work in print drive my sales more than social media (which attracts unwanted wedding enquiries more often than not)… just not enough to throw in the IT admin towel and scour the globe full-time.
June 18, 2014 at 4:41 pm
I couldn’t agree more!!!
It’s why it annoys me because I work with my own brand and that of others and at not point do I use my body to gain popularity on those pages.
To say the least you’d be hard pressed to find a complete photo of me on my blog, twitter or any other public Social Media page.
But it is very generational and unfortunately that will come to bite them in the bottom. Good luck to the sexy women when they want to get a job.