I don't generally listen to any podcasts but I know that one of the youtubers I watch does make them so I decided for this task I would review one of her podcast episodes. I chose her most recent one as of the day I am writing this which is centred around the topic of social media as I figured I would be able to have an input on her ideas since I use social media regularly. This podcast is by Emma Chamberlain and is called Anything Goes, each episode she discusses a different topic but this particular one as mentioned above is about social media.
She starts off the podcast by talking about how she was scrolling through her TikTok page and came across a video where a random guy had wrote 'these are the prettiest girls I've ever seen' and she was in that video. Out of impulse she clicks on the comments to find that the majority of comments where asking why he mentioned Emma in his post, talking about how she isn't pretty and she looks really young, they also said that she is ugly/doesn't shower etc. This made her go over to her Instagram and wonder what people were seeing of her since they haven't seen her in person only through YouTube videos. She found that she was knit picking her pictures and wanting to delete pictures. This lead to her archiving pictures so other people couldn't see them and she was upset about how she looks. Her self-esteem went down and she mentions how she was upset for a couple of days and mentions how she previously has suffered with body dysmorphia.
She goes on to mention how social media is so focused on looks and appearance rather than personality. I think that by somebody with a big platform like her (she has 8.7million subscribers on YouTube and 8.9million on Instagram), who is still young (she's 18) is important as people always see celebrities or influencers/youtubers as though they are different to us, like they are on a pedestal and I think that by her talking about her struggles is important because it lets normal people realise that they aren't feeling like this alone, that other people feel this way too. She talks about how she feels that its a really weird thing to feel that way since she cannot change her appearance and that everyone is born the way that they are and they cant necessarily change who they are/what they look like.
She mentions the two different readings that people can have from this, they can either look at it in a self deprecating way and be upset about all the things that they cannot change, or they can look at it in a positive way and appreciate themselves for who they are. Although she mentions how it is harder to do the latter, I think its important that she uses her platform for positive reasons as such. Rather than hiding from it and pretending about everything being fine and not discussing the issue she bring awareness to it and makes people feel as though it is normal to feel this way.
These podcasts don't have any structure to them its really just her talking about something which happened to her and just discussing her feelings. I prefer this to if it was being set out in a way in which it seems as though it seems like it is staged. By it being her just discussing her feelings it feels much more authentic to listen to. I feel as though this makes the audience to connect with what she is saying on a deeper level as it is clear to tell that she is speaking from her genuine experiences.
Comments