Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
How do filters and flawless selfies affect our personal ideas about beauty? And what can we do when social media makes us feel anything but beautiful?
Join Emma Dabiri, author, sociologist, and social media user, as she delves into the complexities of beauty standards accelerated by the digital age.
Dabiri offers five tips that have helped her break free from mainstream beauty ideals and redefine beauty on her own terms.
This video has been made to accompany The Cult of Beauty exhibition – showing at Wellcome Collection until 28 April 2024 – as well as the publication of Disobedient Bodies, a book written by Emma Dabiri and published by Wellcome Collection.
For more information on The Cult of Beauty: wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/ZJ1zCxAAACMAczPA
For more information on Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri: wellcomecollection.org/books/ZO7vDxEAACYAjU5t
0:00 - Intro
0:33 - Social media, self-esteem and representation
01:41 - Tip 1: focus more on inner beauty
02:11 - Tip 2: cultivate community
02:40 - Tip 3: recognise the importance of group activities
03:31 - Tip 4: surround yourself with beauty
04:02 - Tip 5: Dispense with the 'defect' mindset
#TheCultOfBeauty #WellcomeCollection
Music: Nkisi, Lament II (instrumental)
*Artist credits:*
An Algorithmic Gaze II, 2023, by Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm: instagram.com/artificialmind_ai
Steam, The Bully Pulpit, Haley Morris-Cafiero, 2019, Courtesy the artist and TJ Boulting: instagram.com/hmorriscafiero
Permissible Beauty, 2022, © RCMG / Soup Co [film stills] / © Robert Taylor [production stills] / Reproduced with permission of RCMG, University of Leicester/ Soup Co. [new photography] instagram.com/permissiblebeauty
‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, Beauty unravelled in the virtual scroll’, Xcessive Aesthetics, 2023: instagram.com/xcessiveaesthetics
Beauty Sensorium, 2023, Renaissance Goo x Baum & Leahy, commissioned by Wellcome Collection: instagram.com/baumleahy and instagram.com/profjillburke
How do filters and flawless selfies affect our personal ideas about beauty? And what can we do when social media makes us feel anything but beautiful?
Join Emma Dabiri, author, sociologist, and social media user, as she delves into the complexities of beauty standards accelerated by the digital age.
Dabiri offers five tips that have helped her break free from mainstream beauty ideals and redefine beauty on her own terms.
This video has been made to accompany The Cult of Beauty exhibition – showing at Wellcome Collection until 28 April 2024 – as well as the publication of Disobedient Bodies, a book written by Emma Dabiri and published by Wellcome Collection.
For more information on The Cult of Beauty: wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/ZJ1zCxAAACMAczPA
For more information on Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri: wellcomecollection.org/books/ZO7vDxEAACYAjU5t
0:00 - Intro
0:33 - Social media, self-esteem and representation
01:41 - Tip 1: focus more on inner beauty
02:11 - Tip 2: cultivate community
02:40 - Tip 3: recognise the importance of group activities
03:31 - Tip 4: surround yourself with beauty
04:02 - Tip 5: Dispense with the 'defect' mindset
#TheCultOfBeauty #WellcomeCollection
Music: Nkisi, Lament II (instrumental)
*Artist credits:*
An Algorithmic Gaze II, 2023, by Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm: instagram.com/artificialmind_ai
Steam, The Bully Pulpit, Haley Morris-Cafiero, 2019, Courtesy the artist and TJ Boulting: instagram.com/hmorriscafiero
Permissible Beauty, 2022, © RCMG / Soup Co [film stills] / © Robert Taylor [production stills] / Reproduced with permission of RCMG, University of Leicester/ Soup Co. [new photography] instagram.com/permissiblebeauty
‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, Beauty unravelled in the virtual scroll’, Xcessive Aesthetics, 2023: instagram.com/xcessiveaesthetics
Beauty Sensorium, 2023, Renaissance Goo x Baum & Leahy, commissioned by Wellcome Collection: instagram.com/baumleahy and instagram.com/profjillburke
