In the era of social media, celebrities have more influence over our purchases than ever before. If you’re active on Instagram or Twitter, you may have spotted Kim Kardashian promoting her Skims Waist Trainer, or Flat Tummy Co’s Appetite Suppressant Lollipops. She claims these products have attributed to her figure and her confidence.
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| Kim advertising "Appetite Suppressant Lollipops" on Instagram |
Philosopher Harry Frankfurt examines people who fake things in the way that Kim does, bluffing about the aesthetic results of waist trainers and appetite suppressants. He calls these not lies, but “bullshit”.
"The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise...in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to” writes Frankfurt in On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit.
With over 157 million followers, Kim Kardashian is the 7th most followed person on Instagram. Her audience is mainly young women, a demographic that is especially vulnerable to messaging about body image.
Kim takes advantage of this to make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of each sponsored post, in addition to selling her very own waist trainers at $68 each. As Frankfurt suggests, she is misrepresenting her intentions by acting like she wants to help women gain confidence while really making money off of their insecurities.
The products she promotes are even potentially dangerous. Doctors warn that prolonged use of waist trainers can lead to health problems by displacing the internal organs, and the "appetite suppressant" in Flat Tummy Co's lollipops is not proven by research to work.
Shannon Vallor, another philosopher, studies virtue ethics with regards to social networking technology. “Honesty,” she writes, “is the willingness in words and deeds to put one’s authentic self in play”.
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| Twitter users @etherealbunny and @GraceSpelman criticize Kim for her promotion of appetite suppressants |
Kim has received a lot of backlash from those who recognized her attributing the way she looks to these products as bullshit. These reactions support Vallor’s point that people value honesty on social media, finding discomfort with her lack of authenticity because they trust the influencers they follow to promote safe and effective products.
Great Blog! I like how you control the flow between the storytelling and the argument you want to mention. The fact that the celebrity who has this level of influence can do a lot of things rather than being a bullshitter and the quotation from Frankhurt can be supportive on your case that they deceived us in a "certain way". Maybe a way to improve this blog is more opinions from yourself, which makes it less academic and more readable to normals.
ReplyDeleteComparing this post to the original version, I really think you did an amazing job with the revision! You did a great job of incorporating the Frankfurt point throughout, rather than just mentioning the quote in the middle like the first draft. Also, I like the addition of Vallor's piece too, because it is also super relevant and shows how much the topic is related to ethics as we have studied them in class. Further, you clearly introduced who the authors were rather than throwing them in there in the other one, which is a helpful detail! Overall it seems like you really got the hang of the blogging in the way that Professor Conway wanted us to do it, great job!
ReplyDeleteI think you make a good revision compared with the original post. In this version, you make more connection between the reading and Kim Kardashian’s example. And I do like the new typesetting. You did a great job on finding resources that related to your posts and those links are very helpful. It would be better if you can add your opinion to Kim’s advertising instead of using third person. Overall I really like your post.
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