It's a New 'Jenner-ation'

Jackie Vlahos

Over the past few years, Kylie Jenner has taken social media by storm. At eighteen years old, the model and beauty product designer has over 52 million followers on Instagram, a leading social media platform in today’s society. She’s basically the ‘Queen of Instagram,’ with all of her selfies depicting her many different looks. “One craze that has been all the rage lately is the selfie concept, in which people take photos of themselves and post them to social media sites” (Sbeiti, 2014). Instagram is one of the most popular social media sites for the selfie and Kylie clearly knows how to use that to her advantage. Growing up with the Kardashians has certainly given Kylie an upper hand in the social media world and what is popular, but what really set her apart in recent years were her changing looks. If you look back at twelve-year-old Kylie and compare her to her eighteen year old self, you will notice some obvious differences, and though you change and your looks mature as you grow older, some things don’t change that drastically. The most notable difference that caused a huge controversy would be the models lips, which would eventually launch a very successful lipstick line. Kylie has garnered quite the following, and due to her young age, many of her fans are also on the younger side and many people feel that she is a bad role model for young girls, but here’s a news flash, it doesn’t matter if you think she’s a bad role model, because she isn’t trying to be one at all.

Back in 2015, Kylie addressed this issue with Fault magazine, “’I never feel pressure to be a good role model,’ she admits. ‘I always try to do my best to inspire people to be good and do the right thing, but I just can't live my life always trying to be a good role model.’" This interview came about a year after Kylie debuted a new lip look that became quite the controversy. In February of 2014, Kylie debuted a new look involving her lips that she claimed was the result of over lining them. Now, for a little while that may have been true, but then her lips started to look even bigger, which sparked even more of a rumor about whether or not she had plastic surgery. Being sixteen at the time, Kylie did not want to admit to having any sort of plastic surgery, so she took to twitter to address the issue. She tweeted these two tweets within minutes of each other in the early hours of April 10^th, “these plastic surgery rumors hurt my feelings to be honest and are kinda insulting,” and “just in case anyone forgot… I’m 16.” Shortly after these tweets, the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge was born. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard of this, considering it blew up the Internet for a little while. This challenge consists of getting a shot glass, or some other bottle with a larger opening than an average water bottle, inserting your lips, and sucking. Supposedly doing this will plump your lips up and make you look like Kylie. According to The Washington Post, “very young girls- significantly younger than Kylie, who is only 17!- are participating.” If you haven’t heard of this challenge, you also would not have heard of the dangers and ramifications of partaking in this challenge. The results were horrifying and if the swollen look doesn’t put you off, the fact that it can seriously damage the nerves around your lips should. The following are images of alleged challenge takers, courtesy of The Washington Post.

Now this may seem to be a good reason for parents to lash out at Kylie and blame her for their children’s actions. I mean, she did deny plastic surgery rumors so the kids had to figure out some way to achieve the look they desired. In light of this challenge, Kylie again took to twitter to address her fans, “I’m not here to try & encourage people/young girls to look like me or to think this is the way that they should look… I want to encourage people/young girls like me to be YOURSELF & not be afraid to experiment w your look.” This is the point here though, Kylie never once endorsed this lip challenge, and she wanted nothing to do with it because she has common sense and knew it wasn’t a smart decision to make. It was all her fans that came up with this in the attempt to look like her. All she did was take action to help her achieve a look she was more secure with. Later on, in an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kylie finally admitted to having temporary lip fillers. “I have temporary lip fillers, it’s just an insecurity of mine,” she admitted in May.

In a recent article published by Her Campus, college aged women speak their mind when it comes to Kylie and her popularity. “I hate her because I feel that she is extremely fake and a bad role model to girls and others who look up to her. I find it a little unhealthy that she has had lip fillers and may have had other surgeries,” says one student, Camellia. Another student, Hayley, says, “I used to really like Kylie Jenner… Now, she just looks like a plastic doll.” A lot of girls her age have a love hate relationship when it comes to how they feel about Kylie, but some just don’t even care, “for the most part, I am indifferent to Kylie,” says Chelsea. My favorite reaction is from Jazmyne, “… Everyone hates on Kylie, but I think she is the way she is because that is all she knows. She was raised that way; she was raised in the spotlight…”

I have to agree with Jazmyne here. Kylie could have turned out a lot worse given the environment she grew up in. I recently watched the first several episodes of the series KUWTK, and they were subjected some pretty intense things at a very young and impressionable age, such as parties with drinking, I mean Kris has come home very obviously drunk which isn’t the best thing to teach your kids, also Kim’s sex tape caused a lot of controversy and was the subject of many episodes in the beginning of the series. When you look at other children that grew up in the spotlight and see how they ended up, such as Lindsay Lohan, you can see that Kylie is pretty tame. She could be doing a lot worse and setting far worse examples for her fans, but she is doing what any other young girl would do, she just has the money to make more permanent changes to her looks. Anyone at her age will question their looks and find things they don’t like about themselves, but imagine being picked apart by the world, so not only are you finding your flaws, but everyone else is too? It can be a lot for someone that young and I can’t blame her for wanting to change some things about her, but she never encouraged others to do the things that she did.

 Works Cited

Jenner, Kylie (KylieJenner). “these plastic surgery rumors hurt my feelings to be honest and are kinda insulting” 10 April 2014, 2:11 AM. Tweet.

Jenner, Kylie (KylieJenner). “Just in case anyone forgot… I’m 16.” 10 April 2014, 2:12 AM. Tweet.

Machete, Rebecca. "Kylie Jenner Weighs in on Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge." E! Online. E! Online, 21 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Moyer, Justin. "Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge: The Dangers of ‘plumping That Pout’." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Sbeiti, Sara. "Let Me Take A Selfie." Gender and Pop Culture. TCNJ, 05 Dec. 2014. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Seidler, Heather. "Kylie Jenner – Exclusive Shoot for FAULT Issue 20 Front Cover." FAULT Magazine. FAULT Magazine, 27 Feb. 2015. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Sprunk, Cara. "16 College Women Get Real About Kylie Jenner." Her Campus. Her Campus, 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.