Image grab from a "Am I pretty" video on Youtube
The young girl shows off her big, comfy koala hat and forms playful hearts with her fingers as she drops the question on YouTube: “Am I pretty or ugly?”
“A lot of people call me ugly, and I think I am ugly. I think I’m ugly, and fat,” she confesses in a tiny voice as she invites the world to decide.
And the world did.
The video, posted Dec. 17, 2010, has more than 4 million views and more than 107,000 anonymous, often hateful responses in a troubling phenomenon that has girls as young as 10 -- and some boys -- asking the same question on YouTube with similar results.
Some experts in child psychology and online safety wonder whether the videos, with anywhere from 300 to 1,000 posted, represent a new wave of distress rather than simple self-questioning or pleas for affirmation or attention.
How could the creators not anticipate the nasty responses, even the tender tweens uploading videos in violation of YouTube’s 13-and-over age policy? Their directness, playful but steadfast, grips even those accustomed to life’s open Internet channel, where revolutions and executions play out alongside the ramblings of anybody with digital access.
Commenters on YouTube curse and declare the young video creators “attention whores,” ask for sex and to see them naked. They wonder where their parents are and call them “fugly” and worse.
“Y do you live, and kids in africa die?” one responder tells the girl in the koala hat who uses the name Kendal and lists her age as 15 in her YouTube profile, though her demeanor suggests she was far younger at the time.
Another commenter posts: “You need a hug ... around your neck ... with a rope..”
Some offer support and beg Kendal and the other young faces to take down their “Am I Pretty?” and “Am I Ugly?” videos and feel good about themselves instead.
Much has been made of cyberbullying and pedophiles who cruise the Internet, and of low self-esteem among pre-adolescents and adolescents, especially girls, as their brains continue to develop.
There have been similar “hot or not” memes in the past, but as more young people live their lives online, they’re clearly more aware of the potential for negative consequences.
“Negative feedback that is personal is rarely easy to hear at any age, but to tweens and teens who value as well as incorporate feedback into their own sense of worth, it can be devastating,” said Elizabeth Dowdell, a nursing professor at Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia. She has researched child Internet safety and risk behavior in adolescents in partnership with the Justice Department.
In another video posted by Kendal, she offers to “do two dares” on camera, inviting her open-channel audience to come up with some as she holds a little white stuffed monkey.
In heavy eye makeup and neon orange nail polish, a girl who calls herself Faye not only asks the pretty/ugly question but tells in other videos of being bullied at school, suffering migraines that have sent her to the hospital and coping with the divorce of her parents.
“My friends tell me that I’m pretty,” she says. “It doesn’t seem like I’m pretty, though, because, I don’t know, it just doesn’t, because people at school, they’re like, `Faye you’re not pretty at all.”‘
She narrates a slideshow of still close-ups of herself to make the judging easier (she’s had more than 112,000 views) and joins other girls who have posted videos on another theme, “My Perfect Imperfection,” that have them noting what they hate and love about the way they look.
“I just don’t like my body at all,” says Faye as she pulls up her sweat shirt to bare her midriff.
Faye’s profile lists her age as 13. Tracked down in suburban Denver, her mom, Naomi Gibson, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” she knew nothing of the video until reporters started to call. “I was floored,” she said.
Faye told ABC she has been called names and gossiped about behind her back.
“Deep down inside, all girls know that other people’s opinions don’t matter,” she said. “But we still go to other people for help because we don’t believe what people say.”
A third girl who uploaded one of the pretty/ugly videos in September attempts a few model poses in childlike pedal pushers and a long, multicolored T-shirt after posing the question. She takes down her ponytail and brushes her hair as she stares into the camera.
“If you guys are wondering, I am 11,” she offers. Her video has been viewed more than 6,000 times.
“COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PARENTS AND CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!! BUT TAKE THIS TERRIBLE VIDEO DOWN YOU ARE A CHILD AND SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS KIND OF ACCESS TO THE INTERNET,” one commenter screams.
None of the three girls responded to private messages on YouTube seeking comment from the Associated Press. Gibson told ABC she was considering revoking her daughter’s YouTube privileges, but stopped short of demanding that Faye take down the video.
“Hopefully it will open up the eyes of the parents,” Gibson said. “The kids aren’t letting their parents know what’s wrong, just like Faye didn’t let me know.”
YouTube would not comment directly about the “Am I Pretty?” controversy, but it issued a statement advising parents to visit the site’s safety center for tips on how to protect their kids online.
The site’s posting policy prohibits videos and comments “containing harassment, threats or hate speech” and encourages users to flag such material for review, the statement said.
Emilie Zaslow, a media studies professor at Pace University in New York, said today’s online world for young people is only just beginning to be understood by researchers.
When the Internet is your diary and your audience is global, she said, “The public posting of questions such as “Am I ugly?” which might previously have been personal makes sense within this shift in culture.”
Add to that the unattainable pressures of the beauty industry, a dose of reality TV, where ordinary people can be famous, and superstars who are discovered via viral video on YouTube, she said.
“These videos could be read as a new form of self-mutilation in line with cutting and eating disorders,” Zaslow said.
That potential is real, added Nadine Kaslow, a family psychologist and professor of behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta.
“There’s this constant messaging about looks and beauty,” she said. “Their world is taking it to a new level. It can be humiliating, there may be a lot of shame, and you start to become public objects instead of being your own person.” (AP)
<한글 기사>
소녀, 인터넷에 묻다, “저 예쁜가요?”
“많은 사람들이 저보고 못났다고 합니다. 전 제가 못 생기고 뚱뚱한 것 같아요,” 한 소녀가 수줍게 고백한다.
그러자 수만명이 외친다. ‘그래 넌 못 생겼어!”
인터넷 동영상 사이트 유튜브에서 일어나고 있는 일이다.
미국에서 최근에 유행하는 ‘저 예쁜가요 (Am I pretty)?’ 동영상은 10~12살에 불과한 어린아이를 포함한 10대 소녀들이 -- 그리고 몇몇 소년들이-- 자신의 영상을 유튜브에 올리고 평가 받는 형식이다.
현재 이러한 유형의 동영상은 300에서 1,0000개가 존재하는 것으로 추정된다.
전문가들은 새롭게 나타난 유행이 새로운 “괴로움의 물결 (wave of distress)를 나타내는 것은 아닌지 우려하고 있다.
이러한 영상에 대한 시청자들의 반응은 대부분 부정적이며, 때로는 악의적이기까지 하다. 그들은 영상을 올린 어린 소녀들을 “관심병 종자(attention whore)”라 부르며 성적인 요구를 하거나 욕을 하기도 한다.
“넌 살아있고, 아프리카에 있는 아이들은 죽는단 말야?” 15세 소녀 켄들의 동영상에 달린 답변이다.
과거에도 자신의 외모를 평가해달라는 유행은 있었지만 인터넷 이용자들의 평균나이가 낮아지면서 전문가들은 이러한 현상이 초래할 수 있는 부정적인 결과에 대해 우려를 표하고 있다.
“부정적인 평가(feedback)는 나이를 막론하고 받아들이기 힘들지만, 이러한 평가를 특히 중시하며 자신의 가치관 형성에까지 포함시키는 10대 초반의 나이에는 더욱 충격적일 수 있습니다,”라고 빌라노바 대학의 엘리자베스 도웰 교수는 말했다.
또 다른 영상에서 페이란 13세 소녀는 외모를 평가해달라는 요청과 함께 자신이 학교에서 겪는 괴롭힘에 대해서 말한다.
“제 친구들은 제가 예쁘다고 해주지만, 그런 것 같지 않아요. 잘은 모르겠지만 학교에 있는 사람들은 ‘페이, 넌 하나도 안 예뻐’ 이렇게 말하기도 하고요,”라고 페이는 말한다.
11만 명이 넘게 본 이 영상에서 그녀는 근접 촬영한 모습을 보여주면서 자신의 외모에 대해 무엇이 마음에 들지 않는지 설명한다.
페이는 ABC방송과의 인터뷰에서 영상을 올린 이후 사람들이 그녀를 험담하고 놀렸다고 밝혔다.
“(소녀들은) 마음 속 깊은 곳에서는 다른 사람 의견이 중요하지 않다는 걸 알아요,”라고 페이는 말했다. “하지만 그래도 다른 사람에게 도움을 청하는 건 사람들의 말을 믿을 수 없기 때문이죠.”
페이의 어머니는 이 동영상에 대해 전혀 몰랐다면서 딸이 유튜브를 사용하지 못하게 하는 것을 고려하고 있다고 말했다.
일각에서는 어린 아이들의 인터넷 사용을 자제시켜야 한다는 의견도 있다. 한 유튜브 이용자는 11세 소녀의 “저 예쁜가요?” 영상에 “부모님과 대화를 나누고 방이나 치우라’면서 어린아이가 이런 식으로 인터넷을 사용하면 안 된다고 역설했다.
뉴욕 페이스 대학의 언론학 교수 에밀리 자슬로우는 전문가들이 이러한 현상을 이제야 조금씩 이해하기 시작했다고 말했다.
현대에 와서는 인터넷이 일기장이고 청중들이 전세계적으로 확장되었기 때문에, 이전까지는 개인적인 것으로 여겨졌을 자신에 외모에 대한 공개적인 질문이 문화적 변화로서 이해할 수 있다고 자슬로우 교수는 말했다.
“이런 비디오는 식생활 장애와 더불어 새로운 형태의 자기파괴라고 이해할 수 있습니다,”라고 교수는 말했다.
그녀는 세상에 존재해온 외모와 아름다움에 대한 지속적인 메시지가 점점 심해지면서, 사람들이 “각자 개인으로 존재하기보다는 공개적인 관찰의 대상이 되기 시작한다,”고 말했다.
