Newbury Park Polls Judges Students
The Newbury Park Polls Twitter account rates people in the school based on their looks. The account is public and allows others to participate in a number of polls with titles like “hottest guy” or “who is the crustier hoe.” The account owner posts the polls accompanied with simultaneously witty and degrading tweets as well as displaying the number of votes each person receives.
While it is not okay for someone to set up an account rating people’s appearances, much of the blame needs to fall on the anonymous voters who give the account a voice. Without people adding their input, following the twitter accounts, and avidly participating, the account would be nothing.
People are more than a number, more than others’ opinions on their appearance, and more than the number of votes people give them. The entire premise of an account that asks others to vote based on superficial criteria, such as someone’s appearance or, like another one of the polls votes on, their promiscuity is ridiculous and harmful.
Projecting polls on a public forum is destructive to the self esteem and mind set of individuals involved and those following the account. People are taught to value their beauty and material possessions over intellectuality and grades. It is especially difficult when people see that their peers are voting for the “hottest guy” or “hottest girl.”
Students are so susceptible to the effects of their peers words. Whoever runs the account clarifies that it is to be taken lightly and anyone who disagrees should just refrain from voting and following the account. However, the fact that someone could set up an account as a forum for people to basically judge each other on their material beauty is unhealthy.
We tend to look at stuff like this as a joke, but it actually goes much deeper and stands for so many of the problems with online culture today. The internet, especially social media, has become the biggest way anyone under thirty socializes, and with that, negative effects are expected. The internet champions beauty and acts as a veil for people to say things that they would never actually tell to anyone’s faces. For these reasons, it has become a definer for people’s self worth.
The contributors and the creators need to stop projecting negative content online as a way to be socially relevant. There are so many other ways for people to gain the favor of their peers. People are more than the percentage of people who think they are “the hottest guy or girl” and we should start celebrating someone’s intelligence or actual feasible talents.
