Post 6: Jealousy, Jealousy
Olivia Rodrigo has taken the world by storm the past few months. Myself, along with many other people, have become fans of hers because of how relatable and catchy her songs are. While many of her songs pertaining to breakups and relationships are very relatable, her song, jealousy, jealousy, specifically resonated with me. If you haven’t already listened to the song, it’s about the habit of comparing yourself to others, and feeling jealous and defeated when you look different, or when you don’t have the same things other people might have. Because of the popularization of social media, it has become so much easier for us to compare ourselves to our friends, enemies, or even complete strangers. However, I think as a society, we forget that social media is not real life. So many people, including myself, post an idealized version of our lives in order to appear happy and healthy. As a result, comparing ourselves to the images we see on social media is just a vicious cycle that we must learn to break.
Growing up as an Asian-American girl and given the fact that Eurocentric physical features are the beauty standard, I never felt like I was conventionally beautiful or attractive. Because of this, I would compare myself to Caucasian women who fit this beauty standard, and would immediately feel insecure and jealous because I knew that I would never be able to look like that. I knew that I wasn’t ugly, but I was greedy. I wanted to be the beauty standard. I wanted to know what it felt like to be undeniably beautiful, and to have people envy me because of my looks. In Olivia’s song, she sings, “I’m so sick of myself, I’d rather be, rather be, anyone, anyone else”. This line stuck out to me because it describes a feeling that I am all too familiar with. The feeling of being unsatisfied with yourself, and wishing that you could be someone else, someone better. Just like she says, I found it so easy to become sick of my looks and would find myself wishing that I was Caucasian so that I could be considered beautiful.
It took me a long time to not only accept the way that I look, but to embrace it. I had to learn to love my slanted eyes and jet black hair because it was a part of who I was. I realized that all this time I spent wishing that I was Caucasian, was just me rejecting my Chinese culture. It’s still easy for me to get carried away comparing myself to a non inclusive beauty standard. However, instead of feeling insecure or jealous, I know that my features that set me apart from other people are ultimately what make me beautiful. I might not look like the beauty standard, but I’ll never be “sick of myself” again.
