We are suffering
nowadays a phenomenon of influence that is
unconsciously affecting our way of acting; this is the media influence. Any
image, word, slogan, or sound may become a sign of influence for any of us.
Thus, if we make a journey through history, we find the presence of propaganda
campaigns in favour of authoritarian regimes, as well as the the manipulation
of electronic media such as television or radio, or the use of Internet for
marketing purposes. This ends up influencing our personality, ways of acting and
thinking, way of dressing, and so on. This essay focuses on the influence of
fashion bloggers and social networks on today´s youth, particularly on young
girls since they are more likely to suffer from it.
Blogs have
become a very important channel of comunication. As we already know, the rising
appearance of fashion bloggers is causing a stir in social networks. A reflex
camera, money, lots of clothes, enough space in your wardrobe, some knowledge
in fashion and fashion design and, of course, creating a blog account are the
main elements you need to asume the form of these popular girls. Whereas for
all of them it is a passion and a lifestyle, for the rest of the followers it
may become something negative, that is, an addiction to imitating these girls,
a confusing time trying to define their own identity and an obsession for
looking good and similar to other people. In other words, most of the young people
just want to look for social acceptance, and fashion is one of the ways to
achieve it. Fashion bloggers not only influence people in the way they dress
and behave, but also they influence consumers in their buying decisions. Therefore,
fashion bloggers are a powerful tool for large brands as a way of marketing
because they are a reliable source for people. According to the last report of
Technorati about digital influence, one of every three consumers resort to
blogs at the moment of purchasing. (“Los blogs y su influencia en los
consumidores y sus compras”, 2013) .
The internet is
the most direct way in order to be aware of fashion, with the television following
in second place. Within the internet, the most successful application where one
can perceive this noticeable influence is Instagram. This is a social network
for sharing pictures and short videos where the users can apply different
effects such as filters and frames. According to García Castro (2014), Instagram,
which was born four years ago, nowadays has evolved into the most important
social network of photographs with some 200 million active users, over 20
billion uploaded pictures and 1.6 million likes every day. Thus, Instagram has
been established as the main motor for
fashion influence. At the moment, a growing number of young people are
following these fashion accounts and consequently this is affecting them. They
adapt to the style they want to follow and imitate the models with the main
purpose of getting the most number of likes, that is, the more likes you have,
the cooler you are. As an example, there are a lot of accounts on Instagram that
are associated with a brand (García Guardia & Nuñez Gómez,
2009). For instance, Zara,
one of the most prestigious brands in clothes, has hundreds of accounts on
Instagram with images of their own products in order to promote them, and there
are millions of girls who follow these accounts and copy this style.
To sum up, I
would like to underline the seriousness of this topic, since this phenomenon is
creating a society with people behaving, thinking and dressing in the same way;
we are being enslaved to this mass movement and we are unconsciously having our
power of making decisions on our own, our personality and our freedom taken
away. And finally, as somebody said: “Fashion is not just a wardrobe full of
shoes, bags and dresses; it’s a huge and powerful system which moves thousands
of people in the world.”
References
García Castro,
N. (2014, September 3). La increíble historia de Instagram. Retrieved from: http://nuriagarciacastro.es/increible-historia-instagram/
García
Guardia, M. L., & Nuñez Gómez, P. (2009, February 2). Los bloggers y su
influencia en la imagen de una marca.
Icono 14: Journal of Communication
and emergent Technologies, 12,
242-252 . doi: 10.795/ri14
Redacción (2013). Los blogs y su
influencia en los consumidores y sus compras. Puro Marketing. Retrieved from: http://www.puromarketing.com/89/15465/blogs-influencia-consumidores-compras.html
Correa, L., & Gómez, V. (2013, June
13) Influencia de la Moda en los Jóvenes.
[Slideshare presentation]. Retrieved from: http://es.slideshare.net/presentacionaguacatal/influencia-de-la-moda-en-los-jvenes
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