Aldous Huxley explains that, “Each one of us goes through life inside a bottle. But [for some of us], our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we are confined in a narrower space” (Huxley 229). Within this bottle lay the effects of cultural and social body image, particularly in adolescent women. Numerous social media outlets, such as Tumblr, give young woman a false idea of what real people look like. In many cases, these women cannot fulfill their desire to comply with the media’s “perfect” image, which ultimately leads to their suffering, both mentally and physically.
One of the most popular, yet most destructive social media outlets is Tumblr. Essentially, Tumblr is a host website through which teens can create a variety of blogs. Many of the blogs on Tumblr are what one would call a "personal blog," where people vent about their lives and repost pictures and quotes that are seemingly relevant to things they go through on a daily basis. However, often times these pictures include stick thin models that adolescents envy. People who were completely content with their lives before coming in contact with Tumblr have now judged themselves by comparison to these unrealistic models. What they do not show in these pictures is the struggle it takes to be that thin, and how unhealthy these models can be. As a young girl comes across a picture of a perfect sized model, she turns to herself in the mirror- dissatisfied and paranoid. This is the kind of mental torture that adolescents and even adults are subjected to on a daily basis. Young girls think that these perfect images are a reality which ultimately results in their suffering. Without a doubt, this takes a tremendous psychological toll on them. Some of the psychological effects of Tumblr can lead to worse, in fact. It is not rare that a girl develops numerous mental and physical illness such as anorexia, bulimia, and depression. Their "[lives] inside [of bottles]" become discombobulated as the pressure to be perfect rushes its way down the neck of the bottle, drowning the life they once knew (Huxley 229).
While Tumblr does not directly cause mental illness, it can be justified that the website evokes certain feelings within the minds of these girls. The tragic diseases are not immediately, but eventually, a result of the content on this website. A girl can’t say, “I have an eating disorder because of that picture I saw on Tumblr,” but she can say it gives her a certain “motivation” to do certain things. She tortures herself and acts upon the feelings provoked that would otherwise have not been occurrent had she