Image is Powerful

For the past couple of days I have seen a bunch of articles referencing a Ted Talk that Cameron Russell did. A little background knowledge for you: Russell is a Victoria Secret supermodel that has been modeling for the past 10 years, since she was 15. She has graced the covers of Vogue and walked the runway for Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace and Marc Jacobs, to name a few.

Russell did this whole Ted Talk to give her own ideas on the power of image. As a model how you look is everything, it's the only thing that matters. Russell though didn't have a plan to go into modeling. So many girls today grow up and their goal is to be a model. Why? To appear pretty to the masses? to gain confidence? I just loved how real Russell was in this video. She's an intelligent woman that told it straight. She's a model, because she got lucky. She was born with the right genetic code, and took advantage of it and has been "cashing out"on it.

Russell takes the glamour out of the modeling industry a little and just talks about how she knows it's not right  or fair, but it's the environment she lives in. Models are people like us, but we put them on a bit of a pedestal. We idolize how pretty and skinny they are, and we set them apart as separate than the average female. They're some kind of glamorized superwoman. I know that the modeling world isn't as glamorized at is appears, but sometimes even i forget it. These girls ( I say girls because many of them can't be classified as women yet), are more insecure than the rest of us because their life, their livelihood is looking nice. They have to compete against hundreds of other girls who are just as tall, just as pretty, have the same perfect leg to torso ratio. They live a superficial life and I honestly think that is worse than what the average woman endures with her looks. The average woman has to deal with maybe 100 people seeing her in a day and feeling insecure, models deal with millions. They are seen on a global scale.

There was a time I wanted to be a model. Looking back on it, I realize that it wasn't that I wanted to model. I wanted to do it so I could get that validation, so I could feel good about myself. That was all the below the surface motivators; what I told everyone was I wanted to model to be a part of the industry. I knew modeling wasn't the path for me, but anyway that got me closer, I would have taken.

Society as a whole is obsessed with how we look, and obsessed with this perceived lifestyle of fame and fortune. Models don't get paid a lot, and there is a very small percentage that will ever reach the national acclaim that Karlie Kloss, Jourdan Dunn, Iman, Tyra Banks, Miranda Kerr and others have. It's a game of luck, and the odds are not in your favor