Influencers are famous for ‘InstaFace’, but it means Gold Coast girls are in danger of losing their individual look writes Ann Wason Moore

The city may be home to some of the country’s – and even the world’s – top influencers, but it means we’re losing some of our best ‘natural’ assets, writes Ann Wason Moore.

Remember the old days of the Gold Coast before we were highly developed?

We were still glitzy and glamorous, but natural as well.

Sure we were smaller, but we were also more real.

No, I’m not talking about the city’s built environment, but the increasingly built-up people who live within it.

Scrolling through social media, a photo posted on Have You Seen the Old Gold Coast caught my eye.

A line-up of bikini girls at the Billabong Pro, circa mid-1980s, made me stop and stare.

They all just looked so … different.

Actually, their fashions were so old they’re back in style, but it was the women themselves that appeared from another era.

Some had thin lips, some small boobs, their eyebrows were blonde, brown, thick, thin … it was an awful lot of variety for a bunch of skinny white women.

Compare that to what we see now, whether on television, social media or Pacific Fair … it’s like a filter has been applied.

You know what I mean: big lips, caterpillar eyebrows, giant boobs, fake tan, contouring, false lashes, bubble butt.

When I look at images of influencers, it’s honestly difficult to differentiate them. Active wear, holding the ponytail pose, full-lip pout … same look, different person (I think). There’s even a name for it: InstaFace.

To be clear, I’m not saying it’s bad … I’m just saying it’s getting boring. Everyone looks the same.

There is nothing wrong with doing whatever you want to do your own body … I’m just wondering how many people really want this, versus how many people are simply following the fashion because it’s the fashion.

While that’s nothing new – I grew up in the 80s and believed tight perms and a fringe so high it needed scaffolding were awesome – the stakes are higher now.

After all, a hairstyle is a very different proposition from a surgical procedure.

The fact that we can do so many things to our bodies now does not mean we necessarily should. And I say that as someone who has Botox and bleached hair.

But I also say that as someone whose eyebrows appear to be melting like an Antarctic ice shelf and who has never had more than half a top lip.

The point is: you do you … as long as it really is what you want, not what you’ve seen or feel pressured to be.

There’s definitely a look everyone is going for. Kimmy K, in Beverly Hills, California. Picture: Rich Fury

And it’s the pressure point that worries me, particularly as the mother of an almost-teen girl.

Research shows that the image presented by influencers is having a negative impact on our daughters, resulting in low selfie-esteem.

“Teen girls report that social media has the biggest impact on how they feel about their bodies, rather than looking in the mirror, their health, or how their clothes fit,” according to research from a US teen treatment centre.

“Their friends have less input than influencers who dictate what their body should look like and how they should treat it.

“Research suggests that time spent on social networking sites is associated with body image issues and disordered eating in teen girls - 88 per cent of girls say they compare themselves to images in the media and half claim that they feel negatively affected by this.”

Meanwhile, a UK study released just last week shows that the more time girls aged between 11 and 13 spend on social media, the less likely they are to be satisfied with life a year later.

Scientists speculate the vulnerability to social media at particular ages may be linked to brain, hormonal and social changes during adolescent development.

No one wants their daughter to want to look like this, do they?

Look, it’s not like women haven’t always been under pressure to look a certain way.

Going through puberty at the height of waif models and heroin chic was not fun … but at least it wasn’t constantly in my face and on my phone (a landline, obviously).

And even if I had the desire to look a certain way, I certainly did not have the practical or surgical methods to achieve it.

I want my daughter to feel as beautiful and powerful as I know her to be … and I don’t have to agree with how she defines that. I just don’t want her changing her face or her body like she’s changing clothes.

And, if possible, I want to be able to tell her apart from her friends.

‘Deeply unhappy’: Why schools are failing our kids

Forget Covid, there’s something far more sinister in our classrooms.

It’s called the curriculum.

Even as coronavirus cases explode in our schools, it’s nothing compared to the long-term damage being inflicted by their exam and assignment schedule.

Ever since my children entered high school, I have learned to dread the holidays. Why? Because it means we have to make it through the end-of-term assessment season.

Tears, tantrums and total confusion reign in our household as we struggle to survive – and those are just my behaviours.

It’s not the fault of their teachers, nor their school, but a curriculum that simply asks too much of everyone. And it’s breaking our educators, students, families and the system itself.

Writing is my profession, I was top of my English class back in 1994, but I’ve struggled to even understand the task sheets when it comes to my kids’ assignments.

GOLD COAST’S TOP PERFORMING SCHOOLS

Their teachers and their school have been nothing but supportive, but there’s only so much you can do under the current curriculum.

Given the next few years will take us through senior school, I am absolutely bricking it.

And I’m not alone: parents across the city and state are crying out for help.

Author and teen advocate Rebecca Sparrow is calling on the Queensland government to change the curriculum ASAP.

While the current national curriculum (version 8.4) is being reviewed, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority is only responsible for assessments up to Year 10, when it then becomes a matter for states. Looking at you, Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

But according to the statements posted on Ms Sparrow’s page, there are issues at every year level.

Unrealistic expectations are being placed on our kids, according to author and teen advocate Rebecca Sparrow.

“The expectations being placed on our children (from Prep to Year 12) right now are at best unrealistic and at worst doing incredible damage to their mental health and wellbeing – in my opinion,” says Ms Sparrow.

“We have an overcrowded, unrealistic curriculum and burnt out, stressed, overworked teachers.

“My inbox has exploded with emails from parents whose children have been broken by the academic requirements of school.

“People are deeply unhappy with the inappropriate and out-of-touch national curriculum from P-12, the QCAA’s refusal to deviate from the Australian Curriculum in senior years in Queensland, and in the QCAA’s unwillingness to listen to them.

NEW SCHOOLS NEEDED ON COAST AS POPULATION BOOMS

“A friend of mine who is an English HOD (head of department) at an expensive boys school said that the level of analysis required in Year 12 essays is beyond anything that you’d be expected to hand in at university.

“‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘They all have tutors. The tutors are getting them As’.

“Another teacher friend of mine told me that students are having to video themselves giving long talks – no palm cards, no notes, everything memorised – and they’re in their bedrooms recording these things over 100 times. Because they stumble over a word. Or forget a sentence. So they start again and again and again.”

And it’s not just students who are suffering.

Take it from their teachers.

In an anonymous post, a state high school science teacher illustrates the insanity of the curriculum.

“(I have many) questions that no-one can answer (or wants to answer) about the current Year 11-12 curriculum (biology is my area but I am certain this goes across many of the subjects).

“Who has confirmed that students in this age group (16-18 years old) are cognitively prepared/able for the level of content which is WELL beyond what I did in my science degree?

It can be rough going being a teacher.

“Why are we asking them to achieve this in-depth level? If the argument is that our students will be in competition with our Asian neighbours it doesn’t make sense. Making the curriculum harder WILL NOT result in students learning more/being smarter.

“Like teaching a 6-year-old to drive, it isn’t going to happen and something will break.

“Why are we asking students to perform critical research skills which go above my post grad honours degree and are more akin to a PhD critical publication review? The actual skills for this are also not in the curriculum, so are not taught to the students. So how are they meant to do this? Why are we assessing this if it is not in the curriculum?”

Another teacher explains that it is not only high school students who are burning out.

In fact, they say it starts from the very beginning.

“Prep was totally play-based in Queensland before the Australian curriculum butted in,” wrote the state school teacher.

“Now it asks 4-year-old kids to do all sorts of things that, according to the internationally agreed developmental milestones for children, they should not be asked to do at all.

“I wish the Queensland government had done like NSW and refused to adopt the Australian Curriculum. I honestly feel that the teachers and students would all be far less stressed and educational outcomes would be better if we were still doing what we used to do before the Australian Curriculum showed up.”

Teachers, parents and students are suffering under the current arrangements.

What are we doing to our children? To our teachers? To our community?

School should absolutely challenge you, but it should not break you.

Education should be about learning to think, to question, to analyse … not simply to memorise.

And what is this all for? To top the international tables of student results? It seems pointless if our education system is only churning out broken, burned-out students.

Is it to ensure our children earn a place at university?

To answer that, Ms Sparrow says it best:

“Universities are haemorrhaging numbers and are making it easier than ever to find alternative pathways into the majority of their courses,” she says.

In other words, this heartbreak is pointless.

It’s time our leaders learned that school should not be about survival.

Because right now, it is literally making us sick.