Why twenty-somethings love bikini selfies
I’d never post a picture of myself in my underwear on social media. I worry about wearing something inappropriate to work. But a photo of me in a tiny bikini? That I will gladly upload. This is why.
I’d never post a picture of myself in my underwear on social media. I get anxious if I think the outfit I’m wearing to work might be too short, too tight or otherwise inappropriate. But a photo of me in a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy bikini? That I will gladly upload to Instagram – for friends, family, colleagues, contacts and the thousands of strangers who might come across my profile to see.
It’s not just me. On social media, the bikini selfie is the new sunset picture. A few years ago it was just the likes of Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski – models and celebrities whose body is their business – posting pictures of themselves in swimwear. Today, my friends and I, and hordes of other ordinary women just like us, have enthusiastically joined them in the trend. Take a quick scroll down my Instagram feed and you’ll soon see me on a boat, on a rock, on the beach, in the sea, by the pool and on a sunlounger, wearing nothing more than my teensy two-piece. You can call it narcissism if you like; I call it self-love.
I won’t lie, there is an element of vanity behind some of my bikini snaps. After spending the majority of my 20s hating my body, at 28 I’ve got to a point where I now quite like it. And why shouldn’t I? My body is the result of hundreds of hours spent exercising and thousands of dollars spent on gym memberships. So I would be pretty annoyed if after all that time, money and hard work I wasn’t somewhat happy with the way it looked now.
Among my friends there are myriad reasons behind our holiday hobby of posing in a bikini and posting the pictures. “The body I have is the body I am supposed to have,” says one friend. “And unless I do something drastic like stop eating or remove some fundamental bones, I will always have this body, so why the hell should I not pose in a bikini?”
I understand from older friends that this attitude is new, that before the advent of social media, many women – particularly those who felt their body to be “imperfect” – would resist being snapped in a bikini, reaching for a kaftan or cover-up before permitting pictures. But my generation came of age not only in an era of social media but also of body positivity, of Lizzo (who posts bikini pictures), Ashley Graham and the plus-size model movement.
“Everyone else is naked on Instagram. Why can’t I be?” asks a friend. She’s not wrong. Social media is almost a clothes-free zone for people my age, with influencers and advertisers using flesh to push everything from fake tan to vegan burgers. Covering up for a picture these days, especially one taken on holiday when you’re wearing only a bikini all day anyway, would come off as weirdly conservative. What are you, Amish?
My single friends’ motivations are a little more calculating, posting bikini pictures deliberately to draw in men who might stumble across their Instagram profile. This bikini picture is the Trojan horse, masquerading as an innocent, happy holiday snap but in reality cleverly constructed to suck in potential suitors. “My Instagram is basically an extension of my dating app profile,” says one friend. “You never know who’s going to see your pictures so I want some on my page where I look great.” Tactical? Yes. Successful? Also yes. That same friend recently dated a high-profile professional sportsman. Their romance began when he randomly came across her profile and began liking her pictures – including several of her looking smoking hot in a bikini.
None of my friends, however, are willing to go on the record to admit one important truth: that they post bikini shots to social media because, like me, they think they look good half-naked. That doesn’t mean I love every photo I take. I can track how confident I felt on holiday based on how many bikini pictures I shared. Unsurprisingly, very few of these pictures are candid or “in the moment”: they are carefully staged. There’s often an entire crew involved – one friend behind the phone camera, another directing: “Push your bum out.” “Put your hand on your hip.” “Pretend to laugh.” For every photo uploaded, there are at least 50 that didn’t make it off the camera roll.
The reactions to my gallery of posed bikini pictures differ depending on the audience. My mum always leaves a comment beneath the image, usually “Lovely” or a heart eyes emoji. My boyfriend silently likes them, while girlfriends leave a crescendo of enthusiastic emojis and words of praise and support. I’ve only been trolled once for a bikini picture – a shot of me and three friends on a boat, which I posted on my story, meaning it expired after 24 hours. “You are the most irritating girls on Instagram,” the message read, sent from an account with no followers or profile picture, usually a sign of a fake account. If somebody has created a new profile just so they can look at me in a bikini, who is the weird one here?
If you’re wondering why young people are so obsessed with documenting everything they do, it’s a generational thing. People my age and younger have grown up with cameras on our smartphones. As for bikini pictures, we have the Kardashians and their ilk to thank, in part, for creating this monster. Remember Kim’s “belfie” (bum selfie) from 2013? The mirror selfie of her post-baby body in a skimpy white swimsuit sent the internet into overdrive. An act of empowerment subverting the male gaze, or simply self-indulgent? That’s in the eye of the Instagram scroller. Models including Hadid and Ratajkowski have since made the bikini selfie their stock-in-trade, perfecting sexy poses that the rest of us mortals now copy. “Pool style” influencers (such as Australian Tash Oakley, author of the account A Bikini A Day) have now joined street-style influencers in the cadre of trendsetters. No beach? No problem. If you can’t be in Bondi, you can pose in your bedroom.
Posting pictures of ourselves has built confidence among me and my friends. It only takes a quick trot through social media to see that everyone’s body is different. And you never really used to see that; in traditional media – on film and TV, in magazines and adverts – all you saw were stick-thin models. You had to go to the beach to see real bodies. I’m not going to stop having fun, and I’m not going to stop sharing my bikini body – even when it’s more burrito than buff.
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