“It’s Better Saying I Look Fat Instead of Saying You Look Fat”: A Qualitative Study of U.K. Adolescents’ Understanding of Appearance-Related Interactions on Social Media

Participants

Sixty-four participants (Age M = 12.56; SD = 0.97; Range = 11–14; Female N = 33, Male N = 30, Other N = 1) were recruited from a secondary school in Northern England. The school catchment area encompasses a large area of economic deprivation (according to U.K. Government data; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2019). Approximately, 94% of participants were White, 3% Mixed, and 2% African Caribbean. All participants used social media, with most reporting that they check their social media accounts every few hours (36%), every hour (22%), and every 10 minutes (14%). Most participants reported Instagram as their most used social media site (45.3%), followed by YouTube (26.6%), Snapchat (14.1%), WhatsApp (6.3%), Facebook (4.7%), and Twitter (1.6%).

Participants took part in the focus group as part of their citizenship lessons during the normal school day. Focus group allocation was arranged by the head of citizenship curriculum. There were nine focus groups in total, with five to eight participants per group. There were three male only, three female only, and three mixed gender focus groups. All groups included adolescents of mixed educational abilities. These gender configurations facilitated the exploration of gender dynamics in understandings of appearance interactions. Focus groups lasted between 29.29 and 49.23 minutes.

Focus Group Design

Through focus groups, we were able to explore the social norms and group understandings of appearance-related peer interactions, as they are co-constructed. Focus groups are particularly appropriate for adolescents since they can provide a less intimidating atmosphere than one-on-one interviews. They were semi-structured with facilitators using both physical stimuli (examples of appearance-related interactions on social media) and a semi-structured questioning guide to stimulate discussion.

Procedure

Active consent was obtained from the head teacher of the participating school, opt-out consent was gained from parents in advance of study participation, and active consent was gained from participants on the day of the study. Focus groups took place on school grounds during the adolescents’ citizenship lessons over a period of 1 week. In each focus group, participants and the facilitator were seated around a table in a quiet meeting room, with the vignettes placed face down in a pile in front of them. Participants were reminded of their right to withdraw at any time and were given the opportunity to ask any questions. Before beginning, participants were asked to fill in a small demographic questionnaire regarding age, gender, ethnicity, and general social media use. At the start of the focus group, the facilitator asked participants general questions about their social media use. Participants were then asked to pick up the first two vignettes, which had been paired (i.e., the male and female protagonists version of the same online appearance interaction) and randomly ordered. They were asked to take a few moments to look at them and then describe the example. Participants then discussed the interaction and the facilitator asked questions to prompt discussion surrounding how these examples link to adolescents’ own experiences and understandings. At the end of the study, participants were thanked for their participation and reminded about their right to withdraw. All focus groups were facilitated by the first author, a 23-year-old cis-female postgraduate researcher with 5 years’ experience working with adolescents in a school environment. Focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed. The study adhered to BPS Ethical Guidelines and received ethical approval from the relevant University Ethics Committee.

Analytic Procedure

Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data set, using the six-step process outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006), through a critical realist lens. Critical realism poses that reality exists but operates independently of our knowledge and awareness of it (Archer et al., 1998). This allows for recognition of participants’ own knowledge as reality but also the ability to consider the sociocultural context in which this knowledge about online appearance interactions is situated. First, analysis begun by the first author familiarizing themselves with the data (Step 1) through repeated reading and listening of the transcripts. Then, initial codes were developed and applied to the data (Step 2), including both semantic and latent codes that enabled the understanding of surface meanings, as well as deeper underlying conceptualizations. During this stage, the first author regularly met with the second author, a female academic with over 15 years’ experience of research with adolescents to discuss the coding of extracts. However, all initial coding was performed by the first author. Once all data were coded, initial themes were developed (Step 3) and then themes were refined and reviewed to check that identified themes adequately represented the data set (Step 4). The second author was also involved in this process and regularly met with the first author to discuss and review theme development in relation to the data set. Once the themes were reviewed, definitions of the themes were created (Step 5) in order to fully capture the essence of each theme in relation to the data that it captures. Steps 3 to 5 were conducted iteratively, with theme and theme definitions being modified and refined multiple times.

Throughout the analysis, themes were developed through an inductive approach, allowing themes to be data driven. However, themes were interpreted and contextualized according to existing research that examines adolescent appearance interactions, social media use, and appearance concerns more broadly. During the production of the final report (Step 6), themes, codes, and quotes were verified by checking the transcriptions and recordings to ensure accuracy. Inter-rater reliability was not considered appropriate, thus any incongruities between the researchers were resolved through active discussion in order to validate the themes (as suggested by Braun & Clarke, 2019).

Positive Appearance Commentary Is the Norm, Especially if You Are Popular and Attractive

Adolescents described highly visual social media platforms (i.e., those centered on sharing edited images, such as Instagram) as highly appearance-focused environments, wherein appearance-related commentary—especially positive appearance-related commentary—was the norm and was linked to positive attributes such as popularity and attractiveness. Looking good was constructed as more important than inner attributes for boys and girls, both on social media and in the broader sociocultural environment “well it’s just how the online world works at the moment cause people are more obsessed with how people look” (Jack, 12, B1), and “because nowadays everyone just cares about how they look and not what you’re like” (Charlotte, 13, G3). As such, appearance-related comments from other users were both the norm and expected, “because you can’t really comment on their personality in a post, if someone puts a selfie you’re not going to comment going hahaha you’re so funny” (Jake, 14, M3). Girls were constructed as caring more about their appearance than boys:

Jack, 12: Girls care more about their appearance because they all want to look like famous celebrities and have certain hair color certain body weight.

Simon, 11: I think girls deffo care more about their appearance than boys.

Charlie, 12: Boys don’t really care as much. (B1)

Positive appearance commentary tended to involve general statements about appearance (e.g., “beautiful,” “pretty,” or the use of heart eye emoji) rather than explicit comments that referred to body parts or weight and were posted in direct response to images that meet the appearance ideal. They were positively intended and resulted in positive consequences: “friends would give you positive comments to sort of make you feel good” (Theo, 13, B3). It functioned as a form of both appearance-related approval: “it makes you feel good about yourself cause you know you’ve posted summat and everyone seems to like it so you’re just like aw everyone likes that post I must look good in it” (Ashleigh, 14, G3) and social approval: “oh a lot of people think I’m alright you know what I mean like they like me” (Monty, 14, M3). Positive appearance comments (i.e., compliments) were described as more important and more meaningful than likes on sites that allowed such quantifiable feedback “yeah it’d be nicer for them to give one compliment saying ‘you look nice’ it’d make them happy rather than a like” (Lucy, 12, M2), because they perceived this action as more effortful than “liking” the image. Adolescents described employing strategies, such as tagging friends into their self-images, in order to receive more positive appearance comments.

Sexual advances (i.e., comments that focus on sexual body parts or contain innuendo) represent a distinct type of compliment that can either be sincerely intended or have more malicious intent (e.g., harassment). These are commonly made on less public platforms (e.g., Facebook Messenger) “you get comments like that in DMs or stuff like that and anonymous” (Jasmine, 14, M3), and occur more frequently than in person interactions due to the level of anonymity afforded “I guess people can say whatever they want and social media can’t they because if they’re really shy in person they can be really confident on social media so they’ll say it on there in private” (Charlotte, 14, G3). Regardless of intent, sexual advances were perceived as a response to meeting appearance ideals. Adolescents described how to receive these comments from someone they knew, this would be interpreted as a way of stating romantic interest; however, if it was from a stranger, it would be received with more skepticism. That said, there were also age differences in how sexual advances were interpreted. The slightly older adolescents in our sample (i.e., those aged 13–14 years) described sexualized comments from peers as being indicative of sexual attraction and welcomed there possibility: “if I know the person they might be into me so I might go talk to them a bit more” (Teddy, 13, B3), whereas the younger adolescents in our sample (11–12 years) positioned these interactions as “weird,” even if they knew the poster, suggesting potential age differences in how these were interpreted:

Lola, 11: Well they’re saying positive things but its negative because its creepy.

Bobby, 12: I don’t think they’re positive.

Lola, 11: Yeah it’s really sexual and I know if I got messages like that I’d be like woah-

Bobby, 12: -Go away.

Moderator: Would it still be weird if it came from someone you knew?

Bobby, 12: Yes and then I would never speak to them again.

Katie, 12: I think it would be even weirder if it came from someone you knew. (M1)

The quantity of compliments received on more public and permanent social media was described as dependent on your status within the broader peer group. High-status “popular” adolescents were described as receiving more positive comments, “cause if you’re someone who’s really popular and got loads and loads of friends you’ll get complimented more but you wanna try be the one that stands out online too” (Amy, 13, M2). Popularity within the peer group offline was equated with meeting appearance ideals, whereas deviation from appearance ideals was linked to being unpopular: “in every school there’s them people that aren’t that popular and everything and everyone makes fun of them cos they’re not good looking” (Isabelle, 14, G3). This offline popularity was constructed as resulting in more likes and comments on social media: “it depends on if you’re that person or not because if you’re in the popular group and everyone loves you then you’re going to get complimented more” (Charlotte, 14, G3). In this way, positive appearance commentary functioned as a marker of popularity and attractiveness within the broader peer group.

Adolescents also emphasized that appearing attractive was important in order to acquire more positive feedback on sites where feedback is more public and less ephemeral: “you look pretty and it’s like oh more people like it if I’m pretty but if you look ugly they won’t” (Charlotte, 13, G3). This was especially prominent for girls, who associated attractiveness with popularity: “girls feel like oh I’ve got to look like this in photos otherwise nobody will like me because I’m not gunna be in that group where everybody looks perfect” (Emma, 11, G1). That said, some adolescents discussed that even the less popular people still publicly receive compliments on social media “you see all the girls comments they’re always hyping each other up you see about 100 comments on it even could be someone who’s not very popular but then say they have two friends those two friends would just hype it up”. (Myles, 14, B3) and that receiving positive comments on social media are a marker of offline friendships.

Comments to Others Should Be Positive, But Comments About the Self Should Be Modest and Self-Deprecating

Although adolescents described the importance of being positive about other people’s appearance on public social media platforms, they discussed how comments about the self should be more modest, including being self-deprecating about their own appearance. Those who gave positive appearance comments to others in public social media channels were perceived in a positive light, and positive comments were positioned as indicative of positive personal attributes, for example, “nice people comment nice things” (Freddie, 12, M1), and “when you comment nice stuff to each other it shows you’re a nice person” (Charlie, 12, B1). Posters of positive commentary were also perceived as good friends “some people do it [compliment] over the actual post so some people don’t think they’re bad friends” (Charlotte, 14, G3). In this way, public and permanent positive appearance commentary served as a form of self-presentation: a way of appearing positively to others.

In contrast, they described how negative appearance comments to others on these public and permanent platforms would make you look like a bad person “there’s not many times when people comment something bad on your post cos they’d look bad” (Ashleigh, 14, G3). Thus, adolescents recognized that despite being highly valued, social media feedback is not always an accurate reflection of an individual’s true thoughts and feelings. However, this disparity not only helped to preserve one’s own image by presenting oneself in a desirable way but also helped others by making them feel good about themselves: “they could be like oh you’re so pretty but could be texting someone else saying yeah they’re not pretty I’m just saying that to make them feel better” (Charlie, 12, B1).

While complimenting others was the norm, public positive comments about the self were not: “it’d be like oh yeah she’s happy with the way she looks but then she’s proper full of herself which is bad” (Hayley, 13, G2). It was important to avoid appearing too confident about one’s own appearance to avoid being labeled as “big headed” or “cocky” (McKenzie, 13, G2), especially on highly visual platforms such as Instagram. Therefore, despite investing time and effort trying to appear physically attractive in self-images, adolescents were cautious to appear simultaneously modest and unsure. They tended to address these conflicting feelings in the way they captioned their self-images on more permanent platforms, “well what usually happens is a girl posts a picture of a selfie and they probably put something like “felt cute might delete later” and then there’s a girl comment like “you’re always cute” and then they’ll be like “oh no I’m not you’re the cute one.” (Daniel, 13, B2). Adolescents recognized that this modesty in the captioning of images will evoke a positive response from others, as the expectation online is that peers will respond positively:

Holly, 11: I think it’s a bit stupid cos if you say if your saying to someone ‘aw I’m so fat’ then what do you expect them to say “oh yeah I agree with you”

Hannah, 12: go on a diet

Holly, 11: no

Lola, 11: nobody’s going to put that

Hannah, 12: you don’t actually think they’re going to say yeah your fat

Lola, 11: you expect them to say no you’re not

Holly, 11: yeah you know what they’re going to say. (M1)

Despite this being the perceived norm on social media, it was also described negatively. Adolescents positioned this modesty as a reassurance-seeking strategy—‘fishing for compliments’ (Lola, 11, M1)—especially among girls, because the images accompanying the caption were clearly staged to emphasize attractiveness: “I hate it when you see photos online and somebody’s put their caption “aw I’m so ugly” and it’s this amazing person. . . why would you post it I feel like people are just looking for compliments if people put “aw I’m so ugly” on a post” (Chelsea, 12, M2). Although reassurance seeking is the norm, it was construed negatively as “attention seeking,” which was differentiated from a genuine need for support “if you’re saying you’re fat you probably want them to say no you’re not fat its basically attention seeking” (Jack, 12, B1). Importantly, the majority of adolescents distanced themselves from having personally engaged in this behavior in the group discussions, instead focusing on their reactions to others engaging in this behavior, never their own experiences; a common strategy in interviews (Talmy, 2011).

Gender differences were discussed in relation to self-deprecation on social media. Girls were perceived as being more likely to make modest appearance comments about weight (e.g., “feeling fat”—Emma, 11, G1) as a way of seeking appearance-related reassurances on social media “it’s kind of a stereotype that girls fish for compliments more boys don’t just sit there and go ‘I’m ugly, call me beautiful’ but it’s a stereotype that girls do” (Freddie, 12, M1). In comparison, boys who made self-deprecating remarks (e.g., “I feel like such a fatty”—Monty, 14, M3) were perceived more positively, as a humorous interaction:

Bobby, 12: Boys are a lot more laugh-y about it the girls are more serious the boys joke about feeling fat but girls are like “no I’m fat, you’re skinny”

Holly, 11: yeah girls diss themselves all the time

Freddie, 12: Yeah I feel like I know that boys and girls all have self-image issues but girls talk about it more boys just have a laugh. (M1)

Negative Appearance Comments Are Problematic, But Not Always Intentionally Harmful

This final theme encapsulates adolescents’ understandings and experiences of negative appearance interactions on social media, particularly how comments indicating deviation from sociocultural appearance ideals (e.g., “you’re fat,” “you’re ugly,” referred to as negative comments within this theme) are not always intended to harm. Adolescents described being a viewer of serious negative appearance commentary (e.g., instances of bullying) online, but distanced themselves from engaging in it, possibly due to negative social perceptions surrounding this behavior. For example, they discussed how they would avoid making negative appearance comments on someone’s public social media posts by utilizing other strategies, such as not liking an image: “ I think it’s a better way to do it you know what I mean instead of just saying oh you’re really ugly in that picture it’s a better way by not liking it” (Jack, 12, B1).

Adolescents discussed viewing serious negative commentary and described how acquaintances rather than close friends were more likely to post these comments publicly on more visual social media, “some of your mates can put summat good and then you could have somebody who doesn’t like you but they still follow you and just slag you off on your post” (Jake, 14, M3). Targets of serious negative appearance comments in social media environments were described as typically occupying a low status in offline peer groups: “if you’re really popular with all the naughty ones . . . then you’ve got less chance of somebody being horrible to you because they’ll be scared . . . but like what’s it called a low-key nerd . . . then they might start saying oh erm you look like this you look like that err you’re fat you’re ugly” (Chelsea, 13, M2).

In addition, adolescents discussed how girls were described as being more likely to receive negative comments if they did not meet appearance ideals, than boys who were granted more flexibility in terms of appearance:

Sarah, 12: they have to have everything, the right hair makeup and clothes and boys can just do whatever they want but girls have to look good and if they’re not then they just bully them for it. (G1)

However, not all ostensibly negative appearance comments were perceived as problematic. Adolescents made a distinction between maliciously intended negative appearance commentary (such as bullying) and more prosocially intended negative appearance commentary (such as banter and teasing). Bullying was characterized as involving repetitive negative appearance comments, usually from several people, and occurring in private through direct messaging streams “it depends as well how many times they do it if a whole group of friends started commenting and direct messaging you then I guess that would be classed as bullying because they’re not leaving you alone . . . but if it wasn’t loads of people and only saying one thing then I wouldn’t really class it as bullying because it would only happen once and their not carrying it on” (Charlotte, 14, G3).

Many of the ostensibly negative appearance-related comments made in public spaces on social media are not always intended to cause harm, particularly if made within the boundaries of friendship groups “some people comment the sick emoji but you know they’re joking cos you’re really good friends with them” (Louise, 12, G1). Relationship to the commenter was described as important when interpreting a negative appearance-related comment. Many adolescents positioned negative appearance comments as humorous and not harmful especially when posted by a friend “there’s not many times when people comment something bad on your post if it is then it’d be your mates and they’re joking they’ll put ew and then you’d put oh whatever . . . you don’t really take offense” (Leigh, 14, G3). Emojis were used as indicators of where negative comments were intended as humorous “that one’s definitely banter . . . cause they’ve got the laughing emojis after it just to show they’re not being mean they’re just trying to have a laugh” (Daniel, 12, B2). Although a prominent interaction among boys and girls, humorous negative appearance commentary was constructed as more prominent among male friendship groups:

Theo, 13: I think the lads one they’re making fun of them because he’s just had a large big mac large fries and a milkshake they’re making fun of him being fat.

Myles, 14: yeah basically lads just being lads pulling their leg having a bit of fun that’s all. (B3)

Whether intended maliciously or not, negative comments reflected an endorsement of appearance ideals. Adolescents interpreted appearance comments such as “you’re fat; you’re ugly” as negative because these comments suggest that a person deviates from the sociocultural norm of attractiveness “yeah it’s just [referring to comments such as “fatty” or “eww”] what you say to be mean or joke about like you’re fat you’re ugly cause it’s bad to be that like in society goes against what people are supposed to look like” (Simon, 11, B1).

Implications

Our findings highlight how appearance interactions are not simply mirrored from offline to online, but instead are altered and constrained by social media platform design. These design features—most notably, visualness, publicness, and permanence (Nesi et al., 2018)—contributed to adolescents’ experiences and perceptions of appearance-related interactions. In particular, some types of interactions (e.g., positive appearance commentary) were experienced as more frequent and intense, due to their greater visualness publicness and permanency. Thus, our findings lend support for the utility of the transformation framework (Nesi et al., 2018) as a tool for understanding appearance-related interactions in social media spaces. That said, appearance-related interactions still bore some similarities to their offline counterparts. For example, posts such as “feel cute might delete later” echo the self-deprecating nature of body talk in offline settings (Mills & Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, 2017), but also acknowledge the constraints of the social media platform, which encourage the posting of appearance ideal images. Similarly, gender differences in appearance interactions found in the offline world (e.g., boys use of humor when discussing appearance; Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2006) persisted into social media environments. Understanding the role of social media site design in adolescent appearance interactions allows researchers to develop a more nuanced approach to understanding the potential impact of these appearance interactions on adolescent body image.

In highlighting the myriad complex, intricate, and interwoven ways in which problematic messages surrounding appearance are transmitted at the microlevel, the findings have important implications for both objectification theory and sociocultural theory. Our findings highlight how messages surrounding the importance of physical appearance and appearance ideals, as well as pressures to adopt an external viewers’ perspective of the body, manifest in both direct and indirect ways in appearance commentary in social media, not just images as documented in past research. For example, compliments, sexual advances, and self-disparaging remarks all reinforce the importance of appearance from an external viewer’s perspective and are all frequent occurrences on social media that can be experienced in a multitude of ways (e.g., they can be viewed, received, or posted). Even negative comments intended as a source of humor reinforce these messages, by legitimizing bodies that deviate from the appearance ideal as something to be mocked (e.g., Fouts & Burggraf, 2000). Crucially, appearance commentary works in tandem with images on social media, suggesting that understanding both is crucial to understanding how sociocultural appearance messages are reinforced and reproduced by these platforms.

In contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the potential role social media plays in adolescents’ body image development, our findings have implications for social media literacy interventions aimed at promoting body positivity. In particular, we highlight the importance of text-based interactions in adolescents’ negotiation, reinforcement, and perpetuation of sociocultural messages surrounding appearance. Critical and nuanced awareness of appearance-related interactions need to be integrated into emerging social media literacy programs (e.g., Gordon et al., 2020), with a particular focus on how social media transforms these experiences. These programs also need to consider the gendered nature of appearance interactions and adapt delivery accordingly.

Limitations

This study used focus groups in order to explore adolescents’ shared understanding of appearance-related interactions of social media. However, this method is not without limitations. While focus groups are well suited to eliciting shared meanings, the group environment may have affected adolescent’s ability to contribute, with some feeling unable to voice their opinions, especially where they deviate from group norms. To combat this, future research could benefit from supplementing focus groups with follow-up interviews (Tatangelo & Ricciardelli, 2017). Furthermore, the use of vignettes that were created by the research team may have steered discussions and encouraged participants to reflect on certain types of interactions. Alternative prompts, including those created by participants (e.g., asking participants to show examples of their own interactions, such as with the scroll-back method; Robards & Lincoln, 2017), may have encouraged different discussions.

Participants involved in this study were predominantly White, of low socio-economic status, and from the same school in the United Kingdom. It is unclear how the norms described in this study reflect the experiences of other groups of adolescents. That said, some social media research have found remarkably similar patterns of use across different cultural groups of adolescents (Livingstone, 2019). However, because the Western beauty ideal particularly values “whiteness” (Craddock, 2016), it is likely that other ethnic groups living in the United Kingdom may experience appearance interactions differently, and future research should consider how ethnic identities intersect with the social media appearance culture. Similarly, future research should explore how sexual identities and age (e.g., older adolescents) intersect with this culture, as this was not considered in our study. In particular, younger adolescents may have greater imaginary audience concerns than older adolescents (Vartanian & Powlishta, 2001), and so it is unclear whether self-presentational concerns would be as salient or manifest in the same ways as described by adolescents in our sample.