The perception of cosmetics in new media as a beauty myth: The influencer case in Instagram

The only truth of modern society is the demonstration. The sanctification of this new state of sociality justifies and conceals events in society. In this new social reality consisting of images and copies, the demonstration makes people believe that they do not need things, and they create unrealistic concerns and uncertainties. This study aims to investigate how beauty as a myth of beauty reveals the perception of beauty on Instagram, one of the new media platforms. With this review, it is observed that Instagram beauty category influencers promote cosmetic use and change the visual perception of their followers. People react faster to perceive the face than they perceive other objects. Assessment of facial features provides information such as gender, age, race, emotions, reliability, attractiveness, and intention. Today, beauty perception is created by media and new media. This perception of beauty in the media shapes individuals' thoughts and lifestyles. In this research, the posts of the ten influencers who have the most followers in the beauty category on Instagram will be examined from June to the end of November, and face-oriented photographs will be examined by content analysis method. Two of the most admired photos of each influencer were interpreted in the thesis. Keywords: Cosmetics, new media, instagram, influencer, beauty perception