زینب شجاعیان

Social media platforms like Instagram facilitate connections among individuals through the sharing of images and videos, substantially augmenting the potential for influencing their audience. An area of particular interest that has evolved in recent years, especially with the growth of the virtual space and the visual-centric content on Instagram, is the level of satisfaction individuals have with their physical appearance, particularly among women. Their contentment with their appearance is intricately linked to the idealized beauty standards championed by Instagram beauty bloggers, often inspiring them to emulate or even contrast with these models. In cases where individuals deviate from Instagram's beauty standards, their definition of beauty still reflects certain parallels with these standards. For instance, they do not necessarily consider excess weight as a criterion for beauty, much like the Instagram models, who serve as symbols of conventional beauty, rarely possess excess weight. This qualitative research studied this subject through interviews with six female university students aged 20-30 in Tehran. The study aims to explore the influence of Instagram on their self-perception, satisfaction with their physical appearance, and their notions of beauty and desirable aesthetics. The research process involved a comprehensive review of key concepts and relevant literature, followed by the analysis and comparison of the interview themes. The study's findings, derived from an in-depth examination of these themes and concepts, provide a more profound understanding of the participants' mental constructs within the virtual space, shedding light on the substantial impact of this digital environment on individual mindsets.

The pseudo-events -events that are created through and for the media- are one of the main opportunities to increase the visibility of micro-celebrities and to grow and maintain their audiences. This study aims to find what happens behind the scenes of pseudo-events that micro-celebrities organize. The primary purpose of this article is to study pseudo-events on social media accounts of Iranian female micro-celebrities on Instagram. Therefore, we aim to answer the following questions: What are pseudo-events on Instagram and what are their characteristics? How do Iranian female micro-celebrities create these pseudo-events? And What are the motivations behind creating these events and the way they are held? The methodology of this research is online ethnography and to answer the questions, we conducted unstructured interviews with 16 micro-celebrities and informants on micro-celebrities’ personal lives. Then, raw data were analyzed using the content analysis method. Based on the analysis, the central theme was fake events whose characteristics are: 1. participants (present and absent), 2. time (event occurrence time, event receipt time), 3. location (in real space, on virtual space), 4. etiquettes and form of performance (type of gifts, music, food, and the well-staged nature of events). The findings also showed that in these events, the represented image is more important than the event itself. In fact, these events are designed and performed for filming and display.