@@agirlisnoone6753 I understand the art vision in your perspective but still some stuff could be more private. I feel like there are children out here. It's just my point.
In college, went to a heavy white college and never got hit on or asked out once. Didn't even get asked to dance with in the club but for spring break we went to the Bahamas and I became the beauty standard and was literally followed around and hit on all over the place. My white friends were confused the whole spring break.
@A M Your response is unnecessarily mean and makes no sense. She was saying basically that the white people in her college didn't find her attractive but those in the Bahamas did. Clearly it's likely that an attractive woman was the wrong type for most at her school which is clearly the message of the video. If you dont believe in the conversation, keep it moving and stop being a troll.
I don’t believe that soulmates are restricted to romantic relationships. I feel that there are many people that we are destined to connect and grow with on a deeper level throughout our lives. We have many soulmates. The idea of restricting ourselves to just one seems silly to me, we’re too complex for that.
Ikr. My soul mate is a girl and we are friends. We are not even best friends , not even lovers but the first time we met each other felt as if we've known each other since forever and we have the same aura.
I grew up as a black male who has a larger nose & was always told I was ugly, I grew into myself & I see someone who is ATTRACTIVE & I won’t settle for anything that anyone has to say. My family also called me ugly & it’s been several years I still remember it I’m 38 and it affected me till those days.🙏🏽
It takes a lot of strength to go against all the negative you hear. Glad you're embracing your own beauty. Never ever settle. You're perfect as you are.
When I was growing up, my parents surrounded me with all types of positive Black media. I remember liking men of my ethnicity and others due to the diverse suburb I lived in. But then, a black boy in my class took it upon himself to bully me for being black and dark skinned. Although the boy was the same color as me and maybe darker, he chose to pick on me I'm not the other fair skinned black people or any of the other ethnicities. All this to say, representation is important. The media that portrays black people has vastly changed in the black community at least. Before you could see black women of all skin tones in music videos and TV shows, but now they're mostly light-skinned or biracial. Even music videos with black wrap artist have showcased lightest toned women and other ethnic women as well. The body type of hourglass and big booty has become the standard. There's nothing wrong with representing multiple types of black people, but the problem becomes a bigger issue when that's the majority of what they put out to be consumed by the public.
The question about soulmates is so problematic for people in my age range (20-30). This is where people are trying to find a partner yet we’re treating all these potential mates like amazon products. We check the reviews, what other people think about the product, is the product popular, and so on. But a human isn’t an object and we shouldn’t treat them that way. They’re not static. They’re dynamic and ever changing. Our partners shouldn’t be judged based on those standards then. Yet most people are having difficulty finding a mate because they’re trying to find “the one.” Anyway, I could go on and on. Thanks for bringing out such amazing content all the time! It’s fun learning and changing my perspective on different things after I watch your videos. I don’t always agree and that’s the fun part. It’s eye opening and I like reflecting on your message for days! Hope you and your loved ones are doing well :)
I was that little girl (when I was growing up) and I have slowly shown myself darker skin people who are considered beautiful and now I tell myself I'm beautiful and sexy consistently
It would be very boring, if everyone in the world looked all the same, in my opinion no one holds superiority in beauty. I have seen beauty in all shades, and ethnicities.
I couldn't agree more. And also I've felt pretty damn ugly most of my life, and I am white. Not even white people can measure up to the white beauty standard.
‘Love is reserved for only certain types of people’ (and that I wasn’t a part of that special group) is definitely what I believed until college... I’m still working on unlearning it.
I am in the same boat. I believed this until very recently and I have been able to unlearn that belief when it comes to everyone except for myself it seems.
I found this very interesting. Since I was very young I was told that I was too brown and that because I would get dark it would make me look “dirty” or “poor”. I grew up in a Latino household so they’re not indirect with the comments. It really hurt my self image and I started to feel like lighter people were prettier people. So I would date white guys, and I was attracted to white guys. As I started to love myself, and love my phenotype, and love my native american race, and my skin color I saw myself change what I was attracted to. I started to only like people who look like me because that was my new standard of beauty. It’s been like that for about 10 years now, and I never took the time to think about why or how it changed until now.
I come from a country where beautiful literally means light skin. So to contrast the beauty standards from my home country and here it's quite interesting. Bigger features, taller stature, pointy nose, long thick hair, with light skin is considered attractive. If you have a little weight on you, it's often better but not too much. If you don't have any of that and you have a really pretty face, you're still not considered attractive. What's worse is that they don't even have a variety of looks they adore or promote.(eg the cute girl, the milf, the exotic girl, the pretty one, the sexy one) When girls come of age, they are constantly compared to these stupid standards and put against eachother to compete. If you have 2 girls and one of them has a prettier face and yet, the other meets the above standards especially if she's light skinned, not only will the other one be deemed more attractive, the girl who doesn't meet the above arbitrary standards will be told to her face she's not as attractive. So often time, you'll have lots of jealousy from women. But I do think subconciously these things do affect you because everytime I leave that country, I do start finding girls like that more attractive whereas I start preferring the sunkissed chisled thin when I stay in the west. I think a lot of brown girls (and this includes south asian and latino although they are unrelated) initially love to find that white men find them attractive, and exotic. But what sucks is often times we don't have anything in common with these white men culturally and half the time, relationships with them feel like it's a phase they're going through. But it's not like they don't find their women attractive (eg scarlett johansson). Unlike our men who's ideal women typically involves a phenotype that is incredibly rare in their ethnic pool.
Anna Smith I don’t think that everyone who dates outside of their race is self hating or insecure. I can honestly only speak from my experience growing up until about age 13 I felt that way because my family had so much influence on what I thought was beautiful or attractive like Shan said. That was me liking and dating guys outside of my race because of self-hate. However, I’m sure that there are people who genuinely love people of other races without there being fetishizing or self-hate. It would be ignorant of me to think that there aren’t. There are people who date outside of their race for good reasons and toxic reasons, no one really knows except them. I can only speak for myself and who I was then and who I am now.
I love the idea of surrounding yourself with media that has people that look like you. I do this sometimes when I need a boost of confidence. I feel like it is also massively important for me to watch people who I aspire to be like professionally, academically, and personally ❤️
I’m watching “Too Hot To Handle” on Netflix and you’re being introduced on Season 1 Episode 3 at approximately 32:04 for the groups first workshop and I just SCREAMED CUZ YOU ARE MY FAVE AND I’ve been watching you for YEEEARS!!! I’M GENUINELY HAPPY FOR YOUR GROWTH SINCE IT MOTIVATES ME AND IDK YOU PERSONALLY. You are a real baddie! Ladies and Gentlemen...(drum rooooolllll) SHANON BOODY👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽😁
JA girl here. I was in love/lust with the darkest guy in my class ( 15yrs old) and my cousin said "you are already dark you can't talk to him". I have never dated a dark skinned guy ever. I know why, I try to reset my brain but here I am. My current boyfriend only dates dark skinned girls. Yup.......... just the story of my life.
No I don’t believe in soul mates. Also I came from a Greek Italian family, whom never spoke much about race and treated everyone the same. From the grade of kindergarten I remember becoming so thrilled to see all different kinds of people, and how beautiful I thought they were. Throughout my life I found myself attracted to many different cultures and races, and I’ve been married to a Puerto Rican for 7 years, I always love to see different cultures and I see such amazing value in how much there is. My parents didn’t encourage that, and I never lived in a environment where any culture or race was negatively talked about. I just fell in love with all the things that are different than what I know.
To me, a soulmate is who you knew from a previous life. When I met my life partner, I felt that connection was already there. Same with my best friend. You can have multiple soulmates, also a soulmate doesn’t have to be a romantic partner.
This conversation is so important. 🙏🏼 Being partially Native American and hispanic I've been insecure about my darker tan skin, I was raised around over 95% white people and even though I was seen as beautiful i still felt I always wished i could be white growing up. It wasn't until I got older i wanted to change that view and accept myself more, I did kind of what you mentioned and started exposing myself to more people who had dark skin and dark hair and it helped soo much. I now see myself as beautiful and no longer wish to change my hair or my skin. Even my nose, it has a slight bump to it, and I saw a post on tumblr honoring girls with larger noses or bumps as such, and it made me feel soo much better and so beautiful. Representation and exposure is so important 🙏🏼
I'm native American (Ojibwe) and Scandinavian and I took on my father's general looks but I have the "typical" Ojibwe bone structure and I grew up with only my mom's family, I learned to hate my pale skin and honestly we have the opposite sides of the same story and I feel you. Representation is really important, specifically for young children. My mom didn't let me watch television or anything and everyone I knew was very brown and I was the odd one out. My children are lucky that everything has started to change so there's much more variety in who you see now in commercials and similar stuff.
I love children, babies are just beautiful. And the browner their skin, the more they catch my eyes. Can't help it, lol. Chocolate babies are beautiful! 😍 But I just really love children and let them know they are adorable!
I was really disappointed when I saw the old video for the first time, but I was sure you were going to fix it when you were ready. Happy for you and the ways you grow. Great video. Thanks a lot !
It’s crazy how much beauty and attraction changes over time and space. Growing up, I was never considered “pretty”. I have curly hair and brown skin. The beauty standard in my neighbourhood was white skin with blonde, straight hair. I straightened my hair to fit in. I grew up to accept my curls and I still live in the same neighbourhood. Today I get comments a lot on my hair, my skin, how beautiful I am etc. HOWEVER, when I go out with my white friends, I’ll get hit on more in urban areas, but they’ll get hit on more in the beachy/suburb type of areas. Go figure 🤷🏽♀️
I honestly wish we had seen more diversity growing up. There used to be so much diversity among Black people in the media. Now, it's really exclusive. It's weird not seeing characters who look like you. Anyway, I loved this video so much. This is what I was always thinking about.
I’m generally very inquisitive and I love love love the kids. So if I was in that position to be caring for a lil beautiful babygirl who said she was ugly, I would first ask her why. Then I would find examples of other people with similar features and show her beauty of others which is usually easier to see if you’re self-hating. I’d teach her a song or we would make one up together to validate her beauty because kids respond well to songs they can remember. At this point it’s about her language so we need to change that language and give that baby some context they can understand.
I lovvvve the topic of attraction, but on a side note you're one of my favorite youtubers because you're so self aware and accountable. Makes everything you share feel way more trustworthy because its clear that you know what you're talking about and are always striving and willing to learn and be open minded
A Turns I don’t think so. You’re thinking of life partner. If you ever looks up soulmates the definition never gives off the idea that there is only one. A soulmate is literally what it sounds like, a mate of your soul. Meaning that someone who just gets you, a connection of the minds. Your soulmate can be anyone and thus you can have more than one. Shan has an amazing explanation somewhere comparing the two, I wish I could think of the exact video.
Totally agree with this. I have exes, friends, and relatives that I view as soulmates, and feel a connection that surpasses space and time. We have no romantic connection, but the connection feels closer and more safe
@@takiya1702 No, I assumed soulmate was a double entendre like "sole-mate" the one and only. Also, I define words as the way people use them.. i.e movies, daily life
So I am a dark skin woman who works as a mental health therapist. In the past I worked with a dark skin girl who hated the color of her skin. I process with her the journey I took to fall in love with my completion while reminding her every chance I got how beautiful she was and how smart she's. Being one of the few dark skin kids in my schooling was hard, even though I went to a school with kids from every cultural background, most were light skin children. I first blamed it on my clothing and then my kinky 4c hair, but at that age I actually had jerry curls. I then started to realize how much my completion played a role in others, I desperatly wanted to feel accepted and desired, I soon then after sought out attention, to feel a sense of confidence. However, with age and life lessons, I have healed most of my wounds and have grown to love the darkness of my skin. I love how smooth it looks and how the sun refelect off of me. Overall, that video made me melt, it was too hearbreaking. I however, am greaftful for the caregiver, when I have my own daugthers I will ensure they understand how pretty their completion is. Great vidoe .
I ALWAYS considered myself as BEAUTIFUL, not because of what's on the outside (what society dictates is beautiful) but I ALWAYS LOVED myself because of my hear, although people have always told me your so pretty and my answer would always be thank you but I'm beautiful bc my heart is beautiful. I have strongly and tirelessly a deep dedication of telling EVERY young girl that she is beautiful and to have beautiful hearts bc that'swhere your REAL beauty comes from, NOT from what society says is beautiful (hundreds of girl and also boys)
when shan said "create a world where you are celebrated as beautiful" i started crying. as someone who's being going through body dysmorphia since they were 12; this whole video was really a godsent to me. thank u so much
I often find people that look simuler to myself and people I grew up around looks kind of boring. I'm from the northern of europe and I don't really find blond people attractive. I've always been into people with dark hair, brown eyes, people that looks different then the "norm" here. I definitely tho, get more attracted to people if I spend alot of time with them, get to know them, and get to know certain sides of them. I'm really into guys that have a caring side to them. After getting away from a very toxic relationship I now seek for people that show how much I mean to them, that shows that they care about me.
Udo Ka it’s not always someone directly telling you that you are ugly tho...lack of representation is a problem and also the promotion of everyone that doesn’t look like you. Then the few times you are actually represented, it is usually in a negative light. I’m sure you know this. Sometimes parents try but it isn’t always enough. I think in addition to showering them with love, little black girls need to be bombarded with beautiful, attractive and positive images of themselves. There’s a lot of work to be done 😓
The mere-exposure effect really hits home to me and freaked me out because of personal experience. I've always had a very large and open "type" , but two years ago I said to my friend that i thought that the only "race" i would never be able to be sexually attracted were asian guys. They didn't reflect in my head a sexual vibe (hello western stereotypes and lack of media representation). Two days later, I fell in the deep hole of k-music and asian movies and blablabla. Funnily, like not even a month after getting in all of that I started noticing all these fine asian men on the streets and I was shocked and disturbed by myself. Like, how easily I had been manipulated in the past to ignore them and globally put them all in one big pack of stereotypes. It's so fucked up! But it opened my eyes sooooo much to the realness of it all and made me learn so much. (Media representation please do your job. We need it asap)
I think we put too much emphasis on attractiveness. In that situation with that little girl, that's very challenging to decide what's the right or wrong thing to say. My best guess would be show that little girl all the diversity of what it means to be attractive. That it's not just how you physically look, that it's your spirit, your mind, your heart, the way you express, the way you carry yourself, the way you treat people and try to do that in a way someone her age can understand.
SHAN! I think the second go around with this video was A1. We do not live in a vacuum, our attraction included. We are shaped by society! loved this!!!
What about fetishizing ie: “i only date asian guys” etc. coming from a white woman? ive had this debate w some friends who believe those type of statements .. so many layers. Master of None touches on that. I always struggled w ‘white guys dont like me etc’ so the reverse .. arghh i love/ hate this topic
I love that I'm living in a time with people like you who are able to share their education and wisdom. I spent so much of my life waiting for a soulmate who would accept me unconditionally, faults and all, because I didn't believe there was more than one person out there who could love me. No matter how romantic that concept sounds, it's unrealistic, and you are right, stops you from being able to facilitate meaningful intimate connection which is something that is created with effort, time and the choice to allow vulnerability. Thanks for the reminder xx
I would say(assuming my child/the child is black), “God made us first for a reason. We are beautiful and powerful. You are young, gifted, and Black. God love you and sees you as beautiful, so you are beautiful.”
The definition of soulmates varies. For example, I believe we have many soulmates which are part of your same soul energy and help you in life. A soulmate doesn’t have to be romantic nor a twin flame 🔥 at the end of the day we come to this world to evolve our souls and these people help us massively in our journey. YOU ROCKED THIS VIDEO BTW 🤜🤛
When I was younger I believed in soulmates. Now I’m 21 and I don’t believe in them anymore. And let me tell you, I feel so much more relaxed and relieved now that I’m free of that limiting belief!
This is it ❤️ And it's definitely not just a US problem. My husband was born and raised in Somalia and it hurts my heart when I hear some of the negative beliefs there about dark skinned people not being beautiful. Which is mind-blowing to me because I've always found black men and women to be just about the most stunning people in the world. So it's one of my greatest goals to raise my kids up knowing that they are perfect and worthy as they are. 🥰
Girl, thank you for that. I’ve always played with the thought that we are attracted to what we are most exposed to. Didn’t know it was a real studied theory!
Shan! You nailed this second video for real!! I studied the ‘preferences need no inferences’ research as well and been gassing about it to people so much. I’m so so happy you made this video teaching people about it through the example of attraction ❤️
I’m showing this video to all of my living ancestors. Constantly hearing that in radical and an outlier for telling people to stop telling my light skinned daughter that she has the perfect skin tone, telling me that my looser hair texture is preferable to kinkier textures, and telling me and other women that love is for certain BMIs. There are ways to hate people that aren’t as overt as people may think.
This video is lit! caused a great discussion with my friends, please go into more details on the principles mentioned in future videos. I never acknowledged the soul mate concept may be toxic but I never believed in soul mates, I believe there is a potential for a high level of compatibility with many humans on this earth and any one of them could be your life partner.
My daughter is very fair-skinned. We are "white" presenting, even though we have mixed blood. My daughter's best friend has the darkest skin I have ever seen, and she is so beautiful. One day the friend was over and said something about my daughter being beautiful and her being ugly. I stopped her, and told her yes, my daughter is beautiful, but she is equally as beautiful, and I went into detail. I told her, her skin is so deep and lovely, and just how eye-catching she is. I told her that how hair is wonderful, and is free, full, and beautiful like her spirit. I told her I don't want to hear her ever put herself down again because the negative is lies! She honestly smiled so big and I gave her a hug. We adults really can change how kids see themselves. Never ever stop being that spark for another soul, young or old.
Love this re-do. Would've loved to see this analysis along with the social experiment of "Love is Blind." Love you Shan! Looking forward to more videos!
So yes, I believe in soulmates, but I don’t think that my soulmate was a healthy person in my life or even the person in supposed to be with in the long term, she is the person that everything just clicked with right away, there was no extra effort in trying hard for a physical connection because we just had it, the chemistry between us was undeniable and I have never met anyone after her that kissed me the same or the physical was as easy with, she didn’t exactly look like “my type” and things just didn’t end up working out with her.. and I don’t think they ever will but I truly believe she is my soulmate, it just wasn’t meant to be
Woah, I just started learning about attraction in more depth today, so this was amazing. I use your information and expertise in majority of my class content/discussion so thank you 💙
Me and my boyfriend definitely are a result of the exposure effect. Because I never thought he was attractive but he always liked me. We were really close friends all of highschool. Then one day he wore a certain outfit and I was like huh he actually is cute now😂
Attraction is heavily influenced on the media we consume. We are beautiful, we just gotta learn to own it. I always believed what we find attractive is based on culture, environment, and it boils down to personal taste. A lot of those things influence it. It's like the media purposefully took out dark skin. India is really bad about it. The darkest actress is Priyanka. She's considered light skinned in our community. It's sad. But, yes. The media has a weird obsession with white skin.
Maybe it's just me but the idea of a soulmate or multiple soulmates rarely ever has a face or physical attributes associated with it. It's usually this idea of the ideal partner who makes sense with you in a way no one else comes close to. Of course you imagine you'll have great sexual chemistry with them but I think it has a lot more to do with the emotional and spiritual compatibility than physical. Maybe other people think otherwise...
I had this experience and i make sure to use social media to expose myself to images of beauty that fit me. Also, I choose rather than to start this conversation with people, to expose them to a different standard of beauty on feeds/ media that I control.
YES YES YES this video is inspirational!! I appreciate so much how you always own up to your 'mistakes' or things you could have done better. And the information in this video I think is super helpful for people! 🧡 I hope I can be as eloquent as you one day, keep up the awesome work 🥰🥰
I think a lot of it comes from confidence and how you work your look and carry yourself. How is it that certain people come along and the beauty standard changes completely? For instance Kim kardashian before she got really popular her look may have appealed in more urban communities yes but the overall standard was thin and blonde and she was very confident and didn’t like victimize herself and she changed the beauty standard to curvy, dark features, exotic. I’ve heard many guys say things like they only like a certain race or look of women then someone comes along that makes them shift that perception completely. Idk I just think when you’re in victim mode and you assume people won’t be attracted to you because of all these things you attract that narrative.
Advocating for more and more ‘types’ of beauty isn’t destroying or challenging The Beauty Myth, its simply moving the goal posts. Beauty standards, by their very design, cannot and will not include all women as beautiful- that’s not what they were created to do. The entire point of beauty standards is to create a sort of ‘archetype’ of beauty based on qualities and characteristics that only a minority of women possess, (or require a significant amount of time and labor to achieve), then tell the majority of women that these qualities are what they should strive to achieve. The solution is to get rid of beauty period, and instead focus on other qualities and characteristics, namely self-worth and confidence building. Instead of telling girls that they’re beautiful, why don’t we tell them instead that beauty doesn’t matter, that they are talented, strong, capable, outstanding, that they can achieve anything that they set their mind to? The concept of beauty has become so entangled with the concept of self-worth that I don’t even feel like we can separate the two, and it seems almost unfathomable for us to have one without the other. Its okay to be ugly, its okay to not be considered attractive. Black women do not have to be beautiful to be of worth. If you teach a little Black girl that she’s beautiful, you’re still telling her that beauty matters. She’s going to realize one day that while she might be beautiful that there’s an entire scale of beautiful and that on a scale of 1 to ten her dark skin, wide nose, and belly make her a 3, and that she’ll never obtain that perfect 10, but she’ll die trying because that;s what women are just supposed to do. If you teach her that her self-worth is not dependent on whether or not she’s attractive, then whether or not she’s considered attractive won’t have any bearing on her self-worth. Tackling the dehumanization of Black woman by making strict adherence to femininity the goal isn’t helping us, and its only becoming more and more obvious to me that it’s not the solution. We humanize ourselves when we confide in each other, when we create spaces centered on ourselves an our needs. We humanize ourselves when we speak our pains, when we create mirrors of each other in the forms of art and literature, when we provide opportunities for Black women to see themselves gazing back. We humanize ourselves when we laugh and dance, we humanize ourselves not by adhering to femininity, but by growing strong, by finding support in one another, by building strength while also allowing ourselves to be weak. But we don’t like this method. We like goalposts. We like being considered more attractive than other women, we like the privilege femininity affords us and the ease of life it can provide. We’re willing to continue to engage in femininity, because we know what happens to those women who don’t, and we like being considered more attractive than that other girl. Until a significant portion of Black women decide to abandon femininity, this plan won’t work. It won’t work because without enough Black woman to support each other, we’ll always be tempted to go back, because of the privilege and comfort femininity provides, if only socially. Until we see enough gender non-conforming women reflected back at us, like a mirror, then femininity will always be the norm. Because eventually, somehow, somewhere, someone is going to tell that Black girl that she’d look better with a perm, and unless she has enough women to guide her and support her, enough women to help her fight against the beauty myth that screams at her from every source of media, every newspaper, magazine, commercial, and radio song, eventually she’s going to see that the closer she is to someone else’s beauty ideal, the more humanity she’s granted.
My daughter has said that to me in more than one occasion. I'm a mixed Mexican (my mom is Mexican my dad is Spanish and I understand that I look more European than my own daughter because I take after my father), my daughter is Mexican as well but she takes after her father (he had native Mexican indigenous blood and featutes running in his family and my daughters looks very Mexican with some European futures but not that many) and I always try to make feel beautiful by what she does and who she is not by looks. I try to let her know that beauty is not only physical, but a mixture of both your personality and your body. I show her photos of people that might not seem attractive in media but are popular because of their talent. I might be doing it worng but I try to do what i think is best. Idk...I'm just a mom that is just gussing 80% of time.
Fernanda Mangas this is so nice! It’s important that she feels valued for who she is and not just her looks! But also if I may suggest something, try to show her people who are attractive who look indigenous in media or in real life. And compliment her indigenous features which I’m sure you already do as her loving mother! Sorry if any of this overstepped any boundaries!
@@Sprint622 that's great advice. I try to show a wide range of ethnicities so there are pople with a wide range of features but I'll try to focus on what you have mentioned. Thank you for the great advice.
I believe you can have multiple soulmates in this life that don't have to be romantic. Your siblings, family, and friends can be your soulmate. I do believe it's important to find someone who you do create a bond and a level of understanding that will grow into love. For me, I romanticized the idea of a soulmate but, I really want is a life partner. Dating has me emotionally exhausted. Shan, I bought your book and I love it! I definitely need to start applying it to my dating life!
My definition of soulmate is different from yours, but I do understand what you were trying to say! I believe that my soulmate is out there working on their life ambitions while I am working on mine and when the time is right we will meet and explore what God has for us! I do not have a certain type or archetype of a person in mind when I say soulmate! I like your overall message though!
I believe you can have more than one soulmate. that can be anyone a parent, sibling, friends, you meet a stranger for the first and last time. grate video btw!
Shan, your videos are getting me through this quarantine and then life after. Thank you so much for the work you do and for sharing your wisdom. We don't know each other, but I am so happy for you and all that you have accomplished. Go head girl! 😆
Wow! I believe in soul mates, but I'm also polyamorous, and believe that a mate isn't always permanent. I think I've connected with many people thru many lives. I also feel that people enter my life like a cartrip passenger: they May be there for the Whole trip or a portion, ride in the front, back, someone you drive by or stop to visit, or they're driving the car, themselves. Doesn't make them less vital, and it doesn't mean they won't switch positions, but they take on different roles that make up your love lifeline
Thank you for mentioning masturbating in a mirror. I remember when my friends and I were discussing masturbating, and one friend had asked if any of us have ever masturbated to ourselves. I said, "yes,"thinking everyone did that, but I got the weirdest looks. I think it's truly a beautiful thing when you can find the moments that you can find you're attractive without comparison to others.
I appreciate this video and all of your content! I believe your original video was not done to intentionally harm but did showcase some of our biases. You also shined a light on a lot of societal issues that people neglect because we assume like you said everything attraction wise is nature rather than nurture. Id disagree about 90% is nurture. I'm a size 18 big girl and all the media feeds me is how unattraction to people my size is all based on biology. Id care to disagree that its most the reason, possibly a little. I've seen how fat has been stigmatized and unattractive, and everything else outside the sphere of white, blond, and thin as outside the "norm".
In response to the viral video I remember when I was 4 or 5 stopping before a mirror and closing my eyes and opening them as a walked passed hoping that what I saw was a reflection of a skinny girl with straight brown hair. I honestly can’t even tell you where I got those kind of messages from. I was watching kids shows and just wasn’t around that kind of thing. But the thing is kids soak up everything. We need to be so careful because even though they might not understand it’s still going into their heads for them to remember later in life. Kids are not dumb. They are little learning sponges!
I honestly didn't see anything wrong with that video. Your point came off pretty clear to me, so hearing that it pissed people off is surprising. But, that's the world we live in. Everybody's offended by everything. As far as attraction to one's own ethnicity, I've always found that bizarre. I'm as white as they get and grew up in a mainly white area, but I've always been attracted to women of various ethnic backgrounds. That's never been an issue for me. Beautiful women are beautiful women. And yeah, the whole soul mate thing is absurd. Obviously, there are plenty of people who are compatible with each other, not just one. Thinking that one person is destined to be with another is almost kind of supernatural belief and I have no patience for that bullshit. You're also spot on how people who think they're ugly are less likely to have sex and relationships. That's me, but the thing is I actually am ugly.
I would tell that little girl how beautiful she is. I would ask her why she thought that and ask where were those messages she's telling herself coming from. Going forward I guess I would create a practice with her everyday around celebrating ourselves, our unique beauty, and our differences. I would also show her images of women who look like her celebrating their beauty. I don't know if that's enough but that's where my head is right now.
Its actually ok, most men are intimidated by certain groups of women and some have more respect. Cat calls are disrespectful. Do people cat call the Queen or beyonce.
What kinda horrible argument. Why would anyone catcall a 93 year old woman? What situations do you think Beyonce puts herself in to be catcalled? You think Beyonce aint got thirsty dudes in her social media DMs desperately trying to have sex with her? It has nothing to do with intimidation. Men are not intimidated by women because of a specific trait they have. Don't convince yourself with a lie to make things seem more tolerable.
Hi shan, my son who is 13 wants his hair to be like his Caucasian friends, he also think he is too dark and often as me why he doesn't look like me it breaks my heart, and i am not even light skin
I like this analysis... this, is why women need to rely on self love. Why consider yourself ugly based on the trends of society? One day skinny is in, the other day curvy, one era dark skin is elevated (ancient Egypt) the other light skin. Don’t rely on culture, love yourself regardless
I totally believe it to be true, honestly. I'm attracted to things that are the total opposite of what was exposed to my childhood, and what I celebrate, currently. I don't look at it as you're directly attracted to what you're told, but more so what you see more often
That is not true. I’ve been a dancer on and off for over 10 years and I’ve seen the change in what men want. It used to be the girl next door and fake boobs. Now it’s head to toe plastic surgery, bbl with tattoos.
This so true. My partner (who is biracial with a German mother and black father) was only attracted to Black women when he was young - specifically brown skinned women. He got stationed in Germany for four years and developed an attraction to White women. He finds them equally attractive now. Environment aka “nurture” had this affect on him in his mid-20s. That’s significant.
I respectfully disagree with the soulmates. I never believed in such a thing....until I was in my thirties and met my husband. 20 yrs later we are still going strong and I also enjoy the company of a second partner. They are very different men to be sure! Yet, I can't imagine life without them both in it...at this stage. I do understand what you say about it and would agree that could be the case for many "soulmates". I just believe it can be real for some as well 😉 I am a convert after all
I do believe soul mates are possible from a spiritual perspective. However, I don't believe that everyone meets their soul mates or that everyone only has one, maybe it's two because the first one passed away earlier than the other partner that is meant to keep going. I think that sometimes terrible things happen to a soul mate and you can't be with them and it's only meant to be a short meeting up before parting ways. I also don't think everyone can recognize their soul mates, maybe some don't meet them in this life either, but there are other great people to spend most of their lives together. I know I have look preferences, but I focus on how we get along and how attractive they are from the inside too. Different looks or ethnicities haven't ever been set determinants for me.
I believe that we have many soulmates or people in our soul tribe. They can be lovers, friends, family but I believe a soulmate is someone you have a soul connection with.
![แฉกลโกงงานวัด 2024 [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.106 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/taC5dpP3HXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Shan is the kween of calling herself out when she missteps. We love to see it 💜
Have you considered to change a profile picture? You can keep things like things more private. I hope you can understand what I mean.
Have a nice day.
@@agirlisnoone6753 I understand the art vision in your perspective but still some stuff could be more private. I feel like there are children out here.
It's just my point.
THIS GOES SO HAND IN HAND WITH THE IMPORTANCE OF REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA
Absolutely
But media is largely self programmed now so use that to ur advantage
In college, went to a heavy white college and never got hit on or asked out once. Didn't even get asked to dance with in the club but for spring break we went to the Bahamas and I became the beauty standard and was literally followed around and hit on all over the place. My white friends were confused the whole spring break.
@Lena Where was she complaining? She was pointing out a situation she personally experienced that aligned with the video topic.
@A M you really just like to shit on people's day uh
A M she was still in college 🤦♀️ tried it
@A MYou must be 12 with such logic.
@A M Your response is unnecessarily mean and makes no sense. She was saying basically that the white people in her college didn't find her attractive but those in the Bahamas did. Clearly it's likely that an attractive woman was the wrong type for most at her school which is clearly the message of the video. If you dont believe in the conversation, keep it moving and stop being a troll.
For everyone who’s in quarantene: I hope your favorite TH-camrs are posting more often 🙏🏻
Quarantine
Give me a break, English is not my first language
I believe that you can have more than one soulmate; every soulmate won’t necessarily be your life partner. #ilyshan
Same! I feel like you can definitely have more than one, and it doesn't have to be romantic.
Love is too great of an energy to conceal it to one individual
Exactly
I agree completely! Was just going to comment the same. I have 2 soulmates right now, my partner and my best friend (soul-sister).
Mayura Ouk soul sister that’s interesting I have one as well but I call my best friend my twin flame!! But soul sister is good as well
I don’t believe that soulmates are restricted to romantic relationships. I feel that there are many people that we are destined to connect and grow with on a deeper level throughout our lives. We have many soulmates. The idea of restricting ourselves to just one seems silly to me, we’re too complex for that.
I have the same belief!
I believe this so much. 😍
Well said. i have the same opinion
Ikr. My soul mate is a girl and we are friends. We are not even best friends , not even lovers but the first time we met each other felt as if we've known each other since forever and we have the same aura.
Well thats kinda duh😂. Cuz your perants are your sollmates. Your freands and bestfreands is your sollmates.
I grew up as a black male who has a larger nose & was always told I was ugly, I grew into myself & I see someone who is ATTRACTIVE & I won’t settle for anything that anyone has to say. My family also called me ugly & it’s been several years I still remember it I’m 38 and it affected me till those days.🙏🏽
I’m so sorry
It takes a lot of strength to go against all the negative you hear. Glad you're embracing your own beauty. Never ever settle. You're perfect as you are.
That’s some bullshit, I’m happy you’re confident in yourself!!
When I was growing up, my parents surrounded me with all types of positive Black media. I remember liking men of my ethnicity and others due to the diverse suburb I lived in. But then, a black boy in my class took it upon himself to bully me for being black and dark skinned. Although the boy was the same color as me and maybe darker, he chose to pick on me I'm not the other fair skinned black people or any of the other ethnicities. All this to say, representation is important. The media that portrays black people has vastly changed in the black community at least. Before you could see black women of all skin tones in music videos and TV shows, but now they're mostly light-skinned or biracial. Even music videos with black wrap artist have showcased lightest toned women and other ethnic women as well. The body type of hourglass and big booty has become the standard. There's nothing wrong with representing multiple types of black people, but the problem becomes a bigger issue when that's the majority of what they put out to be consumed by the public.
The question about soulmates is so problematic for people in my age range (20-30). This is where people are trying to find a partner yet we’re treating all these potential mates like amazon products. We check the reviews, what other people think about the product, is the product popular, and so on. But a human isn’t an object and we shouldn’t treat them that way. They’re not static. They’re dynamic and ever changing. Our partners shouldn’t be judged based on those standards then. Yet most people are having difficulty finding a mate because they’re trying to find “the one.” Anyway, I could go on and on.
Thanks for bringing out such amazing content all the time! It’s fun learning and changing my perspective on different things after I watch your videos. I don’t always agree and that’s the fun part. It’s eye opening and I like reflecting on your message for days! Hope you and your loved ones are doing well :)
This is so perfect and true!
I was that little girl (when I was growing up) and I have slowly shown myself darker skin people who are considered beautiful and now I tell myself I'm beautiful and sexy consistently
Ma’am you are beautiful
You’re fine as hell, smart, cool and forward thinking. The little girl growing up under your guidance will be very fortunate
@Lena thank you
@@bielkaaime3222 thank you
@@shanboody thank you your videos are so educational, entertaining, and inspiring. ❤🥰
It would be very boring, if everyone in the world looked all the same, in my opinion no one holds superiority in beauty. I have seen beauty in all shades, and ethnicities.
I couldn't agree more. And also I've felt pretty damn ugly most of my life, and I am white. Not even white people can measure up to the white beauty standard.
Same sis
@@esikazemese gurl don't say that u r beautiful we are all beautiful
@@esikazemese You're beautiful, beauty comes in all shades and shapes 😊
‘Love is reserved for only certain types of people’ (and that I wasn’t a part of that special group) is definitely what I believed until college... I’m still working on unlearning it.
I am in the same boat. I believed this until very recently and I have been able to unlearn that belief when it comes to everyone except for myself it seems.
I found this very interesting. Since I was very young I was told that I was too brown and that because I would get dark it would make me look “dirty” or “poor”. I grew up in a Latino household so they’re not indirect with the comments. It really hurt my self image and I started to feel like lighter people were prettier people. So I would date white guys, and I was attracted to white guys. As I started to love myself, and love my phenotype, and love my native american race, and my skin color I saw myself change what I was attracted to. I started to only like people who look like me because that was my new standard of beauty. It’s been like that for about 10 years now, and I never took the time to think about why or how it changed until now.
Wonderful introspection on your part.
Girl same but black
I come from a country where beautiful literally means light skin. So to contrast the beauty standards from my home country and here it's quite interesting. Bigger features, taller stature, pointy nose, long thick hair, with light skin is considered attractive. If you have a little weight on you, it's often better but not too much. If you don't have any of that and you have a really pretty face, you're still not considered attractive. What's worse is that they don't even have a variety of looks they adore or promote.(eg the cute girl, the milf, the exotic girl, the pretty one, the sexy one) When girls come of age, they are constantly compared to these stupid standards and put against eachother to compete. If you have 2 girls and one of them has a prettier face and yet, the other meets the above standards especially if she's light skinned, not only will the other one be deemed more attractive, the girl who doesn't meet the above arbitrary standards will be told to her face she's not as attractive. So often time, you'll have lots of jealousy from women. But I do think subconciously these things do affect you because everytime I leave that country, I do start finding girls like that more attractive whereas I start preferring the sunkissed chisled thin when I stay in the west. I think a lot of brown girls (and this includes south asian and latino although they are unrelated) initially love to find that white men find them attractive, and exotic. But what sucks is often times we don't have anything in common with these white men culturally and half the time, relationships with them feel like it's a phase they're going through. But it's not like they don't find their women attractive (eg scarlett johansson). Unlike our men who's ideal women typically involves a phenotype that is incredibly rare in their ethnic pool.
Brianna Figueroa oh I’m sorry you went through this in your household. You’re so pretty!
Anna Smith I don’t think that everyone who dates outside of their race is self hating or insecure. I can honestly only speak from my experience growing up until about age 13 I felt that way because my family had so much influence on what I thought was beautiful or attractive like Shan said. That was me liking and dating guys outside of my race because of self-hate. However, I’m sure that there are people who genuinely love people of other races without there being fetishizing or self-hate. It would be ignorant of me to think that there aren’t. There are people who date outside of their race for good reasons and toxic reasons, no one really knows except them. I can only speak for myself and who I was then and who I am now.
I love the idea of surrounding yourself with media that has people that look like you. I do this sometimes when I need a boost of confidence. I feel like it is also massively important for me to watch people who I aspire to be like professionally, academically, and personally ❤️
I’m watching “Too Hot To Handle” on Netflix and you’re being introduced on Season 1 Episode 3 at approximately 32:04 for the groups first workshop and I just SCREAMED CUZ YOU ARE MY FAVE AND I’ve been watching you for YEEEARS!!! I’M GENUINELY HAPPY FOR YOUR GROWTH SINCE IT MOTIVATES ME AND IDK YOU PERSONALLY. You are a real baddie! Ladies and Gentlemen...(drum rooooolllll) SHANON BOODY👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽😁
JA girl here. I was in love/lust with the darkest guy in my class ( 15yrs old) and my cousin said "you are already dark you can't talk to him". I have never dated a dark skinned guy ever. I know why, I try to reset my brain but here I am. My current boyfriend only dates dark skinned girls. Yup.......... just the story of my life.
No I don’t believe in soul mates. Also I came from a Greek Italian family, whom never spoke much about race and treated everyone the same. From the grade of kindergarten I remember becoming so thrilled to see all different kinds of people, and how beautiful I thought they were. Throughout my life I found myself attracted to many different cultures and races, and I’ve been married to a Puerto Rican for 7 years, I always love to see different cultures and I see such amazing value in how much there is. My parents didn’t encourage that, and I never lived in a environment where any culture or race was negatively talked about. I just fell in love with all the things that are different than what I know.
To me, a soulmate is who you knew from a previous life. When I met my life partner, I felt that connection was already there. Same with my best friend. You can have multiple soulmates, also a soulmate doesn’t have to be a romantic partner.
Entirely agreed.
Then what’s a twin flame? I’m still confused with these topics
Jenny marie It's like our soul was split and somewhere in the world is the other part that's your twin flame
This conversation is so important. 🙏🏼 Being partially Native American and hispanic I've been insecure about my darker tan skin, I was raised around over 95% white people and even though I was seen as beautiful i still felt I always wished i could be white growing up. It wasn't until I got older i wanted to change that view and accept myself more, I did kind of what you mentioned and started exposing myself to more people who had dark skin and dark hair and it helped soo much. I now see myself as beautiful and no longer wish to change my hair or my skin. Even my nose, it has a slight bump to it, and I saw a post on tumblr honoring girls with larger noses or bumps as such, and it made me feel soo much better and so beautiful. Representation and exposure is so important 🙏🏼
I'm native American (Ojibwe) and Scandinavian and I took on my father's general looks but I have the "typical" Ojibwe bone structure and I grew up with only my mom's family, I learned to hate my pale skin and honestly we have the opposite sides of the same story and I feel you. Representation is really important, specifically for young children. My mom didn't let me watch television or anything and everyone I knew was very brown and I was the odd one out. My children are lucky that everything has started to change so there's much more variety in who you see now in commercials and similar stuff.
I love children, babies are just beautiful. And the browner their skin, the more they catch my eyes. Can't help it, lol. Chocolate babies are beautiful! 😍 But I just really love children and let them know they are adorable!
Chocolate isnt a color😒
I was really disappointed when I saw the old video for the first time, but I was sure you were going to fix it when you were ready. Happy for you and the ways you grow. Great video. Thanks a lot !
It’s crazy how much beauty and attraction changes over time and space. Growing up, I was never considered “pretty”. I have curly hair and brown skin. The beauty standard in my neighbourhood was white skin with blonde, straight hair. I straightened my hair to fit in. I grew up to accept my curls and I still live in the same neighbourhood. Today I get comments a lot on my hair, my skin, how beautiful I am etc. HOWEVER, when I go out with my white friends, I’ll get hit on more in urban areas, but they’ll get hit on more in the beachy/suburb type of areas. Go figure 🤷🏽♀️
I honestly wish we had seen more diversity growing up. There used to be so much diversity among Black people in the media. Now, it's really exclusive. It's weird not seeing characters who look like you. Anyway, I loved this video so much. This is what I was always thinking about.
I’m generally very inquisitive and I love love love the kids. So if I was in that position to be caring for a lil beautiful babygirl who said she was ugly, I would first ask her why. Then I would find examples of other people with similar features and show her beauty of others which is usually easier to see if you’re self-hating. I’d teach her a song or we would make one up together to validate her beauty because kids respond well to songs they can remember. At this point it’s about her language so we need to change that language and give that baby some context they can understand.
I lovvvve the topic of attraction, but on a side note you're one of my favorite youtubers because you're so self aware and accountable. Makes everything you share feel way more trustworthy because its clear that you know what you're talking about and are always striving and willing to learn and be open minded
Believing in soulmates doesn't automatically mean that one believes that there can't be multiple soulmates.
Agreed
Doesnt this take away the definition of a "soulmate" why not drop that concept altogether?
A Turns I don’t think so. You’re thinking of life partner. If you ever looks up soulmates the definition never gives off the idea that there is only one. A soulmate is literally what it sounds like, a mate of your soul. Meaning that someone who just gets you, a connection of the minds. Your soulmate can be anyone and thus you can have more than one. Shan has an amazing explanation somewhere comparing the two, I wish I could think of the exact video.
Totally agree with this. I have exes, friends, and relatives that I view as soulmates, and feel a connection that surpasses space and time. We have no romantic connection, but the connection feels closer and more safe
@@takiya1702 No, I assumed soulmate was a double entendre like "sole-mate" the one and only. Also, I define words as the way people use them.. i.e movies, daily life
So I am a dark skin woman who works as a mental health therapist. In the past I worked with a dark skin girl who hated the color of her skin. I process with her the journey I took to fall in love with my completion while reminding her every chance I got how beautiful she was and how smart she's. Being one of the few dark skin kids in my schooling was hard, even though I went to a school with kids from every cultural background, most were light skin children. I first blamed it on my clothing and then my kinky 4c hair, but at that age I actually had jerry curls. I then started to realize how much my completion played a role in others, I desperatly wanted to feel accepted and desired, I soon then after sought out attention, to feel a sense of confidence. However, with age and life lessons, I have healed most of my wounds and have grown to love the darkness of my skin. I love how smooth it looks and how the sun refelect off of me. Overall, that video made me melt, it was too hearbreaking. I however, am greaftful for the caregiver, when I have my own daugthers I will ensure they understand how pretty their completion is. Great vidoe .
I ALWAYS considered myself as BEAUTIFUL, not because of what's on the outside (what society dictates is beautiful) but I ALWAYS LOVED myself because of my hear, although people have always told me your so pretty and my answer would always be thank you but I'm beautiful bc my heart is beautiful. I have strongly and tirelessly a deep dedication of telling EVERY young girl that she is beautiful and to have beautiful hearts bc that'swhere your REAL beauty comes from, NOT from what society says is beautiful (hundreds of girl and also boys)
when shan said "create a world where you are celebrated as beautiful" i started crying. as someone who's being going through body dysmorphia since they were 12; this whole video was really a godsent to me. thank u so much
I often find people that look simuler to myself and people I grew up around looks kind of boring. I'm from the northern of europe and I don't really find blond people attractive. I've always been into people with dark hair, brown eyes, people that looks different then the "norm" here. I definitely tho, get more attracted to people if I spend alot of time with them, get to know them, and get to know certain sides of them. I'm really into guys that have a caring side to them. After getting away from a very toxic relationship I now seek for people that show how much I mean to them, that shows that they care about me.
A good video to follow this would be your analysis on Love is Blind
I would say: “who told you that?”
Moving forward: shower her with love when she gets ready every morning
Your the only person who answered that question 🌞
Udo Ka it’s not always someone directly telling you that you are ugly tho...lack of representation is a problem and also the promotion of everyone that doesn’t look like you. Then the few times you are actually represented, it is usually in a negative light. I’m sure you know this. Sometimes parents try but it isn’t always enough. I think in addition to showering them with love, little black girls need to be bombarded with beautiful, attractive and positive images of themselves. There’s a lot of work to be done 😓
Fatimah then you told yourself
Udo Ka meaning I was saying it for the other people reading your comment who might not know. There’s no need to be rude 😒
Fatimah I’m not being rude. I’m saying I would literally tell her “so you’re telling yourself those things”
The mere-exposure effect really hits home to me and freaked me out because of personal experience. I've always had a very large and open "type" , but two years ago I said to my friend that i thought that the only "race" i would never be able to be sexually attracted were asian guys. They didn't reflect in my head a sexual vibe (hello western stereotypes and lack of media representation). Two days later, I fell in the deep hole of k-music and asian movies and blablabla. Funnily, like not even a month after getting in all of that I started noticing all these fine asian men on the streets and I was shocked and disturbed by myself. Like, how easily I had been manipulated in the past to ignore them and globally put them all in one big pack of stereotypes. It's so fucked up! But it opened my eyes sooooo much to the realness of it all and made me learn so much. (Media representation please do your job. We need it asap)
I think we put too much emphasis on attractiveness. In that situation with that little girl, that's very challenging to decide what's the right or wrong thing to say. My best guess would be show that little girl all the diversity of what it means to be attractive. That it's not just how you physically look, that it's your spirit, your mind, your heart, the way you express, the way you carry yourself, the way you treat people and try to do that in a way someone her age can understand.
Beautiful beautiful input m Jones
SHAN! I think the second go around with this video was A1. We do not live in a vacuum, our attraction included. We are shaped by society! loved this!!!
No, I don't believe in soulmates but I like the idea💜
What about fetishizing ie: “i only date asian guys” etc. coming from a white woman? ive had this debate w some friends who believe those type of statements .. so many layers. Master of None touches on that. I always struggled w ‘white guys dont like me etc’ so the reverse .. arghh i love/ hate this topic
I love that I'm living in a time with people like you who are able to share their education and wisdom. I spent so much of my life waiting for a soulmate who would accept me unconditionally, faults and all, because I didn't believe there was more than one person out there who could love me. No matter how romantic that concept sounds, it's unrealistic, and you are right, stops you from being able to facilitate meaningful intimate connection which is something that is created with effort, time and the choice to allow vulnerability. Thanks for the reminder xx
I would say(assuming my child/the child is black), “God made us first for a reason. We are beautiful and powerful. You are young, gifted, and Black. God love you and sees you as beautiful, so you are beautiful.”
The definition of soulmates varies. For example, I believe we have many soulmates which are part of your same soul energy and help you in life. A soulmate doesn’t have to be romantic nor a twin flame 🔥 at the end of the day we come to this world to evolve our souls and these people help us massively in our journey. YOU ROCKED THIS VIDEO BTW 🤜🤛
When I was younger I believed in soulmates. Now I’m 21 and I don’t believe in them anymore. And let me tell you, I feel so much more relaxed and relieved now that I’m free of that limiting belief!
This is it ❤️ And it's definitely not just a US problem. My husband was born and raised in Somalia and it hurts my heart when I hear some of the negative beliefs there about dark skinned people not being beautiful. Which is mind-blowing to me because I've always found black men and women to be just about the most stunning people in the world. So it's one of my greatest goals to raise my kids up knowing that they are perfect and worthy as they are. 🥰
Girl, thank you for that. I’ve always played with the thought that we are attracted to what we are most exposed to. Didn’t know it was a real studied theory!
Shan! You nailed this second video for real!! I studied the ‘preferences need no inferences’ research as well and been gassing about it to people so much. I’m so so happy you made this video teaching people about it through the example of attraction ❤️
I’m showing this video to all of my living ancestors. Constantly hearing that in radical and an outlier for telling people to stop telling my light skinned daughter that she has the perfect skin tone, telling me that my looser hair texture is preferable to kinkier textures, and telling me and other women that love is for certain BMIs. There are ways to hate people that aren’t as overt as people may think.
I didn’t want the video to end lol. I’m def I going to look more into this topic.
This video is lit! caused a great discussion with my friends, please go into more details on the principles mentioned in future videos. I never acknowledged the soul mate concept may be toxic but I never believed in soul mates, I believe there is a potential for a high level of compatibility with many humans on this earth and any one of them could be your life partner.
You can have many soulmates.... soulmate doesn’t mean what we thought it meant in grade school. So there is no problem 🤷🏽♀️
My daughter is very fair-skinned. We are "white" presenting, even though we have mixed blood. My daughter's best friend has the darkest skin I have ever seen, and she is so beautiful. One day the friend was over and said something about my daughter being beautiful and her being ugly. I stopped her, and told her yes, my daughter is beautiful, but she is equally as beautiful, and I went into detail. I told her, her skin is so deep and lovely, and just how eye-catching she is. I told her that how hair is wonderful, and is free, full, and beautiful like her spirit. I told her I don't want to hear her ever put herself down again because the negative is lies! She honestly smiled so big and I gave her a hug. We adults really can change how kids see themselves. Never ever stop being that spark for another soul, young or old.
Such a fan of you! You cover topics that I try to attempt with my friends. Thank you for giving me all the knowledge I never take it for granted!
You did a great job at explaining an analytical sexual politics viewpoint!
Soulmates-- A Hollywood plot device to make absurd and under-develop romantic relationships seem sensible.
Love this re-do. Would've loved to see this analysis along with the social experiment of "Love is Blind." Love you Shan! Looking forward to more videos!
So yes, I believe in soulmates, but I don’t think that my soulmate was a healthy person in my life or even the person in supposed to be with in the long term, she is the person that everything just clicked with right away, there was no extra effort in trying hard for a physical connection because we just had it, the chemistry between us was undeniable and I have never met anyone after her that kissed me the same or the physical was as easy with, she didn’t exactly look like “my type” and things just didn’t end up working out with her.. and I don’t think they ever will but I truly believe she is my soulmate, it just wasn’t meant to be
Woah, I just started learning about attraction in more depth today, so this was amazing. I use your information and expertise in majority of my class content/discussion so thank you 💙
Omg!! I was thinking about you today, wondering where you were. It is good to see you!!
Literally the best channel on youtube.
Me and my boyfriend definitely are a result of the exposure effect. Because I never thought he was attractive but he always liked me. We were really close friends all of highschool. Then one day he wore a certain outfit and I was like huh he actually is cute now😂
Attraction is heavily influenced on the media we consume. We are beautiful, we just gotta learn to own it. I always believed what we find attractive is based on culture, environment, and it boils down to personal taste. A lot of those things influence it. It's like the media purposefully took out dark skin. India is really bad about it. The darkest actress is Priyanka. She's considered light skinned in our community. It's sad. But, yes. The media has a weird obsession with white skin.
Maybe it's just me but the idea of a soulmate or multiple soulmates rarely ever has a face or physical attributes associated with it. It's usually this idea of the ideal partner who makes sense with you in a way no one else comes close to. Of course you imagine you'll have great sexual chemistry with them but I think it has a lot more to do with the emotional and spiritual compatibility than physical. Maybe other people think otherwise...
I had this experience and i make sure to use social media to expose myself to images of beauty that fit me. Also, I choose rather than to start this conversation with people, to expose them to a different standard of beauty on feeds/ media that I control.
YES YES YES this video is inspirational!! I appreciate so much how you always own up to your 'mistakes' or things you could have done better. And the information in this video I think is super helpful for people! 🧡 I hope I can be as eloquent as you one day, keep up the awesome work 🥰🥰
I think a lot of it comes from confidence and how you work your look and carry yourself. How is it that certain people come along and the beauty standard changes completely? For instance Kim kardashian before she got really popular her look may have appealed in more urban communities yes but the overall standard was thin and blonde and she was very confident and didn’t like victimize herself and she changed the beauty standard to curvy, dark features, exotic. I’ve heard many guys say things like they only like a certain race or look of women then someone comes along that makes them shift that perception completely. Idk I just think when you’re in victim mode and you assume people won’t be attracted to you because of all these things you attract that narrative.
Absolutely mind blowing like been waiting to hear this for so long
Advocating for more and more ‘types’ of beauty isn’t destroying or challenging The Beauty Myth, its simply moving the goal posts. Beauty standards, by their very design, cannot and will not include all women as beautiful- that’s not what they were created to do.
The entire point of beauty standards is to create a sort of ‘archetype’ of beauty based on qualities and characteristics that only a minority of women possess, (or require a significant amount of time and labor to achieve), then tell the majority of women that these qualities are what they should strive to achieve.
The solution is to get rid of beauty period, and instead focus on other qualities and characteristics, namely self-worth and confidence building. Instead of telling girls that they’re beautiful, why don’t we tell them instead that beauty doesn’t matter, that they are talented, strong, capable, outstanding, that they can achieve anything that they set their mind to?
The concept of beauty has become so entangled with the concept of self-worth that I don’t even feel like we can separate the two, and it seems almost unfathomable for us to have one without the other. Its okay to be ugly, its okay to not be considered attractive. Black women do not have to be beautiful to be of worth.
If you teach a little Black girl that she’s beautiful, you’re still telling her that beauty matters. She’s going to realize one day that while she might be beautiful that there’s an entire scale of beautiful and that on a scale of 1 to ten her dark skin, wide nose, and belly make her a 3, and that she’ll never obtain that perfect 10, but she’ll die trying because that;s what women are just supposed to do. If you teach her that her self-worth is not dependent on whether or not she’s attractive, then whether or not she’s considered attractive won’t have any bearing on her self-worth.
Tackling the dehumanization of Black woman by making strict adherence to femininity the goal isn’t helping us, and its only becoming more and more obvious to me that it’s not the solution. We humanize ourselves when we confide in each other, when we create spaces centered on ourselves an our needs. We humanize ourselves when we speak our pains, when we create mirrors of each other in the forms of art and literature, when we provide opportunities for Black women to see themselves gazing back. We humanize ourselves when we laugh and dance, we humanize ourselves not by adhering to femininity, but by growing strong, by finding support in one another, by building strength while also allowing ourselves to be weak.
But we don’t like this method. We like goalposts. We like being considered more attractive than other women, we like the privilege femininity affords us and the ease of life it can provide. We’re willing to continue to engage in femininity, because we know what happens to those women who don’t, and we like being considered more attractive than that other girl.
Until a significant portion of Black women decide to abandon femininity, this plan won’t work. It won’t work because without enough Black woman to support each other, we’ll always be tempted to go back, because of the privilege and comfort femininity provides, if only socially. Until we see enough gender non-conforming women reflected back at us, like a mirror, then femininity will always be the norm.
Because eventually, somehow, somewhere, someone is going to tell that Black girl that she’d look better with a perm, and unless she has enough women to guide her and support her, enough women to help her fight against the beauty myth that screams at her from every source of media, every newspaper, magazine, commercial, and radio song, eventually she’s going to see that the closer she is to someone else’s beauty ideal, the more humanity she’s granted.
I just wanna say that comments and conversations like these are my absolute favorite! People sharing and caring in their responses to one another
My daughter has said that to me in more than one occasion. I'm a mixed Mexican (my mom is Mexican my dad is Spanish and I understand that I look more European than my own daughter because I take after my father), my daughter is Mexican as well but she takes after her father (he had native Mexican indigenous blood and featutes running in his family and my daughters looks very Mexican with some European futures but not that many) and I always try to make feel beautiful by what she does and who she is not by looks. I try to let her know that beauty is not only physical, but a mixture of both your personality and your body. I show her photos of people that might not seem attractive in media but are popular because of their talent. I might be doing it worng but I try to do what i think is best. Idk...I'm just a mom that is just gussing 80% of time.
Fernanda Mangas this is so nice! It’s important that she feels valued for who she is and not just her looks! But also if I may suggest something, try to show her people who are attractive who look indigenous in media or in real life. And compliment her indigenous features which I’m sure you already do as her loving mother! Sorry if any of this overstepped any boundaries!
@@Sprint622 that's great advice. I try to show a wide range of ethnicities so there are pople with a wide range of features but I'll try to focus on what you have mentioned. Thank you for the great advice.
lol i actually just learned all of this in my second year social psych lecture on attraction last week. thanks for always educating and evolving shan!
I believe you can have multiple soulmates in this life that don't have to be romantic. Your siblings, family, and friends can be your soulmate. I do believe it's important to find someone who you do create a bond and a level of understanding that will grow into love. For me, I romanticized the idea of a soulmate but, I really want is a life partner. Dating has me emotionally exhausted. Shan, I bought your book and I love it! I definitely need to start applying it to my dating life!
My definition of soulmate is different from yours, but I do understand what you were trying to say! I believe that my soulmate is out there working on their life ambitions while I am working on mine and when the time is right we will meet and explore what God has for us! I do not have a certain type or archetype of a person in mind when I say soulmate! I like your overall message though!
Your definition for soulmate is actually called a twin flame, you should look it up 😊
I believe you can have more than one soulmate. that can be anyone a parent, sibling, friends, you meet a stranger for the first and last time. grate video btw!
Shan, your videos are getting me through this quarantine and then life after. Thank you so much for the work you do and for sharing your wisdom. We don't know each other, but I am so happy for you and all that you have accomplished. Go head girl! 😆
Omg that little girl is sooooo beautiful and when she said that just broke my heart 😢😢
According To Betty same. Cried a lil bit.
You’re such an incredible, intelligent woman😍
Wow! I believe in soul mates, but I'm also polyamorous, and believe that a mate isn't always permanent. I think I've connected with many people thru many lives. I also feel that people enter my life like a cartrip passenger: they May be there for the Whole trip or a portion, ride in the front, back, someone you drive by or stop to visit, or they're driving the car, themselves. Doesn't make them less vital, and it doesn't mean they won't switch positions, but they take on different roles that make up your love lifeline
"We are all worthy of love"
I couldn't agree more!!
Thank you for mentioning masturbating in a mirror. I remember when my friends and I were discussing masturbating, and one friend had asked if any of us have ever masturbated to ourselves. I said, "yes,"thinking everyone did that, but I got the weirdest looks. I think it's truly a beautiful thing when you can find the moments that you can find you're attractive without comparison to others.
So its not so bad to think every start of a new relationship is “the one” lol
I love this video! Thank you for it. Thank you for keeping content coming. I got the Rona blues.
Me too Valerie let’s try to get through this together
Awesome. I Appreciate The Research, Forethought, And Personal Exposure.
I appreciate this video and all of your content! I believe your original video was not done to intentionally harm but did showcase some of our biases. You also shined a light on a lot of societal issues that people neglect because we assume like you said everything attraction wise is nature rather than nurture. Id disagree about 90% is nurture. I'm a size 18 big girl and all the media feeds me is how unattraction to people my size is all based on biology. Id care to disagree that its most the reason, possibly a little. I've seen how fat has been stigmatized and unattractive, and everything else outside the sphere of white, blond, and thin as outside the "norm".
In response to the viral video I remember when I was 4 or 5 stopping before a mirror and closing my eyes and opening them as a walked passed hoping that what I saw was a reflection of a skinny girl with straight brown hair. I honestly can’t even tell you where I got those kind of messages from. I was watching kids shows and just wasn’t around that kind of thing. But the thing is kids soak up everything. We need to be so careful because even though they might not understand it’s still going into their heads for them to remember later in life. Kids are not dumb. They are little learning sponges!
I honestly didn't see anything wrong with that video. Your point came off pretty clear to me, so hearing that it pissed people off is surprising. But, that's the world we live in. Everybody's offended by everything. As far as attraction to one's own ethnicity, I've always found that bizarre. I'm as white as they get and grew up in a mainly white area, but I've always been attracted to women of various ethnic backgrounds. That's never been an issue for me. Beautiful women are beautiful women. And yeah, the whole soul mate thing is absurd. Obviously, there are plenty of people who are compatible with each other, not just one. Thinking that one person is destined to be with another is almost kind of supernatural belief and I have no patience for that bullshit. You're also spot on how people who think they're ugly are less likely to have sex and relationships. That's me, but the thing is I actually am ugly.
Such a point !! About soulmates... I never thought about it !!
(And btw you look absolutely gorgeous !!)
I would tell that little girl how beautiful she is. I would ask her why she thought that and ask where were those messages she's telling herself coming from. Going forward I guess I would create a practice with her everyday around celebrating ourselves, our unique beauty, and our differences. I would also show her images of women who look like her celebrating their beauty. I don't know if that's enough but that's where my head is right now.
I'm so shook right now because I've been watching you for awhile and I just learned that you went fo my highschool. Wow.
Its actually ok, most men are intimidated by certain groups of women and some have more respect. Cat calls are disrespectful. Do people cat call the Queen or beyonce.
What kinda horrible argument. Why would anyone catcall a 93 year old woman? What situations do you think Beyonce puts herself in to be catcalled? You think Beyonce aint got thirsty dudes in her social media DMs desperately trying to have sex with her?
It has nothing to do with intimidation. Men are not intimidated by women because of a specific trait they have. Don't convince yourself with a lie to make things seem more tolerable.
Great point, Terrible examples
You are a very beautiful mixed lady. Yay for exotical ladies. Yall are the true blueprint on which beauty is built.
Hi shan, my son who is 13 wants his hair to be like his Caucasian friends, he also think he is too dark and often as me why he doesn't look like me it breaks my heart, and i am not even light skin
I like this analysis... this, is why women need to rely on self love. Why consider yourself ugly based on the trends of society? One day skinny is in, the other day curvy, one era dark skin is elevated (ancient Egypt) the other light skin. Don’t rely on culture, love yourself regardless
I believe you can influence what someone sees as beautiful but it doesn’t happen by forcing someone to look at stuff lol
I totally believe it to be true, honestly. I'm attracted to things that are the total opposite of what was exposed to my childhood, and what I celebrate, currently. I don't look at it as you're directly attracted to what you're told, but more so what you see more often
That is not true. I’ve been a dancer on and off for over 10 years and I’ve seen the change in what men want. It used to be the girl next door and fake boobs. Now it’s head to toe plastic surgery, bbl with tattoos.
Cece E so you’re saying it IS true then...
important convo to have! Thanks for opening that discussion :)
Happy Birthday Shannon. I hope that you have the best birthday that you can have today.
This is helpful beyond words.
This so true. My partner (who is biracial with a German mother and black father) was only attracted to Black women when he was young - specifically brown skinned women. He got stationed in Germany for four years and developed an attraction to White women. He finds them equally attractive now. Environment aka “nurture” had this affect on him in his mid-20s. That’s significant.
It really bugged me that I couldn’t figure out why I recognized your face from #toohottohandle... thanks for jknews for introducing… yasss
I respectfully disagree with the soulmates. I never believed in such a thing....until I was in my thirties and met my husband. 20 yrs later we are still going strong and I also enjoy the company of a second partner. They are very different men to be sure! Yet, I can't imagine life without them both in it...at this stage.
I do understand what you say about it and would agree that could be the case for many "soulmates". I just believe it can be real for some as well 😉 I am a convert after all
Shannon I love the work you do it's very educational and uplifting.
I do believe soul mates are possible from a spiritual perspective. However, I don't believe that everyone meets their soul mates or that everyone only has one, maybe it's two because the first one passed away earlier than the other partner that is meant to keep going. I think that sometimes terrible things happen to a soul mate and you can't be with them and it's only meant to be a short meeting up before parting ways.
I also don't think everyone can recognize their soul mates, maybe some don't meet them in this life either, but there are other great people to spend most of their lives together.
I know I have look preferences, but I focus on how we get along and how attractive they are from the inside too. Different looks or ethnicities haven't ever been set determinants for me.
can we say the same about homosexuality ?
I’m adopted into a Puerto Rican family and this might explain why I’m attracted to people with Puerto Rican traits.
I believe that we have many soulmates or people in our soul tribe. They can be lovers, friends, family but I believe a soulmate is someone you have a soul connection with.