Warnell 1

Kodie Warnell
COMM 444 Media Effects
CPO# 3081
Speech to Persuade Outline

Topic: ​The media and perfectionism

General Purpose: ​To convince

Specific Purpose: ​To convince my audience that the media is influencing perfectionist
tendencies

Thesis: ​Social media in particular has become a large contributor of this growing epidemic of
perfectionism.

Introduction
A. On Monday, I found myself sobbing in Stupe for, realistically, 30 minutes.
a. Thankfully I was with one of my future roommates, so I wasn’t alone, but as we
sat right next to the long line of people waiting to get their burgers, and as pushed
my salad away from me to shove an entire box worth of french fries in my face, I
poured out some of my deepest personal pains.
b. With tears literally streaming down my face, not willing to wipe them off because
that would mean I would have to put down the french fries, I said, “I absolutely
hate myself.”
c. See, I said that because I knew that I wasn’t the perfect friend to my
roommate/best friend and I was convinced that I had to always say the perfect
thing or do the perfect thing or I would lose her; I said that because I knew all of
the perfect commands in the Bible that Jesus gave to us and knew I couldn’t meet
them even close to perfectly (as He wants?); I said that because I believed--still
believe that perfection is expected out of me.
i. Be perfect and you won’t have any consequences to face.
ii. Be perfect and they won’t leave you.
iii. Be perfect and it will make sense for God to love you.
d. Now this speech is not going to consist of me telling you that I’m all better now,
that I’m on the “road to recovery” or even that I have the oddest sense of hope
that God is going to win this fight in me.
e. Though, in a class on how the effects of various forms of media (newspapers,
television, social media, radio, etc.), it ​is g​ oing to be about how ​social media in

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particular has become a large contributor of this growing epidemic of

perfectionism.
f. And, over the next few minutes, it is my goal to adequately define perfectionism,
explain how social media platforms have been able to foster greater levels of
perfectionism, and lastly how these platforms have played a part in perfectionism
that touches many different areas of life.
Main Point 1
A. So first, this term ‘perfectionism’ holds more than just high levels of self-hatred for not
meeting high standards.
a. Interestingly, for my Greek prof here, the first recorded use of the word wasn’t
until 1835 where it was defined as, “​the theological doctrine that a state of
freedom from sin is attainable on ear​th” (Merriam-Webster, 2019).
b. Rather predictably, however, today the definition is not only more secular, but
also far more complex.
i. In 1991, researchers by the names of Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett
provided a thorough definition that has been used ever since.
ii. In short, they claimed that there are actually three dimensions to
perfectionism:
1. The first is self-oriented perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991),
which occurs when “individuals attach irrational importance to
being perfect, hold unrealistic expectations of themselves, and are
[harsh] in their self-evaluations” (Curran & Hill, 2017).
2. The second is other-oriented (Hewitt & Flett, 1991), which points
to moments in time “When perfectionistic expectations are directed
toward others, [in which] individuals impose unrealistic standards
on those around them and evaluate others critically” (Curran &
Hill, 2017).
3. And lastly, the third is socially prescribed perfectionism (Hewitt &
Flett, 1991), which occurs when “individuals believe their social
context is excessively demanding, that others judge them harshly,
and that they must display perfection to secure approval” (Curran
& Hill, 2017).
iii. Though each of the three can be fostered on social media, the last one, as
you might have been able to guess, has been shown to be particularly
common on those platforms.
1. And here’s why...

Main Point 2

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A. On social media, people are able to only show the perfect parts of themselves and their
lives.
a. For example:
i. On Facebook, you can choose to write a long and detailed post about how
incredible your significant other is, while never mentioning all of the times
you fought.
ii. On Twitter, you can choose to spend a few minutes thinking of your most
well-crafted sentence, post it, and then delete it later if you think of better
wording or if someone is lashing out in disagreement.
iii. And on Instagram, you can choose to post only the best pictures from your
camera roll, the ones specifically that don’t make you look fat, that do
accentuate your butt, and that hold the most aesthetically pleasing lighting.
b. If you’ve ever done any of these, don’t worry--this is not to be condescending
because I’ve done them too, but my point is that social media has given us the
ability​ to not merely post only perfect things, but to also only see perfect
snapshots of people and their lives (Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011). And it is
from these snapshots, that a standard is created which we feel we must achieve if
we don’t want to be rejected, isolated, or not be good enough.
i. This leads to my third and final point…

Main Point 3
A. Social media posts have set standards of perfection in multiple areas of life.
a. Due to recent dialogue, the first area that may come to mind is that of body image.
i. While it’s been proven that media forms such as magazines have
negatively affected the self worth of many as they often show “perfect”
and completely unattainable bodies thanks to photoshop (Cusumano, &
Thompson, 1997), one study that I looked at proved that ​social​ media has
been contributing to these perfect body ideals as well over the past few
years (​Fardouly, Diedrichs, Vartanian, & Halliwell, 2015). In other words,
we’ve come to accept that most of the pictures in magazines are fake, but
when real people are posting many perfect things, we have begun to
compare ourselves to their standard.
b. Additionally, another study that popped up while I was researching talked about
how mothers are now facing issues of perfectionism as they are comparing their
mothering skills to those of other moms that they see on social media (​Padoa,
Roberts, & Berle, 2018).
c. And yet another article found that social media platforms have contributed to
perfectionism for African American females, who have felt they have to walk a

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figurative “tight-rope” in trying to adhere to perfect character and behavior

standards (​Carey, 2018).
B. Though these are just a few examples, clearly, perfectionism from social media can be
found in many aspects of life.

Conclusion
A. To recap, we have looked at the three different dimensions of perfectionism, seen how
social media has enabled greater levels of perfectionism, and discovered how
perfectionist tendencies are found across many areas of life.
B. Right now, if you’re like me, you may be feeling a little discouraged by it all, maybe you
feel like everything in your life now makes sense, maybe your stomach has only let you
think of french fries this entire time, or maybe you’re just glad I’ve hit my conclusion.
a. Wherever you are, I’d like to leave the both of us with some truth.
i. Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus the author and perfecter (​τελειωτὴν) of our faith.
1. Which for me means that though I may find myself in stupe next
monday crying because I see how far from perfection I fall, though
you might be too hard on yourself as you compare yourself to a
“perfect mom” on Facebook, though you may sit next to a kid at
graduation who has more cords than you do because he or she was
“closer” to perfection than you were, ​we can rest in the fact that
the job of being perfect never fell on us when it comes to our faith.
a. And we ​will​ b​ e with Him someday because He was the
only perfect student, perfect “mom,” and perfect person.
ii. Social media might convince us that there are other perfect people out
there and drive us to perfectionistic tendencies in order to match up, but
we can leave today with the full assurance that our imperfections have
been dealt with and forgotten by our perfect Savior.

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References

Carey, T. (2018). A tightrope of perfection: The rhetoric and risk of black women’s

intellectualism on display in television and social media. ​Rhetoric Society Quarterly,

48​(2), 139-160. doi:10.1080/02773945.2017.1392037

Curran, T., & Hill, A. P. (2017). Perfection is increasing over time: A meta-analysis of birth

cohort differences from 1989 to 2016. ​Psychological Bulletin, 145(​ 4), 410-429.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000138

Cusumano, D.L. & Thompson, J.K. (1997). ​Body image and body shape ideals in magazines:

Exposure, awareness, and internalization. ​Sex Roles​, ​37​, 701-721.

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02936336

Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P., Vartanian, L., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social

media: The impact of facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. ​Body

Image,​ ​13​, 38-45. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.12.002

Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts:

Conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. ​Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology,​ ​60,​ 456–470.

https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.456

Mendelson, A. L., & Papacharissi, Z. (2011). Look at us: Collective narcissism in college student

Facebook photo galleries. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), ​The networked self: Identity,

community and culture on social network sites (​ pp. 251–273). London, U.K.: Routledge.

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Padoa, T., Roberts, L., & Berle, D. (2018). Comparative social media use and the mental health

of mothers with high levels of perfectionism. ​Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,

37​(7), 514-535. doi:10.1521/jscp.2018.37.7.514

“Perfectionism.” 2019. In ​Merriam-Webster.com​. Retrieved May 8, 2011, from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker