Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
I spoke to the parents of our youth and kidmin ministries about a month ago on social media and how it forms every aspect of their kids’ lives. It was a great night and I have been processing many of the comments and questions that came out of that evening and then today I came across the following quote from Karamo Brown (from Queer Eye on Netflix).
“The first time I realized my skin tone was “bad” was when I was playing Street Fighter... While 99 percent of the characters were white or Asian, all their evil twins were darker in skin tone. It was hard for me to play the game, because the characters were supposed to be twins ... yet the evil ones resembled black and Latino men.”
One of the questions that came out of this night was around whether or not media played a significant factor in the self-esteem on guys in particular. Karamo continues to share his thoughts:
“One night after playing, I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered, I’m dark, just like the twins. Does that mean I’m evil? ...
I truly started to think, There is no way I can be a good guy in life. I can’t be the hero; I can only be the bad guy.... Of, course, it was a warped way of thinking, but at that point, the subliminal messaging from my favorite game had really started to affect my mind. ”
I truly believe that as parents and leaders of children and youth we need to be reafirming who Christ made them to be. Media will always be a huge influencer in their life, but we can be the ones to help correct how they feel about themselves.
How did/has media made you question your identity?