Creating beautiful, positive social media

With the prevalence of cyberbullying and online harassment between teens in recent years, social media can seem like an entirely toxic thing. However, one Lawrence High School student is determined to change that.

About six weeks ago, an Instagram page entitled “Lawrence HS Beauty” emerged, which asks its followers to anonymously send in pictures of people that they found beautiful, along with a short caption detailing what they liked about that person. The owner of the page, who has chosen to remain anonymous, also asked people to not submit pictures of themselves, but of other people, in order to brighten up someone else’s day.

The page’s popularity exploded overnight. Several submissions started popping up on the page, showing pictures of Lawrence students with the submitter’s caption underneath. The content of the captions ranged from paragraphs of admiration with sentiments such as “She’s been there with me through thick and thin. She’s been there when I’m at my worst and celebrates when I’m at my best.” to short ones that simply read, “amazing” or “perfection.”

Occasionally, the person behind the page will declare a day “Freshman Friday” or “Senior Sunday” to encourage submissions focused on people in each grade. The page’s mission is to put a positive spin on the negativity that plagues social media. Pages that post anonymous submissions in the interest of ridiculing and spreading rumors about people appear all too often, and as the “Beauty” founder wrote, those types of pages are “so immature and ruin people’s lives.”

To date, “Lawrence HS Beauty” has received around 140 submissions, spanning all grades, genders, and cliques. Even a couple of especially missed graduates have been featured on the page.

Recently, the person behind the page has taken an additional step to try and increase confidence and self-love in Lawrence students. He or she teamed up with Owen Dredger, a talented photographer and senior at Lawrence High, to give students an opportunity to have their photo taken by him for the page.

Dredger often takes portraits of his friends and classmates to post on his Instagram page, both as a way to practice his photography skills and to showcase the inner and outer beauty of the people around him. He was more than happy to help with the project.

The pictures of students who had their portraits taken were posted to the page on Valentine’s day, reminding students that on a day that focused so heavily on being loved and accepted by others, what matters most at the end of the day is that you love and accept yourself.

The page continues to accept submissions. Although some may argue that a simple Instagram page is not going to change all the harassment and negativity that exists on social media, “Lawrence HS Beauty” is determined to show that positivity can prevail.