When Compliments Just Make You Feel… Worse

I remember some compliments more than others. When I was 16, an achingly gorgeous girl told me I looked “hot” at a party. An affirming moment, right? Except, in truth, I was in the first phase of an eating disorder that would whittle down my teenage body to a dangerous point. I hoarded praise like this obsessively, as proof that what I was doing was working – even when I didn’t yet understand what that was, exactly.

One thing I am thankful for is that all my messy teenage self-esteem stuff happened before social media. Naturally, what gets discussed most is the effect of negative comments: The big problem, the story goes, is that the internet is nasty – a place of pile-ons and harassment. But what if this isn’t the only issue? What if online compliments can also make people feel bad about themselves?

“Great body!”, “You look amazing!”, “You’re so thin!” These were the kind of appearance-based comments that Nikol Kvardová and his research team at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic referenced in a recent study published in the scientific journal Body Image. They found that teenage girls often felt worse about themselves when their looks were complimented online. “It shows that viewing such comments, when combined with the portrayals of thin and muscular bodies that constantly appear on social media, may increase body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls,” Kvardová tells VICE.

“It might come as a surprise that appearance compliments could have such adverse effects,” he says. “In fact, their role is more nuanced.” Receiving positive comments about your physical appearance may initially prompt positive feelings, but can still contribute to self-objectification, reinforce the importance of attractiveness and guide you towards unrealistic physical ideals – all of which adds up to increased dissatisfaction with your body.

“On social media in particular,” Kvardová adds, “compliments can become problematic when coupled with unattainable appearance ideals.” While he stresses that research into online compliments and its effect on body image is in its infancy, Kvardová believes his findings could extend to other ages and genders: “We have some initial evidence from other studies that compliments could reinforce body dissatisfaction of young adult women [too].”

Clarissa is in her early thirties, and she’s certainly found her body image wobbling after being complimented online. “I removed all my social profiles a couple of years ago,” she says, “but when I used to have Instagram, I hated when someone complimented me.”

She always used to include other people in her posts as a record of good memories, “but when someone would make a comment on my appearance, I would look at the picture differently”, Clarissa says. “I would question aspects about myself and then look at other pictures and delete a whole load of them”.

Even though she knew people only ever meant it positively, she hated the attention. “Receiving a compliment sounds great on paper,” Clarissa explains, “but it makes you question why you got a compliment – like, did you look worse beforehand and you've made a change that is noticeable? You start to overthink everything.”

Twenty-five-year-old Pearl points out that sexualised compliments about people’s bodies can also feed negative feelings and reinforce damaging stereotypes. “I’ve never been skinny,” Pearl tells VICE. “I am 4'11 and even at my lowest weight I was always curvy with big boobs and a big booty. I’m also originally East African, so my body type is what the ‘BBL body’ type kind of looks like – with my body type, I am often hypersexualized and fetishized in a way that makes me very uncomfortable.”

This summer, Pearl posted a bikini pic of herself on holiday. “That led to people complimenting and commenting on the size of my boobs, how they were shaped, and a few people mentioned that I’m ‘the right kind of curvy’.” Needless to say, her chest wasn’t what Pearl was focused on when she posted the pic. “I look really happy, and I wanted to capture that moment,” she says. “It’s when the comments rolled in that I started thinking even more about my body.”

A large part of her inner turmoil was down to how these comments were underpinned by racialised standards of appearance. “These kinds of comments reinforce the beauty ideals that people have in their heads,” Pearl says plainly. “I think people are free to compliment others, but should avoid commenting on their weight and specific body parts because… it’s just weird.”

Leila Davis (@CutieWhippingham) is a queer pole artist and founder of Blackstage, a Black queer sex worker-led company centring BIPOC pole dancers. “Social media plays a crucial role in the compliments I receive because it gives a lot of people access to me,” Davis explains. Most often, she gets compliments about being strong or fit. She doesn’t mind this – “I like being strong”, Davis says simply – but, like Pearl, she also recognises these compliments connect to more complex beauty myths around femininity and race.

“A lot of Black women dislike compliments relating to physical strength because we have historically been seen as less 'feminine' compared to our white counterparts,” Davis tells VICE. “The assumption of 'strength' in relation to masculinity and being 'unfeeling' is not only part of a negative stereotype for Black women, but has also been used as a justification for violence against us.”

Despite their good intentions, appearance-based compliments can tie us more tightly into already-restrictive ideals around beauty, race and gender. In 2022, Davis was part of an Adidas x Stella McCartney campaign, where she had armpit hair. “Whilst I received a lot of positive compliments, I was harassed online for weeks by men across the world each time the campaign launched in different countries,” she says.

At the same time, she also received a number of compliments from men with body hair fetishes “calling me ‘hairy goddess’ and ‘hairy queen’,” Davis recalls. “I found this very difficult and uncomfortable because I felt like the whole world was making a huge deal over something that grows on most bodies naturally”.

So, what can be done? Kvardová says the answer isn’t to abstain from complimenting completely. “Instead, we should be mindful of how compliments might affect someone’s well-being and can also be negative,” he suggests. Sravya, 27, who struggles with body dysmorphia, is a case in point. “There are certain compliments people think are helpful, but really further my body issues, while others that really have changed the way I think about myself,” she says.

When she lost weight, Sravya noticed most people praised her for “looking healthier, skinner, fitter”, making her fixate on her clothes size. But, crucially, Sravya says less appearance-based compliments like “you’re glowing” or “you look really confident” help her feel better about herself. “Compliments focused on my other attributes, personality or achievements mean so much to me,” she adds.

Kvardová has his own ideas about the solution to the online compliment problem. “In the case of body image, social media companies ought to take responsibility and mitigate the possible harmful impacts of their platforms,” he argues, and suggests that platforms like Instagram could protective filter of adverse media content and deprioritise the importance of physical appearance in algorithms.

But he highlights other important avenues for progress, too. “I believe that protecting youth from the potentially adverse effects of social media compliments lies predominantly in supporting media literacy and helping adolescents navigate their use of appearance-related social media,” Kvardová says. “Providing a supportive family and school environment where adolescents feel safe sharing their social media experience is immensely important.” It’s not all doom and gloom, he points out: “It’s crucial to acknowledge the positives of social media use for appearance purposes. It can provide needed support and boost self-esteem and body-positive attitudes.”

Of course, no one can know for sure which comments might make someone’s day and which might make them want to curl up in a ball and die. But, as research into body image and social media continues to mount, it seems fairly obvious that not all compliments are good and equal. So, next time you’re about to type out “nice ass” or “skinny legend”, maybe keep it in the drafts.