Now, I am not a Kansas City Chiefs fan, but to say what happened on Super Bowl Sunday was anything less than legendary is an understatement. The comeback kings had me sweating from the very beginning. The Chiefs have won the Super Bowl again after 50 years and people are feeling pretty good, yet some people aren’t so thrilled about certain aspects of it. Oh yeah, I am talking about that Super Bowl halftime show.

First things first, let me say I think both J.Lo and Shakira gave legendary performances, and the backlash these two are facing is unnecessary and intense. Its 2020 people and yet here we are still criticizing women for being proud of their bodies and the skin they are in. Now, I am not personally someone who likes to show a lot of skin, but as someone who isn’t completely comfortable in her body right now, I am happy to see people who actually are. To me it’s inspiring, not insulting.

I do understand that people with children felt it was inappropriate for children to watch, but let’s be real, they are the parents, and if they felt it was inappropriate they could simply turn off the TV as no one forced them to watch it. I think in this day in age there are plenty of excuses which can be used to shade people who are confident in their own skin. I just think it is sad that we choose to use them.

J.Lo and Shakira went up on that stage, and they were authentically themselves and they were judged for it. I just think as women, and as humans, we can do better than that. There isn’t a single person out there who doesn’t know what judgement feels like. We all know it doesn’t feel good to be judged, but yet we are ever so eager to hit that post button and send our little judgements out into the world hoping someone might just feel the same and we will be validated. To me, seeking validation isn’t a good enough reason to tear down someone for being themselves though. No one needs that negativity in their life.

With all that being said, I did see some other really amazing and empowering things come out of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Some people were being really supportive of J.Lo and Shakira being the bad ass women they are, and some people even pointed out the fact that no one was complaining when Adam Levine took his shirt off and exposed his gorgeous tattoos to the world during last year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. I personally believe that just pointing out the double standard hypocrisy of all of this is a great way to show how ridiculous it is to be filling the space with all this negativity.

I think we all need to try a little harder to hype each other up rather than tearing each other down. There is enough negativity in this world without all of us turning on each other.

For example, my friend accidentally made a private Snapchat group chat instead of a private Snapchat story, and it has created the most wonderful space of love and support for myself and 17 other people. There are men and women in this group chat that I have never met, but we all support each other, and lift each other up on the DAILY and a space like that is so important in the world we live in today.

Today there are plenty of platforms where we can choose to lift each other up, and a lot of times we don’t. Instead we use it as a place to spread judgement, negativity and complaints. I wonder what would happen if we all replaced one negative tweet a day with one positive one. What kind of impact could that make? I don’t have an answer, all I know is we need to be more supportive of each other and our choices, and stop shaming each other for showing too much skin or dancing a certain way.

We are young, and probably going to share these social media spaces for awhile, so we might as well make it a positive space to interact in. Plus, life is too short to live in the shade, so spread your light, and create the space you want to be a part of…that’s the tea from me to WU.

Edited by Adam White, Abbie Barth