Thanks to the Harry Potter films, Emma Watson has been acting since she was 11 years old, meaning that she has grown up in the public eye, and she’s only going to become more ubiquitous when Beauty and the Beast is released next month.
If you follow Emma on social media, you’ll have noted that the actress likes to use her Facebook and Twitter accounts as a platform for causes she is passionate about and the projects she is involved in, whether that’s the latest literary recommendation for Our Shared Shelf, her online book club, or photos from last month’s Women’s March.
What you won’t see on Emma’s accounts, however, are more personal posts about her day-to-day life, a deliberate choice on the Beauty and the Beast actress’s part that helps her keep ‘a certain degree of sanity’ under public scrutiny.
Discussing social media in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actress said ‘equal parts are depressing and terrifying and equal parts are empowering and thrilling,’ adding that she ‘draw[s] a super conscious line between what is public and what is private’ online.
‘Having people weigh in and give an opinion on absolutely everything about me would just destroy me as a human,’ she revealed, before explaining that she feels social media can prevent young people from truly living in the moment.
‘I notice so much with young people now curating yourself for that moment you’re going to have to take that picture that’s going to be on your social media, which is going to get a certain number of likes, which is going to rank you in a certain way,’ she said. ‘It’s like you’re posturing instead of living.’
‘Your whole life becomes how something looks instead of how something feels. And there’s such an emptiness in that. At the point when my self worth is really wrapped up in that and not in my own sense of how I think I’m doing and how something feels to me, then I really think you’re in trouble,’ she concluded.
Last week, the actress launched a brand new Instagram account to shine a spotlight on the ethical and eco-friendly fashion brands she has chosen to wear for her Beauty and the Beast press tour.
Among the outfits that Emma has posted are a custom Louis Vuitton gown designed by Nicolas Ghesquiere, using a recycled polyester made from used plastic bottles, and a trousers and bustier combo created by Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, the new creative directors of Oscar de la Renta.
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