"We’ve just been given a gift as a generation of being able to show our own personality and tiny young sex videoshave so much control over the person we are to the public, and not just being a face on a page," Gigi Hadid told Mashable.
We caught up with Hadid while she was promoting her summer Baby Bay campaign with Evian, in which Hadid mimics her baby doppelgänger.
"I think social media has taken the dumb model stereotype away," Hadid said.
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Some old-school fashion industry types like Calvin Klein and Rebecca Romjin have expressed skepticism about so-called "Instagram models" who have used social media on their way to superstar status.
But Hadid points to models like Cindy Crawford, whose teenage daughter is launching her own fashion career, as people who understand the power of the tool.
Still, she's familiar with the challenges of being a woman on the Internet -- which involves a lot of strangers feeling comfortable picking apart your every move. A few months ago, she wrote a note on Instagram firing back at people who criticized her appearance.
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“I love writing to get emotion off my chest. I let things go the second I write them down," she told Mashable. "That honestly was a journal entry that I thought a lot of people in my industry would relate to."
Hadid shared her advice for young women who are struggling with the pressures of social media and hopes the positive response she got for speaking out inspires other girls to do the same.
"Just realizing how it’s not real, how none of it’s real. If all technology just shut down today, all of those comment feeds would just be nothing so you have to your own strength regardless of that stuff and try and find yourself without that stuff."
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And of course, Instagram is also great for showing off your enviable choker collection. Hadid told Mashableshe has "between ten and fifteen."
“I make a lot of chokers out of random stuff so I don’t know! Because honestly today I might go cut up a t-shirt and make another one."
Grab your scissors and tees this summer, everyone -- chokers are the new flower crowns.
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