Words: Deepanjana Biswas (she/her)
CW: body image
‘Are you deer pretty or fox pretty?’ the reel asks. ‘Here is the easiest way to get rid of peach fuzz…’ says the next. ‘This product will reduce all your nose pores’, and then ‘how to slim face fat.’ Suddenly, the phone turns into a mirror, a screen for scrutiny. Your eyes turn back to your face and see flaw after flaw, skin and bones which are not like the ones on the screen. ‘Fear not!’ says the screen, ‘these are all easily correctable mistakes with fillers and surgery: all possible (for a fair price!) to perfect.’
The current social media landscape is filled by post after post of ‘before and after’ transformations, with plastic surgeons hopping on the trend and hypothesising what work your favourite celebrity has had done. Some influencers even want to be transparent with their viewers, telling them about work they’ve had done to make sure their viewers are aware that this sort of beauty is not always natural – there’s nothing to be insecure about. Despite this, the message is clear: your face is something easily ‘fixable’. This notion has existed since the conception of cosmetic surgery, yet it was only with the rise of fillers in the 2010s that there seemed to be a change in societal receptions to these surgeries. What was once criticised as being ‘fake’ turned into body positivity and being comfortable with your own self. Modifications such as rhinoplasties and procedures like buccal fat removal are now seen as ways to simply enhance features which might have caused longtime insecurity.
A “tweakment” is a popular internet term for a minor cosmetic surgery done to alter facial features, emphasising the apparent insignificance of these interventions as small ‘tweaks’. The rise in popularity of non-invasive procedures such as botox means that more people are inclined to change their looks, as they believe ‘minor’ procedures are without consequence. This concept of the ‘minor’ procedure is exacerbated by the normalisation of “tweakments” online; as we become more familiar with seeing these procedures, their seriousness seems to reduce. Many surgeons advertise their practice online through funny and relatable reels, making the operations more visible and accessible to consumers.
So, do we really need to have a sharp jaw to feel pretty in 2024? If the generic online image of beauty is limited to a certain shape and size of the body, then can we ever truly feel comfortable in our own skin? With facial features seen as something easily modifiable and body positivity marketed as a consumer good, the cycle of insecurity continues to turn the wheels of capitalism and beauty. The human desire to feel socially included and validated operates this machine, turning it for centuries on end.
Online culture’s influence on people’s appetite for surgical intervention is clear when the digitally native generation, Gen Z, is the most likely to consider cosmetic surgery. The meteoric rise in the number of people having plastic surgery compounds this: the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons noted a substantial 102% increase (the first ever 3 digit rise on record!) in cosmetic procedures in the year 2022 since 2021. Reels and TikTok are now primary forms of marketing: different corners of these platforms bombard viewers with products required to have perfect skin and glossy hair, recommending new products and procedures for the latest aesthetics or microtrends. As algorithms warp our perception of faces, self image becomes objective and our body turns into a performance of online trends and consumer culture.
Ultimately, beauty dictated by trend cycles is only a transient fad. What is considered beautiful now might be considered ridiculous later (as with the current trend of “eyebrow blindness” with people embarrassed at their thick 2016-17 eyebrows which were very much on trend back then). In the world of beauty these brief crazes fuel a sick loop of consumption, with the consumer eventually becoming the commodity. It’s hard to track the effects of these forces in real time because staring at the screen again we see how subtle and corrosive changes are, whether physically with “tweakments” or in collective social attitudes and mindsets. Yet, just as a fine “tweak” can change the whole look of our face, a fine change in our perception of beauty can tweak our self-image and esteem.
References:
https://baaps.org.uk/media/press_releases/1872/cosmetic_surgery_boom/.
https://savanta.com/knowledge-centre/view/under-the-knife-cosmetic-surgery
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