Last year, I joined a group of ladies for a private dining experience at a Shanghainese restaurant in Singapore. As we took our places around the table, I couldn’t help but notice all the stylish dresses, jewellery and handbags that each woman wore – everything looked like it was tailor made just for them. Their hair, set in bouncy curls, blowout waves and chic updos, characterised everyone in their own unique ways. Despite these ladies convening in this cosy room overlooking the city from all different parts of the world, each one seemed to have something in common.
Though subtle at first, the distinction grew clearer as the night progressed. It started as an unmistakable nose scrunch when they would laugh; the way their eyes folded when smiling; their cheekbones protruding in symmetrically identical ways, cheeks slightly hollowed, the same valleys of dimples in the same parts of their faces as they chatted away merrily. Catching an air of conversation under the dull clinking of chopsticks on porcelain bowls, my ears immediately perked at the answer I was seeking:
“…dermal fillers…”
And so ensued a segue into the most passionate topic of the night: baby botox, cosmetic injectables, fillers, those of the sort. A flurry of excited voices chirped and chimed on top of one another, sighs of reassurance wafting in the air along with the steam of our soup dumplings, each woman finding validation in knowing another had gotten the same procedure.
It was a race against ageing, and boy were they miles ahead – restoring volume and relaxing facial muscles before the wrinkles could even dare to form. Though I loved being in a room full of women so passionate and knowledgeable about this aspect of beauty, I couldn’t help but wonder why that specific cocktail of procedures was so popular that it happened the entire table had almost identical work done, without prior consultation with one another.
There was an understanding that a slim nose (with a high bridge, of course), plump lips, lifted brows and defined cheekbones was the goal to strive for. Almost every story started with an unflattering picture, a holy-grail photo editing app, and a desire to “take life into [their] own hands” (read: book an appointment at the plastic surgery clinic).
Perhaps the most striking revelation I made was that each woman looked absolutely stunning (albeit similar) in their respective TikTok and Instagram profiles – more so than one would expect when seated directly opposite them under the even glow of an overhead chandelier. I’ll give those LA girls that The Weeknd was talking about the benefit of the doubt – these ladies did not look exactly the same, per se. There was simply something too perfect, too curated, too…Instagram about the way they all seemed to meet the eye. And so comes the question: did these procedures aim to maximise attractiveness in real life…or to a camera?
As more people post videos of themselves looking ‘perfect’ so to say, young, impressionable people on social media subconsciously develop not only a warped perception of their own appearance, but of what other women look like in real life. The obsession with making minor adjustments to our appearance with preventative botox and dermal fillers perpetuates a level of perfection that…kind of only exists online. A perfectly curated photo, no matter how good a camera on your phone, is still not entirely reflective of the dynamic nature of being a real, live human being – not even close. Ever wondered why the best compliment you could give someone who has had work done on their face is that you genuinely couldn’t tell? It’s because most of the time, you probably could.
All of these slight tweaks performed recreationally and with the promise of a ‘you, but better’ aims to perfect a live face against a standard contrived from digital representations of beauty – influencer feeds, and those TikToks where people lip sync seductively into the camera without knowing the words (the song isn’t the focus anyway, silly!)
Further, getting botox out of anticipation for a future insecurity rather than frustration over an existing one opens up an avenue of questions: why attempt to fix what’s not even broken?
We live in an age where we see ourselves far more than we ever have (and ever should). Front-facing cameras are the new shop window reflections and no girls’ night out is complete without a picture for our feeds. Couple that with beauty filters and photoshop, the sheer amount of time we spend looking at ourselves on a screen (not to mention a screen that allows you to zoom and analyse every part of your face for as long as you want) is honestly frightening to imagine. Small imperfections are amplified and blamed for throwing off the balance of our perfectly normal appearances, when really it’s our conditioned minds that play a mental game of spot the difference with that one picture of that one influencer we hope to never catch on our boyfriend’s following list (you know, the one whose literal job is to understand things like lighting, camera angles, pose and editing?)
We conceptualise our standards of beauty through filters and photoshop (do the words Bold Glam ring a bell?) If an ugly photo can be restored by tuning ourselves with a V-shaped face, and we can choose our ideal nose job through a TikTok filter, what’s stopping us from booking an appointment, inspo pic in hand? And if we expect results from these meticulously tiny improvements to give us that ‘look’ as it appears on the screen, aren’t we really asking to look better for the sake of looking our absolute best, once again…to a camera?
TikToks of young women looking dolled up and gorgeous are literal gold mines for views and likes, and this is not lost on them. By learning how to game the system and work the algorithm to their advantage, they’re able to build a following (and possibly a career) by looking beautiful so they can promote beauty treatments and products, earning affiliate commission in the meantime. Additionally, the rise of industries recognising the pattern where a social media presence is one of the best marketing strategies you could adopt, and also just the sheer number of people who have accounts on Instagram and TikTok, makes being photogenic the ultimate form of social capital.
Being attractive and having that translate well through a fifteen second video or a carousel of posts is, if anything, an economic advantage – not to mention the benefits it would bring to other facets of our lives, such as gaming the intrinsic “pretty privilege” bias of employers scanning a LinkedIn profile, or potential suitors on dating apps.
Getting minor procedures to look perfect is equated to becoming photogenic; being photogenic = potential for making appealing content/profiles = potential for engagement (views, comments, likes) = potential for a new stream of income or leverage in dating.
Unhinged as it sounds, the concept of perfecting our faces for the sake of looking good in pictures (even when done subconsciously) is not limited to the irrational. If more people were to see us online than they would in our daily lives, wouldn’t the cost of having a slightly strange/unnatural appearance to the naked eye fall short of the benefit of being picture-perfect on any occasion? So really, wouldn’t the idea of refining one’s look, even if it were to translate better on camera than in real life, be considered an investment?
Though it can’t be said that getting dermal fillers and preventative botox is done with the conscious intention of becoming more photogenic by perpetuated beauty standards as they appear on social media, there could be an unconscious bias deep down when it comes to choosing what exactly needs correcting on our faces (especially when our ideas of ‘perfect’ stem from what we see, or can conceptualise, online).
And so, I’ll leave you with this, just as those ladies I met at the bougie restaurant in the heart of Singapore left me questioning; how perfect is perfect, and can perfection be defined, and exist, in person as it does online? Does your face need correcting, or do you just need to delete social media?