I'm so glad that I grew up before social media and its algorithms.
I'm also glad that I have such an aversion to pain that just the thought of voluntary submitting myself to needles, scalpels, stitches, bruising and healing completely outweighs any advertising thrown in my face.
Not to mention the chance of complications, which could affect you for the rest of your life. Being a wuss apparently serves me well.
I have to have a lot of medically-necessary procedures, and I just cannot imagine being on this hamster wheel for anything but alleviating pain.
It is certainly possible that people have emotional pain, as the author evokes, but doing invasive things is a last step even for my physical health conditions. It scares me that it is not always thought to be that way for cosmetic procedures, especially as they become easier to access.
Likewise. I have had to go under the knife for medical reasons multiple times and it sucks. I cannot imagine taking the risk if it wasn’t necessary. I am happy to look my age and be able to fucking emote. It scares me how normalized altered faces have become. I don’t want to look stretched, smooth-shiny, frozen, or puffy. I want to recognize myself in the mirror, even as new lines accrue with the years. I’m fully embracing caring for myself with good nutrition and exercise and rest.. and zero needles or scalpels or lasers or anything other than some fancy skin cream.
For those prices, I find myself always saying “Eh, I’d rather have jewelry!”
It might seem like a similarly superficial pursuit, but you’ll spot me someday quite wrinkled and gray wearing jewelry that delights me, reminds me of trips and research rabbit-holes, and connects me to women of the past, present, and future. My descendants will actually be able to sell it for something, so it’s an “investment” in my earthly happiness and theirs.
It might not be jewelry for every woman, but there will be something for most people that makes them a lot happier than “procedures,” and happiness looks good on everyone.
I have the most gorgeous diamond rings and tennis bracelet, and they make me so happy! I love watching them sparkle in the sun. I’d much rather have that than painful injections in my face.
This is me. I'll spend some money on skincare, but the way I look is more other people than for me, whereas jewelry is something I enjoy immensely, so I'm only going to spend so much on skincare and cosmetics. I love wearing pieces that remind me of loved ones, places I've lived and traveled, or even just look cool. Artisan precision cut stones, rare minerals I learned about while studying geology, traditional gold work, museum replica pieces, all of those things make me really happy. As long as my face is something I'm happy with, that's enough for me. I won't spend money chasing perfection.
Am I the only one who hates the writing? I'm guessing it's meant to give us the creeps, but I couldn't take stuff like
She’s gone, but she left her sweat and her scent: antiseptic, fetid perfume.
And
Rooms like this—the salon where my scalp scalds as my curls burn away or the aesthetician’s office where I lie as vulnerable as I might in a hospital bed—are drenched in anxiety’s musk.
I just don't want to change my face. Never have. I've never worn makeup, never dyed my hair, never worn jewelry. You don't actually have to participate in any of it if you don't want to.
As a weird little gremlin from Southern California who has had zero body mods or procedures except braces as a teenager, what people less familiar with the subject don't realize in these discussions is that when you're thinking about the aesthetics of cosmetic procedures, what you're picturing is work that you can immediately tell was done. Way more people get minor procedures than you imagine. Like, unless you're associating only with ice fishermen, I can guarantee that you encounter people on an everyday basis who have had minor procedures and all you notice is that they look nice, or their skin is clear, or they look more rested than the last time you were talking, they have pretty eyes and long lashes, et cetera.
Also, maybe this is just my cyberpunk witch ethos coming out, but I think it's actually kind of bullshit that life is so short and time grinds our bodies down and things like grief, sickness, and stress can drastically change the way our faces look without our consent, not to mention that genetics creates an involuntary social hierarchy that deeply affects the entire trajectory of our lives and opportunities, and I think part of owning our bodies is getting to own our physical presentation both personally and socially. I have no problem with someone getting a tattoo or piercing that makes them feel pretty and gets them closer to a preferred aesthetic, and I really don't see why I should have a problem with a blepharoplasty or a hair transplant that does the same thing. I also think it's perfectly okay that not everyone's preferred aesthetic is one that I like looking at or would choose for myself.
You might have a point if we lived a world wholly devoid of advertising, and corporate-chosen beauty standards, and the general cultural push to alienate and dispose of anyone old and unattractive.
But you don't, because we don't. We live in a world in which people aren't "choosing their own faces" but rather submitting themselves to dangerous procedures in order to conform to a standard kept forever impossible to achieve so that we keep hating ourselves and buying more products and remembering that we are worthless at our cores if we are ugly or old or otherwise seen as undesirable.
If you think you're cyberpunk because you like botox, you sincerely missed the entire point and ethos of cyberpunk, which is not about body mod but rather about the total disgusting control of corporations over our lives and our very perceptions of reality. And you've fallen hook line and sinker for the beauty industry's desired perception.
Maybe actually read Neuromancer before calling yourself that bullshit lmao idk
Did I really say that I "like Botox" or that I'm an idiot who considers corporate commodification of the body cyberpunk, or is that a useful strawman you slapped together out of fragments of my thoughts because you wanted to embarrass me? Because I am actually 24/7 on the thin edge of manic street preaching about late stage capitalism marrying late stage misogyny, and also I'm certainly not under the delusion that everything I say on Reddit at 2am is right and makes sense, so you're kinda hitting in the wrong spot. You and I might not end up seeing super eye to eye on many aspects of this topic, but I'm willing to have an actual conversation if that's something you would like. Let me know if I should take the time to clarify and explore, or if you just wanted a drive-by gotcha.
Hey man, don't take it out on me if you didn't express yourself the way you meant to. I'm not into "gotchas", I am responding directly to your comments about how aging is bad and it's empowering to halt it, which competely ignores the problem with a cosmetic push for anti-aging (beauty standards and a cultural belief that ugly and elderly people are of significant less worth than the young and beautiful) and also ignores the fact that if a 20 year old feels the need to "combat aging" or otherwise surgically alter themselves to meet a certain specific aesthetic that might not be their own and is instead necessary to their career (e.g. celebrity filler and buccal fat removal culture), something has gone terribly wrong in a way that is directly antithetical to cyberpunk body modification.
You are free to actually respond to my argument, but I have made my point and probably won't push it further.
It's hardly taking anything out on you to address your communication choices openly. I felt that it had a higher chance of opening a door to dialogue than just meeting you in kind by e.g. taking your slightly funny choice to name the single most basic and well-known book by the single most well-known straight white male author in the genre and using that to pretend like you're the real sciolist.
Since you're not interested in a dialogue, I won't go too deep and you obviously don't have to read this comment yourself, but I think I will touch on a couple of things for anybody else reading my original comment and taking away from it the impression that I consider there to be zero harm in either fashion hegemony or throwaway culture as applied to human beings. None of this is a thesis, and I'm sure I'll continue changing my mind about all of it; changing my mind in response to new perspectives is literally how I arrived at my current set of opinions to begin with.
Yes, runaway cosmetic pressure in celebrity culture is extreme and still accelerating. We're probably completely agreed on how bad that is both for people in media and media-adjacent roles and for ordinary people living in a culture where megacorps are driving the dominant aspirational imagery. I'm face to face with this pressure, literally; as mentioned, I'm living as an unmodified person in one of the biggest plastic surgery hot spots on the planet. I don't even shave my armpits. But I'm not going to go around jerking myself off about it like choosing to look chopped is praxis, and a woman with her boobs and lips done who marches next to me on the street when we're trying to claw back our reproductive rights is not my enemy under patriarchy, nor is she setting me back.
A significant influence in my thinking around aesthetic procedures comes from being part of the queer community. My trans friend chose to have several facial surgeries and small implants so she would feel happier with what she saw in the mirror. Was that failing to value herself or deconstruct cultural standards? Is it different from if my other friend who isn't trans gets the same procedures? Is only one of those identical cosmetic surgeries for the purpose of aesthetic preference and gender performance an act of self-hatred and a mindless perpetuation of the beauty hegemony? Why?
None of us gets the freedom of forming our preferences in a neutral culture, and it's fucking complicated and a lifelong project to try to figure out authentic self-expression. There are multiple cultural narratives encouraging me to find pride and a sense of superiority in defining myself in opposition to "fake" women, and at some point, I ended up just rejecting that entirely because most of them turn out to be another face of misogyny when you flip the rock over.
As for aging, having spent time up close and personal with it, yes, I do pretty much think aging and death is a shitty and unfair deal, and while I think an important part of life as a sapient animal is to find a way to reconcile with the inevitability of bodily infirmity and annihilation of consciousness and to manage the existential dread, I haven't found convincing arguments in favor of it outside of religious mythology, which doesn't help since it's not an interpretation of reality that I find plausible. I'm capable of separating a belief that my elders are valuable humans from a belief that there's nothing that sucks about time destroying your pelvic floor control and your eyesight, or even the facial features and hair color that you've had all your life. Hey, maybe someone has a great argument I just haven't heard yet for why getting my body fucked up by cellular degeneration until it literally kills me is actually really cool and I should be excited about it, but as it is, I view it as a pretty severe downside of the passage of time.
That person was just basically like "do whatever you want and live your life the way you want" and you went off on this judgement fueled bitter tirade about botox hahahaha "you might have a point if I agreed with you, but I don't so you don't" 😂
The same people who praise my tattoos as “self expression” (personally I just like pretty pictures) lose their minds when they find out I regularly get Botox and occasional filler. Funny how they never guess, are attracted to you, but insist you can always tell and it’s grotesque.
It’s not always about societal pressure. I looked in the mirror and the signs of aging I see don’t feel like me. I wanted the face I know back, not to look like someone else. Certainly not trying to look 26 forever, but a compromise on taking back some of the things that you have lost, as you said, without your consent.
I had to stop for a few years and the first time I got Botox again, it was symbolic of taking my body back. Catharsis. But more importantly I look fucking great.
This reminds me of a funny story about my parents. They used to share the same dermatologist for decades. After my mom passed away, the dermatologist told my
dad that mom used to get lip fillers in secret. She’d always tell him to make it extremely subtle, “So he can’t tell when he kisses me.” My dad was SHOCKED and initially very indignant about it. Eventually my sister and I told him to chill out and that we think it’s cute that Mom wanted to keep her lips luscious and kissable. But he has always felt a little betrayed by it, as if his consent should have been required.
I'm already pro-ugly, but come at me with a convincing argument if you're trying to say that getting my whole body fucked up by accumulated cellular degradation until it finally kills me should sound amazing and cool.
She went to Beverly Hills plastic surgeons for consultations and traces how filler, FaceTune, and the Kardashians created one aspirational face everyone's optimizing toward.
tiragooen | 21 hours ago
I'm so glad that I grew up before social media and its algorithms.
I'm also glad that I have such an aversion to pain that just the thought of voluntary submitting myself to needles, scalpels, stitches, bruising and healing completely outweighs any advertising thrown in my face.
Not to mention the chance of complications, which could affect you for the rest of your life. Being a wuss apparently serves me well.
Gildedfilth | 20 hours ago
I have to have a lot of medically-necessary procedures, and I just cannot imagine being on this hamster wheel for anything but alleviating pain.
It is certainly possible that people have emotional pain, as the author evokes, but doing invasive things is a last step even for my physical health conditions. It scares me that it is not always thought to be that way for cosmetic procedures, especially as they become easier to access.
SiouxsieClue | 18 hours ago
Likewise. I have had to go under the knife for medical reasons multiple times and it sucks. I cannot imagine taking the risk if it wasn’t necessary. I am happy to look my age and be able to fucking emote. It scares me how normalized altered faces have become. I don’t want to look stretched, smooth-shiny, frozen, or puffy. I want to recognize myself in the mirror, even as new lines accrue with the years. I’m fully embracing caring for myself with good nutrition and exercise and rest.. and zero needles or scalpels or lasers or anything other than some fancy skin cream.
Gildedfilth | 20 hours ago
For those prices, I find myself always saying “Eh, I’d rather have jewelry!”
It might seem like a similarly superficial pursuit, but you’ll spot me someday quite wrinkled and gray wearing jewelry that delights me, reminds me of trips and research rabbit-holes, and connects me to women of the past, present, and future. My descendants will actually be able to sell it for something, so it’s an “investment” in my earthly happiness and theirs.
It might not be jewelry for every woman, but there will be something for most people that makes them a lot happier than “procedures,” and happiness looks good on everyone.
Powerful-Patient-765 | 19 hours ago
I have the most gorgeous diamond rings and tennis bracelet, and they make me so happy! I love watching them sparkle in the sun. I’d much rather have that than painful injections in my face.
Quagga_Resurrection | 3 hours ago
This is me. I'll spend some money on skincare, but the way I look is more other people than for me, whereas jewelry is something I enjoy immensely, so I'm only going to spend so much on skincare and cosmetics. I love wearing pieces that remind me of loved ones, places I've lived and traveled, or even just look cool. Artisan precision cut stones, rare minerals I learned about while studying geology, traditional gold work, museum replica pieces, all of those things make me really happy. As long as my face is something I'm happy with, that's enough for me. I won't spend money chasing perfection.
Gladyskravitz99 | 20 hours ago
Am I the only one who hates the writing? I'm guessing it's meant to give us the creeps, but I couldn't take stuff like
And
GrouchyYoung | 8 hours ago
Emmeline Clein has many good insights, but her writing is pretty poor. I read a book of her essays and…yeah.
sulwen314 | 19 hours ago
I just don't want to change my face. Never have. I've never worn makeup, never dyed my hair, never worn jewelry. You don't actually have to participate in any of it if you don't want to.
InnerKookaburra | 18 hours ago
Same.
SpooktasticFam | 8 hours ago
This writing style is insufferable.
GinAndDumbBitchJuice | 7 hours ago
Agreed. This isn't a new conversation, but they seem to think they're the first one to put any of this on paper.
Peeinyourcompost | 13 hours ago
As a weird little gremlin from Southern California who has had zero body mods or procedures except braces as a teenager, what people less familiar with the subject don't realize in these discussions is that when you're thinking about the aesthetics of cosmetic procedures, what you're picturing is work that you can immediately tell was done. Way more people get minor procedures than you imagine. Like, unless you're associating only with ice fishermen, I can guarantee that you encounter people on an everyday basis who have had minor procedures and all you notice is that they look nice, or their skin is clear, or they look more rested than the last time you were talking, they have pretty eyes and long lashes, et cetera.
Also, maybe this is just my cyberpunk witch ethos coming out, but I think it's actually kind of bullshit that life is so short and time grinds our bodies down and things like grief, sickness, and stress can drastically change the way our faces look without our consent, not to mention that genetics creates an involuntary social hierarchy that deeply affects the entire trajectory of our lives and opportunities, and I think part of owning our bodies is getting to own our physical presentation both personally and socially. I have no problem with someone getting a tattoo or piercing that makes them feel pretty and gets them closer to a preferred aesthetic, and I really don't see why I should have a problem with a blepharoplasty or a hair transplant that does the same thing. I also think it's perfectly okay that not everyone's preferred aesthetic is one that I like looking at or would choose for myself.
atomicsnark | 11 hours ago
You might have a point if we lived a world wholly devoid of advertising, and corporate-chosen beauty standards, and the general cultural push to alienate and dispose of anyone old and unattractive.
But you don't, because we don't. We live in a world in which people aren't "choosing their own faces" but rather submitting themselves to dangerous procedures in order to conform to a standard kept forever impossible to achieve so that we keep hating ourselves and buying more products and remembering that we are worthless at our cores if we are ugly or old or otherwise seen as undesirable.
If you think you're cyberpunk because you like botox, you sincerely missed the entire point and ethos of cyberpunk, which is not about body mod but rather about the total disgusting control of corporations over our lives and our very perceptions of reality. And you've fallen hook line and sinker for the beauty industry's desired perception.
Maybe actually read Neuromancer before calling yourself that bullshit lmao idk
Peeinyourcompost | 10 hours ago
Did I really say that I "like Botox" or that I'm an idiot who considers corporate commodification of the body cyberpunk, or is that a useful strawman you slapped together out of fragments of my thoughts because you wanted to embarrass me? Because I am actually 24/7 on the thin edge of manic street preaching about late stage capitalism marrying late stage misogyny, and also I'm certainly not under the delusion that everything I say on Reddit at 2am is right and makes sense, so you're kinda hitting in the wrong spot. You and I might not end up seeing super eye to eye on many aspects of this topic, but I'm willing to have an actual conversation if that's something you would like. Let me know if I should take the time to clarify and explore, or if you just wanted a drive-by gotcha.
atomicsnark | 7 hours ago
Hey man, don't take it out on me if you didn't express yourself the way you meant to. I'm not into "gotchas", I am responding directly to your comments about how aging is bad and it's empowering to halt it, which competely ignores the problem with a cosmetic push for anti-aging (beauty standards and a cultural belief that ugly and elderly people are of significant less worth than the young and beautiful) and also ignores the fact that if a 20 year old feels the need to "combat aging" or otherwise surgically alter themselves to meet a certain specific aesthetic that might not be their own and is instead necessary to their career (e.g. celebrity filler and buccal fat removal culture), something has gone terribly wrong in a way that is directly antithetical to cyberpunk body modification.
You are free to actually respond to my argument, but I have made my point and probably won't push it further.
Peeinyourcompost | 5 hours ago
It's hardly taking anything out on you to address your communication choices openly. I felt that it had a higher chance of opening a door to dialogue than just meeting you in kind by e.g. taking your slightly funny choice to name the single most basic and well-known book by the single most well-known straight white male author in the genre and using that to pretend like you're the real sciolist.
Since you're not interested in a dialogue, I won't go too deep and you obviously don't have to read this comment yourself, but I think I will touch on a couple of things for anybody else reading my original comment and taking away from it the impression that I consider there to be zero harm in either fashion hegemony or throwaway culture as applied to human beings. None of this is a thesis, and I'm sure I'll continue changing my mind about all of it; changing my mind in response to new perspectives is literally how I arrived at my current set of opinions to begin with.
Yes, runaway cosmetic pressure in celebrity culture is extreme and still accelerating. We're probably completely agreed on how bad that is both for people in media and media-adjacent roles and for ordinary people living in a culture where megacorps are driving the dominant aspirational imagery. I'm face to face with this pressure, literally; as mentioned, I'm living as an unmodified person in one of the biggest plastic surgery hot spots on the planet. I don't even shave my armpits. But I'm not going to go around jerking myself off about it like choosing to look chopped is praxis, and a woman with her boobs and lips done who marches next to me on the street when we're trying to claw back our reproductive rights is not my enemy under patriarchy, nor is she setting me back.
A significant influence in my thinking around aesthetic procedures comes from being part of the queer community. My trans friend chose to have several facial surgeries and small implants so she would feel happier with what she saw in the mirror. Was that failing to value herself or deconstruct cultural standards? Is it different from if my other friend who isn't trans gets the same procedures? Is only one of those identical cosmetic surgeries for the purpose of aesthetic preference and gender performance an act of self-hatred and a mindless perpetuation of the beauty hegemony? Why?
None of us gets the freedom of forming our preferences in a neutral culture, and it's fucking complicated and a lifelong project to try to figure out authentic self-expression. There are multiple cultural narratives encouraging me to find pride and a sense of superiority in defining myself in opposition to "fake" women, and at some point, I ended up just rejecting that entirely because most of them turn out to be another face of misogyny when you flip the rock over.
As for aging, having spent time up close and personal with it, yes, I do pretty much think aging and death is a shitty and unfair deal, and while I think an important part of life as a sapient animal is to find a way to reconcile with the inevitability of bodily infirmity and annihilation of consciousness and to manage the existential dread, I haven't found convincing arguments in favor of it outside of religious mythology, which doesn't help since it's not an interpretation of reality that I find plausible. I'm capable of separating a belief that my elders are valuable humans from a belief that there's nothing that sucks about time destroying your pelvic floor control and your eyesight, or even the facial features and hair color that you've had all your life. Hey, maybe someone has a great argument I just haven't heard yet for why getting my body fucked up by cellular degeneration until it literally kills me is actually really cool and I should be excited about it, but as it is, I view it as a pretty severe downside of the passage of time.
ManateeNipples | 4 hours ago
That person was just basically like "do whatever you want and live your life the way you want" and you went off on this judgement fueled bitter tirade about botox hahahaha "you might have a point if I agreed with you, but I don't so you don't" 😂
sendintheclouds | 10 hours ago
The same people who praise my tattoos as “self expression” (personally I just like pretty pictures) lose their minds when they find out I regularly get Botox and occasional filler. Funny how they never guess, are attracted to you, but insist you can always tell and it’s grotesque.
It’s not always about societal pressure. I looked in the mirror and the signs of aging I see don’t feel like me. I wanted the face I know back, not to look like someone else. Certainly not trying to look 26 forever, but a compromise on taking back some of the things that you have lost, as you said, without your consent.
I had to stop for a few years and the first time I got Botox again, it was symbolic of taking my body back. Catharsis. But more importantly I look fucking great.
sansaspark | 8 hours ago
This reminds me of a funny story about my parents. They used to share the same dermatologist for decades. After my mom passed away, the dermatologist told my dad that mom used to get lip fillers in secret. She’d always tell him to make it extremely subtle, “So he can’t tell when he kisses me.” My dad was SHOCKED and initially very indignant about it. Eventually my sister and I told him to chill out and that we think it’s cute that Mom wanted to keep her lips luscious and kissable. But he has always felt a little betrayed by it, as if his consent should have been required.
Impressive-Durian-22 | 3 hours ago
is being anti-ugly and anti-aging misogynist or cyberpunk? good philosophical questions to ponder
Peeinyourcompost | 43 minutes ago
I'm already pro-ugly, but come at me with a convincing argument if you're trying to say that getting my whole body fucked up by accumulated cellular degradation until it finally kills me should sound amazing and cool.
Impressive-Durian-22 | 29 minutes ago
it wasn’t an argument. it was a question worth pondering, as i said. you could make a convincing case for both.
Peeinyourcompost | 21 minutes ago
It read as rhetorical to me. My mistake if that wasn't your intention.
InnerKookaburra | 21 hours ago
I just think the people who do this look grotesque.
It's a mental illness and they keep pursuing it...
No-Option-6479 | 19 hours ago
idk yea it’s wild how far some go. feels like an endless chase for perfection that’ll never come
newyorkerest | 4 hours ago
Jia Tolentino wrote the foundational piece on this for The New Yorker back in 2019, "The Age of Instagram Face" (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of-instagram-face).
She went to Beverly Hills plastic surgeons for consultations and traces how filler, FaceTune, and the Kardashians created one aspirational face everyone's optimizing toward.
Dr__Pheonx | 19 hours ago
To each, their own.