Modern beauty trends and their effect on our definitions of conventional beauty
By SABRINA FIGUEROA — sfigueroaavila@ucdavis.edu
What makes a “beautiful” person? Or, rather, what is “beauty”? I think it’s safe to say that it’s a subjective concept, because not everyone will find the same person attractive, and, if they do, perhaps it’s for different reasons.
That might seem obvious, and it definitely is. But why is it so hard for people to actually take it to heart? We tend to place emphasis on our physical appearance more than anything else when it comes to beauty, and though it does play a factor, we could be playing a dangerous game here. This over-emphasis is apparent in recent beauty trends that have spread on the Internet.
Of course, it all starts off as fun and no one’s real intention is to hurt anyone’s perception of themselves. For example, the “deer pretty” or “bunny pretty” trend on TikTok started off as a non-serious, unique way to call people pretty. As stupid as it was, its intention wasn’t to make other people feel insecure or bad — however, social media shapes our perceptions of things nonetheless.
When the internet was going crazy over “cortisol face” or jowls, commenters would swarm random videos of people drinking coffee through straws, warning them that their actions could give them jowls — as if the posters asked. Though trends like these drive me insane, I’m not saying that all beauty trends should stop, as some are harmless and, in many cases, inevitable. However, I believe we need to stay skeptical about many of them, especially the whole “facial harmony” trend.
The “facial harmony” trend, at a very basic level, has to do with facial aesthetics. In this trend, people strive for their features to be in balance so that no single feature “stands out.” At a glance, it’s not serious — until people start recording their facial features and calling them “good” or “bad” features, “in” or “out” of harmony with each other.
This line of commentary on the inherent “goodness” of facial features is concerning: Should we really be describing features with words that are used to describe morality? Because what is a “good” feature? What is a “bad” one? What is our standard for that?
If the answer is that euro-centric features are the standard, this trend is dismissive of cultural diversity and reminiscent of eugenics and phrenology — concepts that were used to spread racist ideology. And even if that wasn’t the standard, it’s still harmful to give features characteristics of morality.
We need to realize that social media is a facet of mass communication that molds our world, our society, our perceptions and our concepts. This is especially true since social media is an inherently neutral technology, with the power to both create and destroy progress.
If we allow content like “facial harmony” to trend without thinking twice, our perceptions of beauty will be distorted. Maybe it’s a sign that they already are.
Decentering physical appearance as the only aspect of beauty and asking ourselves where we even got our standard of beauty to begin with might be a good place to start if we want to reevaluate our beauty standards. With all this being said, I leave you with a question: What is beauty to you?
Written by: Sabrina Figueroa — sfigueroaavila@ucdavis.edu
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