This is a beautiful piece. Our concepts of beauty are so strange because they are driven so much by celebrities. I said once that I have no idea what a Kardashian is, but they don’t deliver my mail or pick up my trash. My heroes, when I was growing up in Baltimore, were all the wonderful workers who got stuff done, the garbage man (when I was very small, I thought they were heroes; I’m not sure that was wrong), the arabbers who brought vegetables to our house, the fire fighters. I still think that ordinary workers are the core of our civilization.
I have some experience with plastic surgery, not as a patient but as a surgical technician at Hopkins. I specialized in cardiac and chest surgery, but occasionally had to scrub on plastic cases. Many of these surgeries were heroic - fixing the face of a little boy ho’d been in an accident, or a girl born with a facial deformity. We did a few cosmetic surgeries, but not many. We need to change our culture to stop worshipping the perfect face and figure of a rich celebrity and learn to love each other for who we are, unedited.
this was such a good and healing read for me because it kind of crystalised the thoughts i had watching the same plastic surgery youtuber. as i was watching her i was worried the content would push me towards wanting plastic surgery myself (or even just being dissatisfied w my own face) but it actually did the opposite - i now know that, for example, it's not that i have a uniquely big and bulky nose, it's that no one in hollywood can leave their noses alone. or it's not that i havent had enough of a glowup as i hit adulthood, but it's just that my face did the work to settle into that of an adult on its own (which i am proud of! i am happy that bouncers dont suspiciously double-check my ID anymore, and that my grandma mistakenly calls me by my mum's name, and that i'm getting the same forehead wrinkles as my dad because we're both over-expressive over-explainers). and now that i can spot plastic surgery way better on the internet and in real life, it makes that weird longing-for-an-unfulfilled-potential-for-beauty way less important to me - like the way i dont say 'it's a shame i didn't inherit my grandma's big lips anymore', because i now know she fills them up with juvaderm lmao. but yeah its a thin line w that content - it helps me look past the beauty-propaganda of the internet, but if i consume too much of it at once, it drives me into this overly analytical place where i think too much abt my own appearance, and that usually isn't too good for me either. im not sure if the watching itself as an activity is beneficial to me - maybe just the expertise i gain after watching
This is a beautiful piece. Our concepts of beauty are so strange because they are driven so much by celebrities. I said once that I have no idea what a Kardashian is, but they don’t deliver my mail or pick up my trash. My heroes, when I was growing up in Baltimore, were all the wonderful workers who got stuff done, the garbage man (when I was very small, I thought they were heroes; I’m not sure that was wrong), the arabbers who brought vegetables to our house, the fire fighters. I still think that ordinary workers are the core of our civilization.
I have some experience with plastic surgery, not as a patient but as a surgical technician at Hopkins. I specialized in cardiac and chest surgery, but occasionally had to scrub on plastic cases. Many of these surgeries were heroic - fixing the face of a little boy ho’d been in an accident, or a girl born with a facial deformity. We did a few cosmetic surgeries, but not many. We need to change our culture to stop worshipping the perfect face and figure of a rich celebrity and learn to love each other for who we are, unedited.
this was such a good and healing read for me because it kind of crystalised the thoughts i had watching the same plastic surgery youtuber. as i was watching her i was worried the content would push me towards wanting plastic surgery myself (or even just being dissatisfied w my own face) but it actually did the opposite - i now know that, for example, it's not that i have a uniquely big and bulky nose, it's that no one in hollywood can leave their noses alone. or it's not that i havent had enough of a glowup as i hit adulthood, but it's just that my face did the work to settle into that of an adult on its own (which i am proud of! i am happy that bouncers dont suspiciously double-check my ID anymore, and that my grandma mistakenly calls me by my mum's name, and that i'm getting the same forehead wrinkles as my dad because we're both over-expressive over-explainers). and now that i can spot plastic surgery way better on the internet and in real life, it makes that weird longing-for-an-unfulfilled-potential-for-beauty way less important to me - like the way i dont say 'it's a shame i didn't inherit my grandma's big lips anymore', because i now know she fills them up with juvaderm lmao. but yeah its a thin line w that content - it helps me look past the beauty-propaganda of the internet, but if i consume too much of it at once, it drives me into this overly analytical place where i think too much abt my own appearance, and that usually isn't too good for me either. im not sure if the watching itself as an activity is beneficial to me - maybe just the expertise i gain after watching