Celebrities have always been seen as the “beautiful people.” The common saying is “they’re just like you and me,” except they have the say on what is now trending and cool. Except they don’t just decide what fashion is trending and in, they also decide what body and face is desirable. 

Of course this isn’t a new thing, even in the 90´s Kate Moss said her famous quote “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” The difference between the trends of the 90´s and the trends of now, is how readily available these messages of what is pretty and what is not every time a person opens an app on their phone. 

The most common social media platforms that Gen-z uses are Instagram and TikTok. Both of these platforms have a combined user base of 2.47 billion people. Teens and even kids as young as nine can spend hours a day on TikTok where trends based on appearances pop up everyday. 

Young teens are not the only ones who can be targeted by these trends. As people like older Millennials and Gen-X scroll they can see things advertised to them as a way to reverse and prevent aging altogether like wrinkle tape, and an anti-wrinkle straw. Long skincare routines and makeup tutorials to point out new insecurities the viewer didn’t know they even had. 

According to social media and ad campaigns, the ideal feminine body should be tall but not too tall, skinny but still have noticeable curves, and defined cheekbones. This affects the self esteem of viewers of any age, making younger people think they should grow up faster and dress more mature, while also telling older users that they should look how they did when they were 20 while being in their 40´s. 

This is reflected in the common cosmetic procedures that women are undergoing being cheek or jaw reshaping, breast augmentation and buttock lift, according to data from John Hopkins.

Human beings have enough things to worry about in everyday life. A teenager should not have to worry about their buccal fat, or the shape of their thighs while trying to study for their final exams. A 35 year old shouldn’t have social media or mass media telling them they are old and need to fight against aging as soon as they turn 30.

Time started to show this effect after the pandemic, when most people worked from home with 768,546 people between the ages of 20 and 30 getting cosmetic procedures done in 2020 alone. 

The industry of making people feel they need to fix their appearance is a big one and social media is the advertisement they didn’t even need to pay for.