Marina Demeshko/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Seven years ago, The New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino is widely credited with coining the term "Instagram face" to describe a beauty standard that she noticed emerging on social media among white female influencers. "The face looked like the beauty filters that Snapchat and Instagram provided to kind of lift your cheeks, and plump your lips, and make your eyes bigger, and make your chin a little more heart-shaped," Tolentino says. "It was the kind of ... Kim Kardashian looks, like Kendall Jenner looks, like Bella Hadid looks, like Emily Ratajkowski." Now, in her latest New Yorker piece, Tolentino argues that social media optimization of Instagram face has trickled down, resulting in a proliferation of plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures among young people chasing an AI-based beauty standard.
"The drive toward optimization that has encompassed and driven every tech industry, all of Silicon Valley, for the last 25 years, it's really come to roost in our faces and bodies and souls," she says. Tolentino argues that what's changing isn't just our appearance, it's our relationship to reality. She notes that procedures like Botox and fillers, once associated with middle age, are now becoming popular for teenagers and young adults, with plastic surgeons reporting a significant uptick of patients under 30, and men and boys engaging in "looksmaxxing."
