[de]influencing can’t be in good faith
“Beauty standards are bullshit” (BSRBS)
“Beauty standards are bullshit” (BSRBS) – not a surprising nor revolutionary take, especially from me, I would hope. The churning of beauty standards and what they mean for our society has been weighing on me a ton with the rise of “deinfluencing.” More specifically, how interwoven beauty standards are to consumption and capitalism.
Deinfluencing is a movement where people tell consumers to either stop purchasing expensive, redundant, or just useless (typically makeup or lifestyle) products or they offer better alternatives. Even as an attempt to go against “typical” influencing, this is what I’ve found: no matter what side of the “deinfluencer” coin you fall upon, it’s still influencing.
Evelyn, a new friend of the publication, said that deinfluencing is:
[the act of] not promoting objects, but demoting (not sure if that's the right word). Deinfluencing isn’t much different than influencing. When you encourage someone to buy something (influencing), you are actively encouraging them to not buy other things. If you remove promoting things from the equation, it’s just saying not to buy something. It seems like deinfluencing is rather a new buzzword for something that’s happened for ages.
Overall, I think it can be good. People have been finessed into buying shit for a long time. I don’t think definfluencing will change much. Products come and go. And influencers aren’t the only “influence” on people’s spending– other people, other advertisements, even subtle things in the media.
Now, I’m not saying that influencing is completely of the devil, but, ask why people are attempting to sell you (literally and figuratively) on products?
Beauty standards make you feel like shit, so why do they keep getting perpetuated?
Money.
Eventually, Laneige lip masks turn into the 34,236 lip augmentations of 2020.
Eventually, makeup products turn into (tens, hundreds of) thousands of dollars worth of cosmetic procedures, only fueling the 63.4 billion USD that the industry is valued at.
In our interview, Evelyn continued:
There’s a big connection between beauty and capitalism, but capitalism extends its greasy fingers across all industries. People want beauty products. People want them enough to need them. If they can make people pay more, then they’ll do it. Much like with fashion, if you can push the idea that a specific product is good, you can push the idea that paying thousands of dollars for it is ok.
The building up of the typically women who do these procedures is less a want to “support all women” – though for people who aren’t completely heartless, this need to be inclusive and understanding most likely started here – and more of a response to the overly fake and photoshopped standards of the not-so-past past. Someone just acknowledging that they’ve had a rhinoplasty seems to be a bare minimum. [1] This, more than anything, is what has lead to the rise of deinfluencing.
People have gotten so used to and sick of the false livelihoods of influencers, entertainers, whatever online personalities who hold power over an audience want to call themselves, that you simply can’t strip deinfluencing as a counter to it, even as good faith as it tries to be.
This is not to bash cosmetic procedures at all though. People often have many different reasons for getting them done. Tristan (aka ‘Trizzin’ of Hypixel fame), an enemy of the publication, said that “I feel like first you should look into what's making you feel that way instead of just going for surgery.” And even said that while “beauty standards are the leading factor [for cosmetic surgeries],” there are “unique cases,” specifically in reference to Michael Jackson’s changing of his nose because it reminded him of his father.
I think people are too harsh, I think people really do want to try, and I think that people are free to be “fake,” as long as they and the people around them are aware of it. On plastic surgery and what’s likely the reasoning behind it, Ellen Rubinshteyn, a high school senior and friend of the publication, said this:
I feel neutral about plastic surgery. I know it is a controversial topic, but I think it's like any other body modification like tattoos, piercings, etc. and should be treated as such by society. People who get plastic surgery should not be judged or harassed to make a different decision. However, I do think toxic beauty standards led people to do such operations. When conventional attractiveness is such a monolith as a skinny white person, it's very difficult to like your own body and not feel the need to modify it. Especially when such little people fit the beauty standard. Because all humans crave external validation and it's inherently natural, it's difficult to not want to please others and not want them to think you're beautiful too. I think that's why people started doing plastic surgery.
Where it fails is ultimately a lack of recognition for the utter intertwinement of it all. Or maybe there is a recognition, but just a failure to actually do anything about it. I don’t fault the general public for either.
Alaïa Soars: Do you think consumption can be done in good faith?
Evelyn: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Business is about profit, and profit is gained from exploitation. Of course, there are non profit companies, but these companies aren’t making things that we absolutely need. You can buy some products made locally, which is always better, but you will always be beneficial to the system. Now, this doesn’t mean that consumers are always bad people. If you have no choice, it’s not your fault. Maybe you could go start only buying some clothes made in sweatshops by slaves on purpose, and maybe that makes you worse. There can be the idea of change without the change, which is still better than the opposite.
A very, very special thanks to anyone who gave a statement for this article, even if yours wasn’t included. Definitely made me feel like a “big girl” journalist with my list of questions lol.
[1] Like, I can’t be the only one who remembers Nerd City’s hella scathing takedown video on SSSniperwolf and her photoshop and plastic surgery allegations, right?
Further Reading / Viewing:
beauty standards, mya moon via moongirl.substack.com
DEINFLUENCING & home decor, tiffany ferguson via youtube.com/@tiffanyferg
De-influencing De-influencing, jessica defino via jessicadefino.substack.com
There Is No “Choice” In Wellness Culture, charlie squire via evilfemale.substack.com