Recently I stumbled across an app in the Google Play Store called Facetune. This $3 app is basically designed as a selfie editor, allowing users to tweak their face in app to look “beautiful”. Now, I use quotations here because the app defines beauty in the same way that mass media does: flawless and altered. It not only advertises the ability to smooth skin and remove blemishes, but it also boasts the ability to reshape one’s face. This warped sense of beauty has permeated western culture, and many people (myself included) find it to be a horrible and sickening thing.
I’m a long-time sufferer of acne, myself, so it’s not like I don’t understand where they’re coming from. Back in middle school and early high school I used to alter my photos before posting them, especially back when I used webpages like the now-dead Dailybooth. I had bought into the warped sense of beauty that the media was perpetuating. However, sometime in high school I came to the realization that I didn’t need to alter how I looked. The truth is, true beauty is far from this warped sense of beauty.
You see, here’s a thing about acne that even I didn’t fully understand until late in my high school career: a person’s level of acne is never their fault. Acne is incredibly difficult to get and keep under control. At least, it is for those of us with extremely oily skin. In high school, I’d look around and see people with really clear skin and wonder what product they were using to wash their faces, because it must work, right? If they could keep their acne under control, why couldn’t I? What I didn’t understand was that people’s skin has a wide range of oiliness. Mine just happened to be in the higher section of that range, which necessitated that I get stronger face wash.
Generalizations of these concepts can be applied to many other things that the warped western sense of beauty considers “ugly”, be it a person’s weight, facial structure, breast size, nose shape, or any other feature.
Things like weight can be put with acne in the category of “extremely hard to control”. There are a variety of factors that affect a person’s weight aside from simply their diet and exercise routines. Genetics, for example, plays a large role in a person’s ability to gain or lose weight. So while some people may find it relatively easy to stay in shape, there are people who struggle every day to maintain a healthy weight (be it because they are too heavy or too light).
The other group of features, including facial structure, breast size, etc., compose the category of “virtually impossible to control”. Sure, there are things such as surgery that can alter these things, but those surgeries are popularized under the concept that there is a certain “ideal aesthetic” that everyone should strive for. What used to be a corrective procedure has become desirable, and it’s sickening.
I’ll stop myself before I ramble much longer. I just wanted to get it out there that I greatly dislike things like Facetune that perpetuate and feed off of this warped sense of beauty that has be created. Here’s the truth: you are handsome; you are beautiful; you are looking really good today, and every day. So go out into your day and your life knowing that you look fantastic.
Wishing you a happy week, and telling you your hair looks nice today,
I’m Michael, and this is my life.
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