Social media amplifies this.
Most of the people having these unsightly, dangerous and body-distorting procedures want to be looked at noticed, and - well, not necessarily admired, but certainly regarded with... awe? horror? just that sense of being different...?
If they weren't being noticed, a lot of the impetus for having these cosmetic distortions would be gone.
Before online social media took off, there wasn't the theatre for showing off these results. It would be confined to showing off within one's family, work and social circle. Now... out go the photos and videos to an entire global community, and there'll be enough distorted minds there to give validation to the distorted imagery.
One of the most beautiful descriptions of how uniquely and complexly we are made as human beings is from the Book of Psalms:
❝...I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.❞
... but the cosmetic medical procedures deform the frame (removal of ribs - hideous!) and substance (turning mouths into what looks like a blister and sexual organs into monstrosities and buttocks into bulbous rotundas of concrete). From a medical standpoint - it's so dangerous. From the standpoint of unique beauty of individuality - it REMOVES uniqueness and doesn't celebrate how beautiful people are (instead going for some ridiculous universal concept of beauty OR some distorted attempt to turn exaggeration and a sick fantasy image into one's "true self" (uuuurgh)). From a human point of view - it's insulting and offensive to undergo surgical/medical procedures to remake oneself to such hideous degree.
John Donne - one of my favourite poets and in my opinion a most fascinating thinker - wrote
❝I am a little world made cunningly / Of elements, and an angelic sprite ;❞
All of that cunning craftsmanship in each person with his or her absolute uniqueness... that's all made a mockery of by these medical procedures.
In my view, cosmetic surgery ought to be for the remedying of something that is unhealthy, dangerous, the result of an accident (to restore as much as possible), and for those who want it, non-distorting enhancement that doesn't wipe away the individual's intrinsic appearance and replace it with a caricature. (I wouldn't want plastic surgery on my own face. I like my face; I'm aware of its flaws but it's MY FACE. Sometimes it looks beautiful, and sometimes it's tired. I know what sorts of cosmetics I can use and which sorts just don't look right. I wouldn't want plastic surgery on my body. To enhance it, surgery is not the answer. Every surgery is a risk; I have had to take some risks for medical reasons, but I'll turn into cream cheese before I take surgical risks to look like a Barbie doll.)
We are perfect in our imperfections. Our faces reflect our humour, our life journey, our laughter and our sorrow. Our bodies are most beautiful when they are well regulated and respected through exercise and a good diet (which doesn't mean despising bodies that are less than ideal). Of course women especially (and men increasingly) like to enhance their features and wear clothing that flatters them... but I can say this: when you're exhausted, and you have a long way to walk and you don't know how bad the way will be, the last thing one's thinking about is "Do I wear my amber gown in shot silk with my golden South Sea pearls, with my hair curled and drawn back, and my fabulous nude lipstick and my Better Than Sex mascara, and those high heels that make my feet look sooooo gorgeous?" No. One'd be grabbing the most comfortable clothing, something warm enough if it's cold, and something more lightweight if it's hot... comfortable shoes (and forget any idea of how they make one's ankles look), and if it comes to grabbing the Aerogard and sunscreen, or grabbing a handful of cosmetics, it's going to be the AEROGARD AND SUNSCREEN!
(It's all about focus and context. If our lives are constantly focused on how we look, if we define ourselves by appearance rather than by what's in our heart and our minds, that is a distorted world view, and small wonder if we are self-centred parodies of the person we could be.)
And... if you've got a heart defect and need a triple bypass, or a brain clot and need that removed, or a perforated appendix and you need that removed and the gunk sucked out (trying to keep this less technical), the last thing one'd be saying is, "Oh, no, doctor, please give me a tummy tuck instead/please botox my forehead instead/please make the bits between my legs look like a jelly doughnut encrusted with diamante/please make my eyes look a meercat's and my nose look like a razor blade and my lips like a sea serpent... let's just forget about the cardiac and the clot and the cancer and the scarred tissue on the lungs and make me look like Distorted Wonderwoman."
Social media enhances the social sphere and the potential audience. People drawn to the social media accounts of self-centred "look at me"s are drawn to those accounts precisely because that's the sort of thing for which they're looking... so the audience will be more likely to reflect a self-validating view of those extreme and harmful images.
I'd better stop there before I turn this into an essay on the Mirror of Narcissus in an Online Amphitheatre of Distortion.
(And now I've given myself the idea. I'll end up writing it...)
