I think it was watching makeup videos
maybe five or six years ago
when I started to feel like my eyebrows were insufficient.
So I went out and I bought an eyebrow pencil,
and then this happened.
All agreeing to scan millions of pages from books...
Oh, my God.
...related to biodiversity.
I guess I did it wrong.
So I watch these beauty vlogs, and almost without fail,
all of these beautiful women with gorgeous,
flawless skin would mention the same thing.
And finally I just cracked.
I was like, what is a retinoid and where can I buy one?
So I have very minimal beauty routine, I think.
I mean, okay, I do go get my eyelashes done
and I get the Botox and I get waxed.
You're right, there are maintenance--
there are maintenance things.
How many times have I gone into work
and people are like, "Emma, you look really tired today."
I'm just like, well, I guess I didn't put on enough concealer,
and that's frustrating.
I feel like the only reason I care about the way I look
is 'cause I want to impress.
Honestly-- like, being honest about it,
it's 'cause I want to impress on social media.
Cleo:
that more and more women are saying that they feel beautiful.
But at the same time, the vast majority of women
say they feel pressure to be beautiful.
So what effect is this online beauty culture having on us?
If we have more choices and more information than ever before,
why do I feel so trapped?
( music playing )
Baby Katie Holmes.
Joss: November 1997.
So here's how makeup was marketed in the '90s.
"So breakthrough. So new. So sheer."
So, it's, like, you had to read copy,
- but no one read that. - Yeah.
Today, if there's a YouTube video and someone's like,
"I've used this product, I know it works, here's how you do it."
- Way more compelling. - Way more compelling.
The data shows that people interact with,
meaning like and comment on influencers' videos and posts
32 times more often than they do on brands.
I talked to Tiffany Gill about this.
She's a professor and an author
- who writes about the history of beauty culture. - Huh.
I think the digital aspect is what really has changed.
What it has done is really democratized
what beauty and beauty culture is,
so that the people who are consumers
now have a lot more control
over what constitutes beauty and beauty culture.
I mean, first of all, anybody can make content.
And when they do, they end up talking about
- a lot more than just makeup. - Hmm.
- Hey, guys. - Hi.
- Hi, guys. - Assalamu alaikum.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to my channel.
The shade match is pretty good.
I clearly have imperfect skin,
but it doesn't mean that I don't love my face.
I did not have a good high school experience at all.
Most of it kind of stemmed around my skin tone.
Actually, all of it stemmed around my skin tone.
I wanna talk to you guys about my body,
about the fact that I'm fat.
If you need someone to talk to,
I'm always here. You can always DM me.
I love you guys a lot.
I'll see you soon. Bye.
Aww.
I wanna be friends with all of them.
- Right? - They're so great.
The reason why I think we're beginning
to see more women
sort of defining themselves as beautiful,
is because they're able to find
these kind of micro communities
that affirm their brand of beauty.
And as much as selfies get a bad rap,
there's something very libratory
about being able to show yourself to the world
and say, "Look, I'm beautiful."
Cleo:
somebody was making a specific decision
about who gets to be there.
Not just the editors
and the gatekeepers at these institutions,
but, like, the agents of the models.
Whereas now, it's not as though somebody's making a decision
about who gets to make a video.
You know, I think Instagram's actually been really, really important
for the ability to kind of follow people who look like you.
Because the reality is that not everyone is, like,
a skinny blonde with big boobs.
Woman:
that are in my age bracket.
And that makes me feel good
because before, we were invisible.
In my friend group, I was always the fat one.
Every other thought was like, "How am I gonna lose weight?"
It came to the point
where I wasn't even enjoying food.
For me it was seeing all these stunning curved models.
That made me realize, oh, I'm beautiful, too.
We're going to IPSY which is this beauty convention
where people can interact with their favorite beauty vloggers
- and makeup brands. - Let's do it.
( music playing )
Joss:
it's a really sort of exciting environment.
And we get to talk to Gigi Gorgeous,
who is one of the biggest YouTube beauty gurus out there.
- Hi. Nice to meet you. Gigi. - I'm Joss.
If the internet hadn't come around,
what do you think beauty culture would be like?
It really was very rare
to see a boy in makeup or, you know,
a brand stepping behind a transgender woman.
I feel like the times kind of pushed that along,
but I also feel like the internet did.
Because along with these beautiful, stunning looks
that are being created are also these stories
that are being told by the people doing them.
I have felt for a very long time now
that I was a girl trapped inside of a boy's body.
I'm really excited just today to talk about my mom.
Ah! This literally smells like her.
I think that that instantly kind of connects you in a way
where it's no longer fan and talent.
It's literally family and, like, friend.
Cleo:
a group of friends all getting ready together
and swapping tips.
Consumers are more informed than they've ever been.
They can take these tools and change the way
they present themselves to the world.
But if you look at it another way,
then it's this constant cycle
that ultimately is costing women
big chunks of their paycheck,
but also something that's more valuable,
which is the space in their mind.
Cleo: If you're like me,
you're spending hours on your phone every day.
Last week I spent six and a half hours on Instagram.
Which means we're constantly faced
with images of other people
to compare ourselves to.
And a lot of the time, with the advent of filters,
those images are full of subtle, little changes,
like this skin smoother I've been using.
And if everyone around you
is making subtle tweaks to their face,
it can warp your understanding of yourself
and how you fit in.
If you're thinking, sure,
but we've always compared ourselves to pretty people.
That's true, but there's evidence to suggest
it's even more concerning online.
One study found it made women feel worse
when they compared themselves
to beautiful peers on social media
as opposed to beautiful celebrities in traditional media
like magazines and in movies.
Researchers think that's because our peers on social media
feel like more relevant comparisons.
They feel more like us.
And then there's all the likes and comments.
Another study found that seeing someone leave a compliment
like, "You look amazing!"
on a pretty woman's photo on Instagram,
made the viewer less happy with their own body.
I leave comments like that on my friends' posts all the time,
and I really didn't realize it was having this effect.
It makes sense that the more we compare ourselves to good-looking people,
the more dissatisfied we are, and the more beauty work
it feels like we have to do to keep up.
And I should also say,
I'm wearing makeup on a professionally lit set.
So, I have no high horse here.
This says, "Youth activating concentrate."
Because there's a 23-year-old inside me.
You just have to activate it with something like this.
I do use this often.
'Cause it feels really good. It's super cold.
Cleo: What is its objective?
I'm sure it does nothing.
Emma:
My facial oils are an investment,
and it's just never-ending in the name of self-care.
I see these lines, and they're just gonna get worse and worse and worse.
And I should actuall y love them and accept them
because they're lines that are actually the result of my life.
But they really, really bother me,
and now it's the first thing that I see.
I see my boyfriend just roll out of bed
and take a shower and go to work.
And when I watch him do that
I wonder, you know, not why can't I do that,
but why does it feel so bad when I do?
- Hello. - Hey.
So we're gonna talk about the bigger context here.
- Okay. - Recently, a group of computer scientists
figured out a way to analyze the language
that writers use when they describe men and women
in three and a half million books in English.
We're talking about both nonfiction and fiction books.
So what they did is they pulled out the 200 adjectives
that were most uniquely used to describe men and women.
And what they found was that of those words,
the ones used to describe women were twice as likely
- to be about their physical appearance or their bodies. - Mm.
Christophe: Pretty, fair, beautiful,
lovely, charming--
those are all kind of words describing appearance.
Whereas like faithful, responsible, grand, worthy, adventurous,
these are all, like, character judgments
- of who someone actually is. - Mm-hmm.
And these are books that were published between the years
1500 and 2008.
So what about today?
Well, in 2017, the Pew Research Center
did a survey of American adults,
and they asked this really interesting question, which was,
"What traits do people in our society
value most in men and in women?"
- Okay. - Now, this was an open-ended question,
meaning people could write anything.
But you guys are gonna do
the multiple choice version.
What do you guys think the top six responses were?
Strength and toughness I feel like is not gonna be
on the female list for what people value.
- Yeah, that's gotta be off the list. - And ambition.
People hate those things in women.
Wow, it's just so hard to listen to this.
Just think of really ( bleep ) up--
You both have six down. You good with them?
All right, should Joss and I rearrange?
So the top answers for women were
physical attractiveness, and then empathy,
nurturing, and kindness.
The top answers for men were
honesty, and morality, actually,
and then second was professional and financial success.
So those are adults.
But maybe it's getting better with the next generation.
Well, last year they did a survey of American teenagers
and they asked them the same question,
except for instead of men and women,
it was what does society value most in girls
and what does society value most in boys?
Okay, so, physical attractiveness was at the top
of the list for girls. In fact,
there was even more consensus among teenagers
than there was among adults that this is what society values
- in girls. - I feel like I have noticed
that our commenters pay a lot of attention
to how you two look and not so much with us.
- Yeah, we've noticed that, too. - Cleo: Yeah.
But I would say that, like, mostly they're positive about you guys.
In so far as positive comments about our appearance are positive.
A lot of that is just so gross.
It's gross, and also we are trying to look pretty on camera.
- Right. - So where does that leave us?
Like, we are trying, and we have makeup on.
And I think that if someone comments on this video and says, you know,
"Hey, you guys are talking about these beauty norms
and you're benefiting directly from them,"
I think that's a reasonable critique.
And actually this is a really widespread issue.
There's a lot of research that shows
that they way a woman looks, you know, her weight,
how much makeup she wears,
can affect things like her earnings,
and how her personality is perceived.
Alex: It's kind of like...
every aspect of your life
you're getting stared at and judged.
And I think this all comes from this cultural context
that I've been telling you guys about
that dates back centuries,
which is a world that cares a lot
about the insides of men and the outsides of women.
And this is all causing what psychologist Renee Engeln
calls beauty sickness.
It comes from a culture that is absolutely obsessed
with how women look.
Man:
It must have balance and composition.
Renee:
to comment on a woman's appearance, to criticize it.
- She looks quite, uh-- - She looks tired.
She's under pressure. She looks tired.
Man:
the face of our next president?"
- That purple on you looks spectacular. - Thanks.
Renee:
over and over again to how we look.
- I have a beautiful daughter. - Two beautiful daughters.
All: My beautiful daughters.
Jenny, you've lost your baby weight it looks like already.
The world has watched you age. Has that been a difficult thing to live through?
- You are that sort of poster child for aging gracefully. - All: Aging gracefully.
Renee:
it did shift away from something else.
To me, that's where the sickness is.
And this guy who went to the school down the street
got on the bus and he was like,
"Oh, your legs are so hairy."
And I was like, "Oh, I guess they are."
And I went home that day and went and got a razor.
I splashed it underneath the running tap
and I dragged it along my leg.
I looked at it, and I cleaned it off
with my thumb and I split my thumb open.
I was super freaked out about getting divorced.
And one of my daughters, who was eight at the time,
said to me one day,
"Why do you always look so angry?
You have so many lines on your face."
And I was really angry.
She was not wrong. And I had to deal with that.
But I almost immediately was like,
"Oh, my God, my face is falling apart."
Everybody has a list.
My ears stick out.
I have this vein in my forehead that only comes out
when I smile really big.
So sometimes I worry about that
before I smile in a photograph.
My bangs are awkward, but I can't get rid of them
because they're hiding my forehead.
I have these three chin hairs that are very adventurous.
And even though I'm really thin, I have cellulite.
Every time I feel insecure about something,
I guess I do something to make up for it.
Like, my eyebrows, I feel insecure, I dyed it.
For my ears, I feel insecure, I got piercings.
My eyelashes, I got extensions.
That's the truth.
So, it seems like we're being presented this endless list
of things that we can do now to beautify ourselves.
- Expensive things. - Expensive things.
- Woman:
The fastest growing type of cosmetic surgery-- butt implants.
- Sparkle tattooing. - The price ranges from $600 to $800.
Microblading. It's a form of permanent cosmetic tattooing
- for your eyebrows. - The vampire facial uses your own blood on your face.
And we're gonna show you one of them.
- This one. - Oh--
- Face gym. - It's a gym for your face.
- For your face. - It's a workout for your face.
It does kind of scare me because it reminds me of, like, body image,
like how they say there's a skinny person hiding beneath you.
So maybe underneath this face
there's a sculpted chiseled chin in there.
- Yeah. - Oh, my God.
- That's exactly it. - That is the idea.
- Are you guys ready? - I think so.
- Let's do it. - Okay.
See you in an hour.
Yeah.
It is Alex.
- A-L-E-X. Clark. - Uh-huh.
- What does this headline mean? - Work it. Don't fake it.
Just, like, a natural approach to, you know,
making your face look the best that it can be.
As opposed to makeup?
Makeup, Botox filler.
I mean, a lot of people that come here do get both.
So you wanna get started?
- Yeah. - Perfect.
Going to the gym.
So whatever you do, go really intense.
Oh, cardio. Ooh.
Do you get facials or anything done to your face often?
- No. I never have. - No?
( music playing )
Joss: This is one of those Botox places
that are popping up all over cities like New York.
And, actually, the use of Botox has increased over 800%
- since 2000. - Really?
And the use of fillers has increased over 300%.
It doesn't seem like we can build a society
that expects women to be young and beautiful above all else,
then flood society with products that promise just that,
and then judge them for buying them?
Like, no. ( bleep ) that.
Cleo: 92% of cosmetic procedures
are performed on women.
It's the inequality between what women are expected to do
and what men are expected to do that really makes me angry.
Oh, wow.
I'm so tense right now.
( grunts )
Oh, that's so weird down there.
Oh, that's too much. That is too much.
I just have no sense of perspective
on the kind of painful beauty treatments
that women do all the time.
Around 15, you realize that beauty is pain.
Ooh!
( music playing )
- Can I take this off? - Yeah.
- You guys done? - So?
We're done. How do we look?
Do I feel moist?
- Oh, so moist. - So moist?
I liked it a lot.
Joss: Now what is that supposed to do?
Make you beautiful?
As beauty standards become more open and welcoming,
it's great. It's an amazing thing.
But it also is still true
that beauty is still the point
at which we are judging people.
Like, it is still the metric of value.
Beauty culture is so much more interesting
and approachable and diverse than it's ever been before.
And that is wonderful.
But maybe it can make it seem
like we've made more progress than we have.
Tiffany:
but our definitions of beauty are connected
to other systems of power in our society and culture.
They're connected to ideas about class,
to ideas about what race is.
It really will take the dismantling of systems of power
for beauty to be truly democratized.
Renee:
But what I would love to see even more than that,
is just less concern with how beautiful women are period.
Emma:
less on, "Oh, I love the way your hair looks today,"
and more like, "Oh, I love what you said in that meeting."
And just focusing more on what we have to offer
aside from the way we look.
Renee:
But I'd much rather hear those statements
address other parts of who women are.
Parts that you don't have to see in a mirror.
What words would you most want people to use when they describe you?
Kind. I really, really hope
that I would be described as kind.
Resourceful, resilient.
- Determined. - Creative.
Curious and skeptical.
Charming.
Free. I want them to say she's free.
And I wanna hear those things now, y'all.
So maybe the goal isn't to change
how we talk about beauty.
Maybe it's to talk about beauty less.
( music playing )
Thanks for watching. If you're looking
for more episodes of "Glad You Asked,"
you can find them right there.
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you can find it right there.
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