the origins of "Instagram Face," explained by one reddit comment
So you know how most influencers look the same? Like a kind of ethnically ambiguous hodgepodge of big lips, coke bottle body, upturned eyes, etc? That’s been coined as “Instagram Face.” There’s been a lot of talk about it, deconstructing its myth, etc. But this one comment I came across is the most concise history I’ve read and wanted to share it.
Women have faced unrealistic body image since the dawn of time.
~1950s: Basic photo editing begins. The golden age of Hollywood popularizes it.
Mid-1980s: plastic surgery takes off. The idea is to get it and tell no one.
1990s: Nosejobs in Hollywood are the norm for almost everyone.
2000s: Photoshop becomes stronger and more insidious, leading to an anti-Photoshop movement (i.e., the Dove commercial). The combination of Photoshop and plastic surgery causes a huge self-esteem hit with Millennials, and probably sets the stage for what's to come.
Early-2000s: Class-based feminine aesthetics begin to risen once again (Paris Hilton-era). By the late 2000s, women begin wearing aesthetics that purposely signal they do not work in any capacity, largely through branding. While this has always existed, it becomes more extreme than previous decades since television is 24/7.
Mid-2000s: Social media comes into existence. However, they're all conversation-based platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) - meaning you need to teach your audience a skill of yours in order to be successful (tutorials, news platforms, comedy). But now bloggers are visible, and need to look good.
Mid-2000s: As heroin chic and the Paris Hilton era fades away, beauty ideals of "exoticism" and "fitness" begin to take over. The Kardashians (originally) fit this typecast.
Late-2000s: Beauty Youtubers rise in popularity. Complicated makeup routines become common amongst teens. Kim K pushes the Drag Queen trend.
(somewhere around here, Iphones come out with an high quality camera. now you can take as many photos as you want, and delete the bad ones).
Early 2010s: beauty trends start to homogenize due to globalization. Suddenly the "ideal beauty" for everyone is a Black butt, with a slender Asian bod, with a White nose, Black lips, European blue eyes, a Middle Eastern tanned skin, Latina curves/hair, etc. Unrealistic beauty ideals are now even farther away. The Ks ride this trend hard, pulling from Black cultural trends and turning them into symbols of extreme wealth.
Early 2010s: BBLs start to become popular with women already known for having a booty (Kim K, Shakira, JLo). Fillers take off in the celeb world. This is carefully hidden from the press.
Earlyish-2010s: Instagram takes off. Everything is image based. Skills and personality are linked to sites off IG, with IG photos being the hook, but eventually this stops. Conversation is no longer needed.
Earlyish 2010s: Slight Anti-Makeup/Extensions movement begins. It reinforces that all of these unrealistic trends must somehow be "natural". ETA: I'd argue the skincare movement rises from this, partially in an attempt to hide fillers and surgeries under the guide of really good skin. So now they've cornered the market with both.
Mid-2010s: Snapchat and IG introduce personalized photo editing. Now anyone can easily edit their own photos, no Photoshop skill needed. It explodes. Everyone, obviously, edit to have the "global" beauty trends, and this is taken to the extreme. Everyone can now be a stay-at-home model, getting all the attention with not much effort.
Mid-2010s: Lip fillers become an affordable, temporary option to change your face. You don't need to spend 10K on a surgeon to fix your nose when your entire face can be changed for less than $1k by a random spa down the road. People go wild with this, achieving Facetuned beauty ideals. It's considered "natural" because it's not surgery.
Late-2010s: Now Big Advertising Companies have figured out IG. Everything quickly becomes an echo chamber, creating larger and more extreme trends in order to be "noticed". Overtime, no consideration of anatomy or body shape is given for fillers. It's all about what's trendy, even if it doesn't match your face. As natural ideals disappear, fillers become normalized. Without conversation allowed in IG comments, the echo-chamber deepens; women are looking at photos of other IG women who have also had unrealistic surgeries, and equating unrealistic looks with wealth and thus beauty.
2010s: Class-based aesthetics become extreme as "skill-based" social media disappears. Women's worth now heavily relies on how they look. Beauty trends revolve around signalling they do not work, and they exist to look good and nothing else. This is a complete reversal from 2nd wave feminism (which lasted from 1960s-2000s): personality and skill (beyond looking good and posing) are irrelevant in IG Influencer-land, and traditional women's roles reign. In an attempt to overlook the vapidity and inherently un-feminist nature of these trends, IG models say that changing your looks and being an Influencer is a personal choice, it's Girl Boss and empowerment, it's for other women, and thus feminist. This makes it difficult to critique the IG movement, because it's carefully wrapped up in "but I'm a feminist" actions, despite being largely patriarchal and negative as a whole. Critiquing them is labelled anti-feminist or anti-woman, and there is a refusal to acknowledge that fitness trends, surgeries and fillers are wrapped up in negative beauty pressures, objectification, and traditional, harmful gender roles. This is why the cycle is worsening and hard to break: they've gaslighted and removed other women's voices who fight against these unhealthy ideals.