If an alien from another planet took a scroll through Instagram, they might assume that nearly all humans have the same facial features and body type. Tiny noses, slim waists, large lips and hollow cheeks seem to be on trend at the moment. But we all know that there are billions of us on this planet, representing billions of different ways to be beautiful.Reddit users have recently beencalling outcurrent beauty standards that they can’t seem to wrap their minds around, so we’ve gathered some of their thoughts below. Enjoy scrolling through this list that will remind you just how arbitrary these standards are, and keep reading to find an interview with Valerie Monroe ofHow Not to F*ck Up Your Face!This post may includeaffiliate links.
If an alien from another planet took a scroll through Instagram, they might assume that nearly all humans have the same facial features and body type. Tiny noses, slim waists, large lips and hollow cheeks seem to be on trend at the moment. But we all know that there are billions of us on this planet, representing billions of different ways to be beautiful.
Reddit users have recently beencalling outcurrent beauty standards that they can’t seem to wrap their minds around, so we’ve gathered some of their thoughts below. Enjoy scrolling through this list that will remind you just how arbitrary these standards are, and keep reading to find an interview with Valerie Monroe ofHow Not to F*ck Up Your Face!
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Those long fake nails.I dont know a single dude that thinks its attractive.I understand painting your nails, or leaving them to be a little longer, but those talons that people walk around with just make me feel yucky.
Giant eyelashes that will make you take flight if you flutter them fast enough.Striving_Hermit:My husband hates the long fake eyelash look, and he asked me why women wear them when men don’t particularly like them.I thought it would be funny, so I told him it’s not about impressing men but about asserting one’s dominance on another woman.He believed me and now tells all his friends that it’s an ‘alpha-female’ thing, hahaha.
What people do to their lips is wild to me.
To gain more insight on this topic, we reached out toValerie Monroe. Valerie was formerly a beauty director at O, The Oprah Magazine, for nearly 16 years, and has since created the newsletterHow Not to F*ck Up Your Face, which provides “philosophical and practical advice for anyone who’s ever looked into a mirror.” She was also kind enough to have a chat withBored Pandaabout beauty standards and where they came from in the first place.
Butt implants. Just looks nasty as hell.
Excessive makeup. When people put so much c**p on they look like they are wearing a mask, not a face.
Stupid eyebrows that look like perfectly angled stencils is a shade way too dark for their complexion. Like blond girls with 2 black geometric boomerangs on her forehead.RelevantLie-2297:Thick eyebrows, like caterpillars crawling across your forehead.
We were also curious about how beauty standards change over time. “There are variations in the Eurocentric beauty standards mentioned above, but they’re minor,” Valerie noted. “For example, Coco Chanel introduced the acceptability of tanning the skin, as opposed to maintaining a pale complexion, which had been a sign of wealth and privilege.““After she accidentally became tanned on the Riviera, tanning became a sign of wealth and privilege,” she went on to explain. “Around the same time, women began cutting off their long hair into boyish bobs, which became standard for a certain class. But I believe the impossible Eurocentric ideal has persisted in spite of recent efforts to include more cultural variation.”
We were also curious about how beauty standards change over time. “There are variations in the Eurocentric beauty standards mentioned above, but they’re minor,” Valerie noted. “For example, Coco Chanel introduced the acceptability of tanning the skin, as opposed to maintaining a pale complexion, which had been a sign of wealth and privilege.”
“After she accidentally became tanned on the Riviera, tanning became a sign of wealth and privilege,” she went on to explain. “Around the same time, women began cutting off their long hair into boyish bobs, which became standard for a certain class. But I believe the impossible Eurocentric ideal has persisted in spite of recent efforts to include more cultural variation.”
Any plastic surgery that makes random women look like they’re all related. At one point we’ll all start to think thin lips and big noses are hot solely because they’ll stand out in a sea of copy/paste people.
Men that have soo much muscle. Obviously it’s very attractive to be in shape but I’m just not attracted to men that have arms the size of two watermelons with the fattest veins ever popping out of their arm. And I also feel like men with a lot of muscle tend to look shorter.I think men that still have like some abs and some muscle but aren’t looking like the Incredible Hulk are the most attractive.
As far as the best way to fight these arbitrary beauty standards, Valerie says “not complying with or falling for the beauty marketing that preys on our yearning and our desire to compete for an ideal that’s unattainable for most of us anyway—in other words, ignoring the constant messaging we get that we’re not pretty enough, thin enough, young enough, etc.” can help. “The best way to combat limiting beauty standards is to ignore them,” she added.
My wife works at a tanning salon. She has a few customers that literally get a tan every day. One of them has already gone through cancer treatment, that didn’t stop her from continuing. I’m convinced a few of them are dealing with mental health issues.
I’m from Stockholm. A lot of girls, particularly from rich areas, like to use so much fake tan that they are orange, and bleach their hair from what was usually dark blonde to platinum blonde. Then they style it to make it voluminous (which is easy to do because their hair is dead from all the dyeing) and apply lots of make-up, which typically includes black mascara or fake lashes. So, a lot of girls here bear a striking resemblance to Miss Piggy. There’s nothing wrong with looking like this, I just don’t understand it.
Overlined lips. Stop. We can see where you’re lip really is. It just looks really unfortunate.
Valerie also urges readers to resist becoming consumed with trying to meet these unattainable standards. “Beauty standards are especially pernicious because they’re inextricably tied to the images we see on social media, WHICH AREN’T REAL,” she told Bored Panda.“That means that meeting today’s standards of beauty is impossible. It’s much more productive and healthier to learn how tosee yourself without objectification, which will allow you to see yourself the way you see other people, without constantly scanning your face for flaws,” Valerie says. “Then beauty standards will lose their meaning for you… And life will take on more.“If you’d like to hear more wise words from Valerie on this topic, as well as many others, be sure to check out her newsletterHow Not to F*ck Up Your Face!
Valerie also urges readers to resist becoming consumed with trying to meet these unattainable standards. “Beauty standards are especially pernicious because they’re inextricably tied to the images we see on social media, WHICH AREN’T REAL,” she told Bored Panda.
“That means that meeting today’s standards of beauty is impossible. It’s much more productive and healthier to learn how tosee yourself without objectification, which will allow you to see yourself the way you see other people, without constantly scanning your face for flaws,” Valerie says. “Then beauty standards will lose their meaning for you… And life will take on more.”
If you’d like to hear more wise words from Valerie on this topic, as well as many others, be sure to check out her newsletterHow Not to F*ck Up Your Face!
Dentist: So what shade of veneer would you like?Veneer patient: I’d like refrigerator white please.
Those grossly buff guys on all dating shows. They all look like Gaston from beauty and the beast and I hate it so much I don’t even watch those shows but the lack of variety is appalling.
Fake breasts. Especially the super large ones.
Contouring noses until they look like a line and a dot. Will never make sense to me.
The overly sculpted beard trend. You known when the beard is trimmed and looks like it was outlined in concealer? Neatening up is nice but a sudden pale line as a border around your stubble… looks like it was airbrushed on and not touched up.
Ski slope/button nose. they are cute but not everyone’s face is meant to have that type of nose and it doesn’t look good on everyone and it sucks seeing so many young girls on tiktok get nose jobs and all have the exact same nose.
Idk if I’d call this a standard but the hair style of “shaved all around with like six inches in a small patch on top” has never looked good to me on men or women. It’s not a hair style I really understand.
Moustaches on men are popular now, I think they’re ugly especially on young men.
People in India will choose an unattractive fair skinned girl over a darker skinned girl who’s objective beautiful. This is why they get better treatment in Hollywood than Bollywood. Fair skin is a MASSIVELY inflated beauty standard and people ruin their perfectly good skin over it.There are some things that are objectively beautiful based on studies: Teeth, Specific Facial Features, Leanness, etc. There isn’t much evidence to support that fairer skin is more beautiful.
Clearly photoshopped pictures and weird posing angles.
Buccal fat removal.loxagos_snake:Ugh, this one makes me physically cringe.Like, you are literally removing a baseline later of fat that is supposed to be there, and AFAIK it’s f**king permanent.I understand being overweight and wanting to get rid of excess fat, but a little roundness around the cheeks is generally considered attractive and makes you look youthful.
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People who wear clothes that are too small. Just wear clothes that fit. You’ll look a lot better.
Liked in my case, but foot binding in china. Insane amounts of lifelong pain inflicted on children from a young age, just to have the hope of marrying into a better family.
Laminated, combed-up, thick a*s eyebrows. Why.KrustyKohn:Yes! This is the one I was going to say. It is such a strange beauty trend to me that I’ve noticed in the past couple years. Granted, I do come from a time where eyebrows were plucked into a high arch. I think people should just leave their eyebrows be for the most part. I can understand plucking, waxing, or trimming very bushy eyebrows or a uni-brow, but combing the hairs straight up and plastering them to your forehead just doesn’t look good.
Overly perfect veneers.HeathenHumanist:One of my Facebook friends already has good teeth but then she went and got veneers. Now her teeth are just…too big and too BRIGHT.
The entire face filled drastically to eliminate all wrinkles, making a person’s face look like it belongs to a body that weighs 50 pounds more.
Circumcision…….a gross and unethical thing that needs so stopAnd this should count because in the U.S. most are done purely for cosmetic and not religious reasons….. not that either excuse should be considered reasonable
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Some of you confuse beauty trends for beauty standards. I find the requirement of being lean, as in, low body fat, to be stupid. Body fat is so demonized at this point, some lower back fat is now considered gross. Having some fat on your body means you actually consume enough food, so your organs can function properly. The obsession with <10% body fat is unhealthy. And whoever once got that lean knows how your bodily functions just drop after you do. Nothing is attractive about low energy, hormonal disregulation and sexual apathy.
Grinding canine teeth flat. A dentist once took me aside and told me that he could grind mine down, flat, make it a really good smile.I said “no, thanks” but was thinking “why in the f**k would I do that‽”
High heels. They f**k your feet/ankles up.
I’m not sure of the name for it, but the style of makeup that was really popular in the late 2010s and still kinda is. The one with the cakey foundation, overdrawn nude lips, eyebrows way too thick and dark, clearly trying to emulate the Kardashians. I’m sorry but I have never seen that look good on anyone.I also really hate the 70s/80s haircuts that Gen Z is into, especially those mullets and “wolf cuts.” Going to a hair salon nowadays is a nightmare because stylists can’t fathom that not everyone wants layers or bangs or tons of volume.
Every nose looking exactly the same.
That thing where girls glue strands of hair to their foreheads.
I am not a fan of very defined abs. I get that it’s REALLY impressive and a lot of hard work and I certainly admire that, but aesthetically I personally find them lumpy and off-putting.
I’ve never understood the appeal of nose piercings. This is just my personal thing but it just looks distracting and painful (obviously in my head I know it’d not actually painful, but subconsciously I see this metal thing going through someones nose and it makes me wince.)But hey, some people are into it so more power to them. 🤷♂️
I hate the long beard, lumberjack look.
I do not understand why people think tattoos are attractive.
Thigh gaps..like why is that specifically a thing.
I find blonde to be the least attractive or most boring hair color. Yellow blonde being the worst.
Tattooed oops, micro bladed eyebrows.
Bright concealer under the eyes. Makes people look insane.
Men who shave or wax everywhere, especially the chest, arms or legs. Like to me there is nothing more attractive than a hairy chest.Hairless body, veneers, sleeve tattoos, orange tan and Gucci bumbag is the uniform of a f**k boy.
Being totally hairless.
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