TW: Body image, eating disorders mention, drug use mention
Every so often I come across a post on social media reminiscing about a past that never was: back in the 90s/early 2000s when “naturalness was celebrated” but now “every girl looks the same,” most likely referring to the current prevalence of extreme cosmetic surgery, high coverage, transformative makeup, and photoshop/Facetune of every feature on the body. Sigh. Not to be rude, but these people must be too young to remember reality, simply clueless, or suffering from amnesia. Of course you’re going to have nostalgia for what has already passed because you’re sick of being bombarded with an oversaturation of whatever’s currently trending – you’re desperate for something different to break up the monotony. But the truth is: no era has ever been been accepting of naturalness, but rather, each and every era tells us what we should specifically aspire for in that moment and how to obtain it. Of course some just already have It™ and don’t really have to do much to meet the standard, but as for those who don’t? You either have to a) kill yourself (figuratively and sometimes literally) to try your best to fit in with whatever’s en vogue, or b) wait it out until you’re back in trend…if you’ll ever be the trend.
Speaking on the 90s/early 2000s beauty trends specifically, it boggles my mind that a lot of people consider this to be the beacon era of natural beauty when I think of all the crazy shit that happened in retrospect. We still wore tons of makeup, it was just a different style. We still got cosmetic procedures done – a lot of them as a matter of fact (anyone remember the now fallen AwfulPlasticSurgery.com?), the procedures we wanted were just different. Dangerous diet fads were similarly pervasive, especially considering the fact that being rail thin from head to toe was all the rage. This also spurred our cultural hyperfixation on women with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, which usually just sensationalized them as jokes or subjects of horror as opposed to recognizing EDs as a legitimate concern that need legitimate help. And just as insidious, the “heroin chic” look glamorized and encouraged drug use in a way; it didn’t just stop at looking like you shoot up heroin, sometimes you actually shot up heroin to get and maintain that bony, angular figure.
It’s only a matter of time before mass media emerges out of the “IG Baddie” craze and rebounds back to crowning extremely thin bodies as superior. Now before The Skinnies start cheering, consider this: what if we could all just be left alone and not ever have to worry about when our bodies will go in and out of style? What makes me nervous is the possibility that counter-movements like body positivity (embracing and loving bodies as they are regardless of what they look like and not feeling pressured to change them) and body neutrality (not giving a fuck about what a body looks like and just simply existing) will also be trends within themselves, coming and going in waves as opposed to being mainstays. Hopefully we can work to grant these ideologies fixed positions within our culture that will eventually eclipse the trending of bodies, but only time will tell.
Unruly Bodies 
With high influencers and celebrities such as the Kardashians encouraging cosmetic surgery, it is only likely for people to think it is normal to have your boob lifted or a full botox face. It is sad but true.
Hi! I love this post — thank you so much for discussing this issue, as I personally think it’s very important. It’s so hard living in a society that obsesses over appearances. As a young woman, I’ve had my own run-ins with trying to meet beauty “standards”. For example, all throughout my life, up until this year, I was rather thin. I used to hate it because people would tell me I needed to eat, I wasn’t a “real woman” and other unnecessary remarks. I remember trying so hard to sometimes just overfeed myself or to do squats to try and get “thicker”, but I never could. Then, I randomly gained 20 pounds, and everybody noticed. It was so weird for me, though, because I was finally “there”. People constantly told me that I looked amazing and that it’s great I finally put on some weight, but the next issue they had was that I needed to learn how to “wear it”… like huh?? What they meant was that I was too conservative with my body and that I needed to be “sexier” and more revealing. One day, I got so irritated with people telling me what more I needed to do and I went off. I explained that I don’t care for instagram likes, I don’t care for the attention of various “men”, and etc. I was so irritated and mad at the world for placing so many obstacles for women. I’m like why can’t I just be me and be happy. Well, today, I am. It was a long and hard road, but my thing is, I’m going to live to my own standards — and sorry not sorry, but whoever can’t accept my happiness/looks, was never meant for me anyways.
Scrolling through social medias, some of my favorite posts are seeing what was expected of women’s body types over the years. I love that you shared your thoughts on this. I agree completely, we should all be left alone. I think women have it hard because they always want to change SOMETHING: legs, butt, boobs, hair, etc. I think that society also puts pressures on everyone. Non-gendered folks pick to dress masculine or feminine because there is no other option and they are held to those standards. Men are held to standards, too, like dad-bods or super muscular. It’d be great if everyone could leave it behind them and move on. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and Cassey Ho’s post!
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Yes! I’m really interested in historical fashion, and of course all throughout history bodies have been used almost as accessories. One thing I see a lot in the overlap of the historical fashion and body positivity circles is this sort of “in what era was your body type the Ideal” thing, or “body positive” posts about how “in [x] era it was actually fashionable to be fat” and I’m always like??? That is not the activism you think it is <3. Like simply the idea that body shapes (specifically, almost always the body shapes currently associated with wealth) can even be fashionable is evil, and trying to make someone feel better by telling them that their body type used to be the desired one is so strange for a few reasons. One, the attempt to create nostalgia for a past era is kinda sketch, for reasons of not acknowledging the horrible events during it (but then again, that critique should be made of the historical fashion community as a whole). But more importantly, we should be teaching people to love their body for what it can do, and feel, and for letting us experience the world through it, and not by how well we fit an Ideal, past or present.