
The Age of Instagram Face - elorant
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of-instagram-face
======
dangus
These kind of articles do get tiring.

There’s nothing new about Instagram or even photo retouching.

And more importantly, the idea that people want to modify their appearance to
look more attractive is incredibly old. Just check out your local natural
history or art museum, all the ancient art is mostly jewelry (although I’m
sure that’s affected by survivorship bias).

I guess the article might be a nice explanatory thing to enlighten someone who
has their head in the sand and has never seen social media.

~~~
whatshisface
What's new is that everybody is doing it now, instead of only vain
aristocrats.

~~~
MarcScott
Yep, suddenly it's a problem now that poorer people can participate, whereas
the rich and powerful have been doing this for centuries if not millennia.

~~~
whatshisface
Was it good when they did it, though?

------
masona
Whenever I see these kinds of stories about ridiculous mass trends, I think
‘This is the kind of stuff my kids will rebel against.’ That gives me comfort.

~~~
v77
Hacker News spends half its time making fun of moral panics and half its time
participating in them. Who cares if people want to have plastic surgery or
injectable treatments?

~~~
BlargMcLarg
I care because I don't want everything to turn into a race to the bottom with
the little gremlin on the side laughing as he continues to sell tools for a
premium, yet some groups seem to be hell-bent on getting people in this rat
race and ostracizing the people who won't conform.

~~~
big_chungus
Would you please clarify your meaning? I seem to be missing a lot of context.
Race to the bottom of what? Selling tools to do what? People who won't conform
to what?

~~~
BlargMcLarg
Easiest way to clarify is through an example. Disclaimer: it might be a poor
one.

That same thing is already happen with plastic surgery in South Korea. You can
opt not to do it, but especially as a girl, you're giving yourself a
disadvantage. Watch a few generations go by and poof, suddenly its the new
standard. Now what became a disadvantage might as well be what takes you out
of the race unless you take the plastic surgery route anyway. Meanwhile, the
only people who benefit from this are the ones at the top of the race, and the
companies performing the surgeries. It might go so far that the people who
don't have plastic surgery become ostracized for looking weird.

A similar thing happens in many forms of sports. Somewhere along the line, it
became much easier to create and use steroids, and steroids have already shown
to have an insane effect without any training necessary. Steroids are an odd
example as they are proven to potentially be harmful, but realistically, how
are you going to compete against someone using steroids and training the same
amount, without taking steroids? Doping in cycling might be the best example:
many of these substances can make cyclists endure for much longer, so either
everyone needs to take them for it to balance out the playing field, or no one
does. You can't say "its up to you", as there's no way you'll be able to
compete against someone with a similar amount of training, but juiced up. A
ace to the bottom here would be to allow doping, and subsequently, and new
drug that would eventually come up.

And some people, like myself, would rather not have such somewhat intrusive
operations become the new norm.

~~~
big_chungus
> And some people, like myself, would rather not have such somewhat intrusive
> operations become the new norm.

100% agree. People can do what they want to their own bodies, but I think it's
a foolish idea. I can't offer you an easy solution, as there really isn't one.
Sports are "gated areas" with committees overseeing entrance conditions.
People agree to these rules to play. Not so for surgery; the only option would
be to ban it which would be unconstitutional, impractical, and a staggering
government overreach. However, you might be interested in reading more about
positional arms races (the economic term for what you're describing). College
is a good example: enough people try to set themselves apart by getting a
degree that the degree becomes the expectation, becoming an additional cost
that no longer provides any benefit.
[https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/wilwilehe/54.htm](https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/wilwilehe/54.htm)

------
stephenitis
yet not one photo in this article.

~~~
fahadkhan
I really liked that about this article. Social Media sites are full images of
that illustrate the point.

~~~
mstade
Aside from HN I have no social media accounts, so a picture or two to
illustrate what an "Instagram Face" is wouldn't hurt. I also don't care enough
to actually look it up, so I suppose there's that too.

------
Ididntdothis
It will be interesting how this works out long term. People may get bored of
the constant competition or it may end up like the people from the 60s who
switched from “love and peace” to “greed is good” a few years later. Maybe in
20 years plastic surgery is totally normal and required.

I’m definitely noticing that I am getting old and stubborn. I probably should
dye my hair like a lot of people my age but I don’t want to although it really
makes people look much younger.

~~~
tartoran
It’s already happening right now to some extent. But I highly doubt this trend
will include the more educated and the less narcisistic, and on top of it,
trends come and go in cycles and generations learn something from them. The
not so good part is that the collective memory is relatively short, otherwise
we’d learn more from history.

------
chillacy
A YouTube series I’ve been enjoying recently talks about the amount of
FaceTune and photoshop which goes into influencer photos:
[https://youtu.be/eJvQ0Ml1v6I](https://youtu.be/eJvQ0Ml1v6I)

He has a similar series on facial attractiveness which is interesting as well.

------
drummer
This is just another area of life where everything becomes fake. Similarly we
have fake overprocessed food, fake news, fake history, fake personalitie, fake
medicine etc.

------
paganel
I first thought about his back in 2012-2013, when two of my female colleagues
at the time decided to tattoo their eyebrows. I realised at that point that
tattooed eyebrows create a bigger chromatic contrast when digitally
photographed and posted online, hence the appeal.

~~~
fjp
The people I know who have done this (called microblading) were putting on
their desired eyebrows every morning with makeup. Now they save themselves 10
minutes and worrying about getting it right every morning.

It's just semipermanent makeup.

------
mLuby
Browser extension to auto-de-photoshop?

------
epicgiga
It'll be interesting to see how things pan out from all this.

The internet has only really been with us for a few decades, and yet has
completely transformed the fabric of humanity, acting as a bizarre and extreme
lens upon existing human traits.

At some point, logically, there has to be sufficient reaction to bring us back
in line with what we came from. The "winner take all" effects from the
internet are just too extreme to be feasibly sustained.

You can't have a happy society with such extreme gaps between rich tech people
and everyone else living in tents or off what they choose to spend their money
on. You can't have a happy society where the top 5% of beautiful men are
paying people to schedule their calendar of tinder lays while other guys buy
thot bathwater, or where the top 5% of women get all the attention and the
rest wonder where their prince charming is who's been denied them from all
this as they sadly pass 30 alone.

The fact is, a huge amount of bad has come from the internet. A seriously huge
amount. And the opportunity cost of all that capital that went into enraged
politics on twitter and inanity on facebook, that could've gone into medical
research... At least we got Musk from it I guess.

It's a strange feeling. Being an active participant and facilitator in
something that is clearly not naturally aligned with human happiness, only
human progress. In the end, what choice do we have. This is our natural
aptitude, and succeeding in it can mean the difference between living paycheck
to paycheck and becoming financially free. So we're going to do it. We have
little choice. But we can't say any of it is fundamentally good. At best we're
peddlers of the neutral and inevitable.

~~~
odiroot
> You can't have a happy society with such extreme gaps between rich tech
> people and everyone else living in tents or off what they choose to spend
> their money on.

Doesn't really apply to EU. Bankers, lawyers, real estate agents, some
doctors, etc are the (small-time) rich. Most of tech people barely touch the
upper-middle class.

I have a feeling we're just not a respectable trade.

~~~
slumdev
"Rich tech people" is such a bizarre and mostly imaginary group to rail
against.

> Doesn't really apply to EU. Bankers, lawyers, real estate agents, some
> doctors, etc are the (small-time) rich. Most of tech people barely touch the
> upper-middle class.

It's the same in the United States.

~~~
big_chungus
I think many people don't realize that we've so inflated our currency that you
can be worth $2 million and still be upper middle class. Doubly true if you
choose to deal with the extortionate taxes of California.

~~~
BlueTemplar
Lol, you're not middle class (which is dying off anyway), you're top 10%
aristocracy at that point :
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-
bir...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-
new-american-aristocracy/559130/)

~~~
big_chungus
I'll try to respond, even though "lol" and linking an article isn't much to
argue with.

I'm not worth that much money, though I do fine and have plenty of time to
change that. I didn't have the SAT services or country clubs or private
schools of your article. I went to an excellent school on a merit scholarship
and not from entitlement.

You need to provide evidence for the middle class dying off. And you need to
provide more than an opinion piece of rhetoric to substantiate your claim of a
"10% aristocracy". Finally, you need to provide some evidence of why someone
having more money than someone else is bad.

One thing I do agree with in your article: medicine and law are two state-
sanctioned monopolies. I absolutely agree that the government ought to stop
preventing competition. I also agree that the government should not prop up
the financial sector or bail out any company, ever. Inflation is the biggest
tax of all; great for finance and lousy for Americans.

From your article: "Let’s suppose that some of us do look up. We see the
iceberg. Will that induce us to diminish our exertions in supreme child-
rearing? The grim truth is that, as long as good parenting and good
citizenship are in conflict, we’re just going to pack a few more violins for
the trip."

I agree with removing government, but what's wrong with the way the top 10% of
Americans are raising their children? What's the iceberg?

> My grandparents never lost faith in the limitless possibilities of a life
> free from government.

Yes, good.

> But in their last years, as the reserves passed down from the Colonel ran
> low, they became pretty diligent about collecting their Social Security and
> Medicare benefits.

Unfortunately true. Everyone wants his handout, just take away the other
guy's. Cut medicaid and increase farm subsidies, says one side; remove
agricultural tariffs and more food stamps from the other. Let's get rid of
both. Nobody gets to steal the wealth of another.

> regressive sales and property taxes.

You'll have to sell me on why "regressive" taxes are bad. As far as I'm
concerned, here's how to fund the gov't: total expenses / number of adult
citizens = each citizen's bill. Send it to everyone and everyone pays the same
amount. This makes a lot of sense: within the stuff government ought to do
(keep the peace, uphold property rights, and enforce contracts), no one gets
significantly more in services than another.

> The income-tax system that so offended my grandfather has had the unintended
> effect of creating a highly discreet category of government expenditures.
> They’re called “tax breaks,” but it’s better to think of them as handouts
> that spare the government the inconvenience of collecting the money in the
> first place.

This is disingenuous; stealing less money is not an expenditure.

> None of them can afford to live around here... In 1980, a house in St. Louis
> would trade for a decent studio apartment in Manhattan. Today that house
> will buy an 80-square-foot bathroom in the Big Apple.

Move elsewhere. I choose not to live in an uber-expensive metropolis of the
"coastal elites" because I don't want to spend that much. Sounds like St.
Louis is a fine place to start looking, especially with the advent of remote
work.

> Local zoning regulation imposes excessive restrictions on housing
> development and drives up prices.

Yes. Zoning is stupid. The state has no right to tell a citizen what he may or
may not do with his property.

All this amounts to roughly a hundred pounds of fine whine. One having more
than another is not an issue except for envious people who wish to steal their
wealth through the club of the state.

~~~
BlueTemplar
> You need to provide evidence for the middle class dying off.

Well, the demographics themselves might be elsewhere (or not), but the graph
in the article does show the 90% doing worse. Especially if one equates
"middle class" with "being able to afford health care and to go to college
without being saddled by crushing debt".

> And you need to provide more than an opinion piece of rhetoric to
> substantiate your claim of a "10% aristocracy".

No, I don't think so, this isn't a research paper.

> Finally, you need to provide some evidence of why someone having more money
> than someone else is bad.

I don't, if only it was so easy !

> Send [the government bill] to everyone and everyone pays the same amount.
> This makes a lot of sense

No, it doesn't, I'm surprised that there are still people that would even
think that - and how exactly are you going to tax homeless people that way,
huh ?

