Will you ever be pretty?

Is it worth aiming for the un-reachable beauty standards of today if youth and beauty will eventually fade?

Scarlet Davies
20th March 2024
Image credit: Nicholas Kusuma, Unsplash
Have you ever looked in the mirror and disliked what you saw? Maybe you looked too tall, too short, too small, too big. A recent survey worldwide suggested that people saw themselves as twenty percent less attractive than other people perceived them, and this isn’t helped in the 21st century by the constant stream of flawless, model-esque influencers on our feeds and papered onto billboards. Even celebrities who society deem to be attractive are still insecure about the way they look, or FaceTune their photos, because social media forces us to strive for a certain look that feels impossible. 

However, up until the early 20th century, beauty standards were very different. Society favoured a curvier frame, paler skin and fuller, rounder faces in the 18th and 19th century to show off their wealth - three traits which today's society doesn't consider to be conventionally attractive. Back in Ancient Greece, statues of Aphrodite - the epitome of beauty and elegance - are shown to have back rolls, a soft jawline and a fuller figure. People wished for looks which are now considered to be unappealing online, which begs the question of whether our view of beauty is just as temporary and superficial as the media is conveying it.

Similarly in Western cultures Eurocentric features have long since been considered beautiful, while other cultures are dismissed and ignored. Both fashion and makeup are primarily tailored for Caucasian skin; in recent years, there has been an uprising of more inclusive makeup and fashion brands. But out of an eight billion population, white people only constitute around fifteen percent of the population; by only catering to one group, how much damage is society causing to people who don’t feel represented?

It is impossible for anyone to be considered completely attractive or fashionable in modern day society. There will always be something that the media will pick apart, whether it be their appearance, their mannerisms, or even the clothes they wear. If a celebrity is considered to be ‘perfect’, in thirty years time they will age and their popularity will fade. Sex symbols of the past are often forgotten because they do not follow the current trends of attractiveness, even if back in their prime they were deeply envied. No form of beauty is permanent and varies from person to person, culture to culture, decade to decade. Perhaps, if we all appreciated ourselves a little more, we could find that beauty in ourselves too.

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