What is beauty?

Have you ever wondered why cat and animal videos are the most popular on Social Media? Maybe because, just as babies, animals are unaffected, natural, innocent, and unface-tuned.  Just natural beauty, nothing fake. Beauty has many forms. Animals, art, a good tale or film about human love or suffering and of course nature's beauty.  However, in this blog I'd like to focus on physical beauty because it seems social media has distorted what that is in modern times.  I used face-tune for one day to try it out, examples below. The pictures were photo perfect but totally fake, and so I uninstalled the app immediately.  But those kind of fake perfection photos are a lot we see on social media and many cannot discern the real from completely photo-shopped and therefore, the true value of both.   Manipulated images turns the ordinary into celebrity magazine quality as we see on advertising boards everywhere.  But many ordinary people have used social media to seduce many into thinking that fake perfect is beauty or worse, real.  When you know these people in real life and see the photos, the results are almost amusing but also weird.  Not the pics but think about the personality. Yes, millions fake up on social media believing it makes us beautiful when all it is, is a far cry from reality. 

 

Face- tuned and perfectly fake 

                                                            

So what is truly beautiful?  In my view it is certainly not bubble muscled men who use steriods, supplements and train all day to have the "perfect" body.  Sure, woman don't want men who look as if they're 9 months pregnant due to alcohol, overeating and lack of exercise. But muscle built pecs (pectorals) that look like breasts are hardly attractive on a man. I'll take a skinny guy any day.  If you're a woman body builder you will find the below beautiful and if you're aiming to model for muscle mag it could be seen as ambition and hard work.  But  in my opinion it will never be beautiful or attractive" because breasts on men just look unnatural.  But for a muscle mag pin-up, this guy's done a good job. 

From men to women and the millions addicted to face needles. When using them (men do too) and in moderation it can look good but far too many have had so much botox and fillers in their face it turns them into again picture perfect but unnatural and non-beautiful humans.  I mean if you have to do so much work and spend so much money, one clearly didn't have a Ferrari to begin with. :)  The extremes have pushed these people into addiction to tightening the tablecloth across their face so much they look like robots.  Perfect flat faces yet look closely and see the wrinkled or loose hands or neck and the "perfect face" just mirrors, fake.  

 

In trying to keep youthful, natural lips turn to mini tyres. Overloaded with fillers in cheeks as well literally provide  different angles profiles that look like Disney chipmunks. The famous "trout pout" (overuse of collagen to full lips) and ironing flat with botox delivers expressionless faces.  How can these "Botox Barbis" or needles and knives addicts be assessed as beautiful? Online maybe, definitely not in real life.  

 

 Madonna for example, just as other celebs who have also undergone the knife (surgery) have so completely changed their face, that the eyes no longer twinkle and natural original unique beauty is lost. Maybe having too much money is a curse for who would want to look a fraction of their natural selves just to keep up with societal demand of youthful?  Fit, healthy, taken care of absolutely yes, manipulated beyond natural, no.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10446663/celebrities-face-filler-transformations/
At least, Kylie Minogue , an admitting celebrity to having had work done,  says she now wants to look more natural.   The left picture with  fake heightened chipmunk cheeks, loads of make-up, or the more natural beautiful and pretty look on the right.  You judge which is the most beautiful.  Easy choice I think. 

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2073377/Trout-pout-Why-stars-hooked.html

                                                       Before/after - Perfect example of the  needled trout pout  

 

If you look at Keira Knightly,  a pure natural beauty who needs little to no make-up and compare it to a face-lifted Madonna, or Jane Fonda the difference in beauty is stark. It's just so unnatural to look at a 60+ or 80 year old with a fake perfect face where nothing moves.  Comparing them to young beauties in their prime who actually wear their little eye bags and wrinkles photos beautifully, makes the youth of course, always far more beautiful as they should be.  Yet many applaud manipulated improvemenst that produces static robotic faces and the followings of the Kardashians proves the point.

While it's certainly it's fine to upkeep your looks, plus control your weight,  by tweaking flaws here and there, the multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry branch have too many addicted and the idea of beauty has become distorted.   In reality, we do not have millions of beautiful people but rather millions of needle junkies or steroid//supplement addicts, pretending to be something that they aren't naturally.
                                       

                        

Keira Knightly  is a little on the thin side but she has a beautiful natural face, no trout pout, chipmunk cheeks or anything that looks deliberately manipulated or improved. No overdone plump cheeks or lips which makes her photogenic anytime and anywhere with scores of unique different expressions. 

 

Friends actress, Courtney Cox said in the first link provided, featuring Kylie Minogue,   "I went too far with fillers and had them dissolved so I’ve learned to embrace movement and realise fillers are not my friend.” So yes, I agree with the article author, "it's better to look older than look weird. " 

 

One final thought over this.  I wonder if all those needle, knife and supplement addicts  put the price tag onto their efforts if their audiences would still be so impressed.  Perhaps in this materialist capitalist world they would admire the astronomical money amounts spent.  However, for me I agree with the famous Dutch radio presenter who recently commented on females hooked on face-tuning and posting on social media who said : "Get over yourself and go and do something for other people that really need help." There is also the funny side.  Sebastian Maniscalor's stand-up comedy on you-tube about how the female animal changes and looks when taking a selfie.  So next time you think posting a fake picture is worth it, wonder about what people would see and think when they meet you in real life.  Be real, get real, and embrace your own unique beauty, not that of a help app as if you are handicapped!