Beauty trends, fashion, and aesthetics are crucial to teenage, social media, and modern beauty. Nowadays, people choose to accept different styles, yet other cultures still have dominant beauty standards that influence make-up products, how people define beauty, and cultural differences. These beauty standards, often influenced by social media and an individual’s culture, could define aesthetics in positive or toxic ways. Furthermore, aesthetics are often tied to cultural perceptions and stereotypes. These beauty trends make drastic changes in modern society and different cultures. In today’s topic, you will explore general aesthetic differences between Eastern Asia and Western culture, how it reinforces materializing and stereotypes, and the author’s opinion about aesthetic values and perspectives.
As always, social media is the dominant influencer of such trends. Influencers play a vital role in impacting the beauty trends of today and tomorrow, mainly because of the beauty industries. These industries learned to connect with influencers who have thousands of followers. Professional influencers use aesthetics and beauty trends that connect to their brand/product, and they strive to be both inspirational and aspirational. Naturally, and with beauty industries promoting words like a desire to be a ‘better version of yourself’ and ‘body positivity’, people want to emulate them, creating beauty trends and standards that teenagers and consumers approve of.
Furthermore, aesthetics are also affected by cultures; different cultures have different standards of beauty. In this article, we are specifically talking about Eastern Asia and Western culture. These two, I think, are the most interesting and important cultural aesthetics that seem to reflect each other’s shadows and have significant similarities and differences. Western aesthetics often emphasize individualism, confidence, and self-expression. Some key aspects include:
- Diverse beauty: From ‘natural’ looks to bold, dramatic styles like heavy make-up, contouring, and tanning.
- Body positivity: The idea of acceptance towards all body shapes and sizes.
- Minimalism vs. Maximalism: Though there are minimalist aesthetics, Western culture promotes more maximized, flashy, unique, and sometimes rebellious styles like punk and streetwear.
In a glamour article written by Denise Primbet, it talks about the glamour bold filter on TikTok that has recently gone viral and was said to be “the most hyperrealistic filter” to date. Concerns have been raised about its damage to confidence and self-esteem because of its unrealisticness. According to Denise, she moved to the UK during her teenage years and was unsatisfied with her looks and pressured under Western beauty standards. She wants to fit in and ‘Westernize’ her appearance. So she was eager to try the filter, for everybody was saying how realistic it looked. Finally, when she tried it on, Denise said ‘The filter distorted my face beyond recognition and altered my facial features in a way that, you guessed it, ‘westernized’ my appearance on a whole new level. My eyes looked bigger and lighter in colour, my jaw was more defined, my nose looked smaller, my lips appeared bigger, my skin was more tan, and the list goes on.’ According to a paper published by Harvard University, “Western beauty ideals include being thin and tall, having long hair, having light/tanned skin, having big breasts, large eyes, a small nose, and high cheekbones.”
While Western beauty trends are still seen as ‘the golden standard’, Eastern Asia aesthetics are a much different story. Eastern Asian beauty has been traditionally associated with harmony, elegance, and refinement. Some aspects are:
- Pale Skin: There is a strong emphasis on fair, smooth, pale skin with trends like glass skin (Korea) and fair, smooth complexion (China and Japan)
- Slim Body: Even though body positivity is emerging, the preference for a slim figure, V-shaped face, and delicate features remains dominant.
- Soft & Subtle Looks: Makeup is often focused on ‘natural beauty,’ like soft, dewy skin, gradient lips, and straight brows.
The most toxic and, unfortunately, most viral aesthetic on the internet is the standard ‘pale, young, slim.’ Social media apps in China often address these kinds of beauty trends. A preference for fair skin dates back to ancient China, which symbolizes nobility and status. Where farmers need to work outdoors, ladies stay indoors. Today, many beauty products focus on this point, and there are products like whitening creams and sunscreens, all catering to this trend. While body positivity is growing, there remains the trend for a slim body and delicate features. A slender body is often visualized with a tiny waist, straight, thin legs, and a V-shaped face. There is a viral challenge on social media called ‘ the A4 waist challenge’ where one’s waist is slimmer than a piece of A4 paper, and ‘the iPhone leg challenge’ where one’s legs are thinner than the length of a phone. Finally, eternal youth and childlike features. Rather than mature and bold features, Eastern Asia aesthetics promote looking youthful and innocent, with doll-like features: large eyes, straight brows, and soft lips create a gentle appearance.
With these different and even toxic aesthetics come stereotypes and materialization. Because of the beauty standards that are viral on the internet from cultures, people often define one type of aesthetics as a cultural influence, which causes stereotypes. In media, Eastern Asian women may be identified as exceptionally feminine and delicate, old-fashioned thinking like every woman from Eastern Asia is soft, gentle, virtuous and kind while Western women are wild and independent. The issue of materialization is more concerning; the beauty standards in cultures from social media reject diversity and portray negative and twisted worldviews of women from across the world. Materializing is to see somebody as an object, and materialization from pop culture and for Eastern Asian women has been condemned into a shocking act of ‘violence’. (More than one Eastern Asian woman has confessed to being propositioned by men on the street.) (maybe: Many Eastern Asian women confess to being propositioned by men on the street.). These internet aesthetics play a vital role in cultural stereotypes and materialization. Christine Liwang Dixon shared the reality of this phenomenon and her personal experience on social media, claiming, “I’ve been cornered on the street as men say ‘me love you long time.’ I’ve been offered money for a ‘happy ending massage.’ I’ve been hit on because I’m Asian and told it’s a ‘compliment,’’ Others have responded they have been called ‘China doll’ on the subway or subjected to “five dollah sucky sucky” as a so-called joke. Varied examples from media, advertisements, or even history have all been shown to reinforce these stereotypes that thrived from these beauty standards, which inform us of the beauty criteria, rejecting diversity and the toxic relationships to cultural sensitivity that have been created.
Choosing to follow the trends and be beautiful is not a fault. Yet, realizing the pressure of these fashion trends, the toxically natural features, or the impossible slimness standards is very important. Embodying your natural beauty is an essential part of life that we all have to learn. A good state of mind and body is more important than turning yourself into a beauty queen. Even if social media now starts to promote words like ‘body positivity’ or ‘becoming the best version of yourself, ’ you still can not imagine the purposes behind these words. Continuously improving yourself is great, but not for virality. After a workout, you may feel really happy, and healthy, and feel that yourself is in a good state, rather than not eating for days to achieve a V-shaped face and an A4 waist. Confidence is the key to loving yourself in all forms, so embrace your diversity and combat harmful aesthetics and stereotypes.
Presently, the impact of globalization and social media is spreading the two aesthetics around the world. Western fashion is heavily influenced by K-pop and J-pop culture, with global brands adopting soft makeup, oversized sweaters, and Korean streetwear. Eastern Asian youth are becoming more open to Western trends such as bold makeup, tanned skin, and body diversity. Social media platforms are blurring the lines between these two cultural aesthetics, and we will soon see what new impact it has created in society and what new beauty trends have invited for the generation. All in all, we should see aesthetics as a diverse expression of beauty instead of harmful stereotypes.
https://ftccollege.edu/blog-post/the-impact-of-social-media-on-beauty-trends-and-careers/
https://medium.com/@jjams0915/i-wish-i-was-pretty-a78322e7ff2
