Early & Alone #80: Skin Deep

On filters, fillers, fake eyelashes, and fat-fighting drugs

Me, using the “Bold Glamour” TikTok filter

I’m a big fan of Love Is Blind, the bonkers Netflix dating show “hosted” by Nick & Vanessa Lachey. The premise hinges on men and women dating in “pods,” where they are separated by an opaque screen and cannot see each other. Over the course of a couple of weeks (maybe just 10 days?), couples form, and the only way to see the person you’ve allegedly fallen in love with is to get engaged. After that, the show follows these couples through a vacation, living together, meeting one another’s family & friends, the bachelor/bachelorette parties, and finally, the wedding, where they tell the person they’ve been with for 4 weeks if they will or will not marry them.

Of course, this has produced some truly amazing (and wild) reality television. At this point, the premise is sort of moot because each and every person on the show is conventionally attractive in some way. The one plus-sized woman featured on the most recent season was gorgeous and dressed like a Kardashian and her family was rich and beautiful (and mean). So the stakes and question that Nick & Vanessa keep hammering— “Is love truly blind??”—are totally out the window. It would be arguably a lot more interesting to watch average-looking people grapple with their expectations around appearance, body size, age, ethnicity, etc.—but this never really happens.

The season 3 “After the Altar” follow-up episodes dropped a few weeks ago and they were disappointing—both in terms of the lack of drama/accountability for some of the show’s contestants, but also because it was difficult not to notice the physical transformations of several of the women. Again, these women were all physically gorgeous to begin with. But after being in the spotlight, it seems that they felt a need to squeeze themselves further into a certain beauty standard. Two women in particular, Nancy and Zanab, had struggled with their appearance and self-image during the show (which their partners, Bartise and Cole, certainly didn’t help), and their transformations were notable. They both sported newly blonde hair and shellacked makeup. But for all of the scenes filmed for the show, including a girl’s brunch and a birthday party, the women were dressed to the nines, in full makeup and hair, looking as though they were attending a red carpet event.

This is just what television looks like, especially “reality” TV. But it’s striking that a show that is allegedly about how little your appearance matters when it comes to love has become so focused on physical appearance. It was basically all I could think about as I watched and even after.

During the height of the pandemic, when many people were working from home and isolating, there was talk about how we were never going back to “hard pants” or bras or makeup. Sadly, this utopia was merely a Covid-fueled pipe dream. I am still basically a mole rat working from home in my sweatpants (and no bra, let’s be real) every day, but when I do go out or scroll social media, it’s difficult not to notice the dominant aesthetic is skewing toward the artificial: fake eyelashes, contouring, lip fillers, Botox, Spanx/Skims, and now, Ozempic/Mounjaro.

I don’t want to be all “old man shakes fist at a cloud” because people should be allowed to wear whatever they want to wear and do what they want to do with their bodies. But the emphasis on physical appearance is unsettling, especially as we stare at our own faces more and more, with Zoom, TikTok, BeReal, FaceTime. Our identities are becoming wrapped up in this digitized version of our faces. Of course it’s tempting to add filters! But I think the danger is in the idea of this collectively agreed-upon aesthetic, that’s more Kardashian than authentic.

It used to be that wearing mascara was enough to get you by. Now it seems if you’re not wearing false eyelashes, you might as well have just rolled out of bed. It used to be you could get by if you styled your hair—now you need extensions.

There has been a lot of discourse about the Bold Glamour filter on TikTok and whether or not it’s actively harming our self-esteem. I tried it myself (as seen above) and I’m relieved that it makes me look like a weird, big-lipped fembot. Because it would have been worse if I had LIKED the way it made me look. Evidence that my real face is not good enough. Believe me, that’s the LAST thing I need. I think it’s the last thing any woman needs.

I’m not even going to get into the Ozempic of it all because it’s too exhausting, but suffice to say that being a person existing in a physical body continues to be hell and it’s a situation that only seems to be worsening.

So I leave you with the real me, without the filter, as a reminder that we are all worthy and beautiful in our weird jiggles and lines and blemishes and under-eye circles and gray hair and crooked teeth and big pores.

Bright Spots:

• I enjoyed this deep dive into how we save our contacts. Personally, every person in my phone is saved with their first and last name, except for my mom and dad. This includes my boyfriend and my siblings. If I don’t know the last name, I put something boring, like “Katie Upstairs” for an upstairs neighbor. I clearly need to spice this up. What do you all do?

• I loved this essay on the joys of hanging out. I want more of this! Come hang out with me anytime. Really.

• I’ve been listening to the Heavyweight podcast and it’s such a joy. Jonathan Goldstein’s deadpan delivery, the mix of humor and poignance, it’s *chef’s kiss.*

• I was in D.C. a couple of weeks ago and reconnected with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years and also hadn’t spoken with since pre-Covid. We just fell out of touch, as adult humans tend to do. It was great to catch up and I’m so glad I reached out. So don’t let distance or time hold you back—call up that old friend or look them up if you’re in their city.

That’s it for today. I was in D.C. for a week, then came down with a bad cold I’m still kind of fighting, so I feel overwhelmed and behind on pretty much everything, very much including Early & Alone! But I’m planning on sending out my thoughts to you WEEKLY instead of bi-weekly. Get ready.