How Should We Encounter Beauty Standards?
With the advancing technologies, the world reaches a new height of globalization that connects and unifies people from all over the world. However, in this flourishing environment, beauty standards have encountered the challenge of becoming homogeneous in the world’s perceptions of beauty.
In the effort to end this ceasing diversity in beauty, people have come up with many different solutions. Like the Chinese government, individual countries’ governments have publicly advocated for diverse beauty standards through government-supported trends that incorporate cultural beauty standards within daily life. In the larger scope, people from all over the world have spread and publicized the importance of countries’ individuality in beauty standards through increasing the exposure of diverse cultures on media platforms like TikTok that are highly accessible to most parts of the world. Although some argue the national promotion of traditional beauty components through government-supported trends that infuse cultural elements with everyday life broadens the awareness of different beauty standards, I believe the mass media exposure among worldwide platforms like Tiktok is a better method as it reaches a more extensive range of audiences that brings attention to different beauty standards, rapidly increases world’s acknowledgment and appreciation of varying beauty standards and results in a more successful cease of the ongoing homogeneous trend.
Beauty standards are the physical attributes and outer appearances like clothes and decorations that make one person pretty and visually attractive. In detail, the facial features of big eyes with double eyelids, small nose, narrow facial shape, long and curly lashes, and prominent facial features are the apparent beauty standards prevailing in the current world. Facial surgery in many countries focuses on achieving the above features as these traits contribute to a so-called “perfect” face in many people’s minds. However, as we dig deeper into these seemingly normal rules, we will find out that many of the above features are inheritable genetics of western races, revealing the continuing strong western influence on the globe, including the perception of beauty, due to the long-term cultural dominance upon others. Looking back into history, western cultural dominance has continued since the imperial ages when they colonized many countries around the world. In these areas, the western colonizers considered themselves the higher class as they saw those with different appearances as uncivilized people who needed their guidance. Therefore, the world prompted a strong pursuit of westernized appearance as it will raise ones’ status within the world, which is still in effect today as the current beauty standards are greatly influenced by western traits.
In other words, the pursuit and praise of the western inherited traits that are considered the current beauty standards indicate a continuous underlying influence of the western gaze on people’s perception of beauty even though the world has already drastically evolved and revolutionized in many beliefs and aspects. Thus, the homogeneity of beauty standards that are biased from the root needs to be stopped to not only maintain the diversity of our ideas of beauty but also to add effort on ceasing the impacting western gaze within the globe. Luckily, both individual governments and global citizens noticed and acted upon this issue.
Admittedly, the national approach through government-supported trends largely impacted and influenced people from their own countries, especially in countries like China and North Korea that the worldwide media platforms can’t reach due to political reasons, helping to end the homogeneity in beauty standards.
For example, the Chinese government responded with the substantial promotion of Chinese beauty standards through both financial support and media guidance that initiated media trends involving Chinese-style makeup and traditional Chinese clothes, Hanfu. Specifically, official government accounts on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, created hashtags that infuse Chinese traditional clothing elements within daily life clothes to encourage influential trend that promotes appreciation of traditional Chinese clothing, which successfully instituted a new popular clothing style named modern Hanfu that infused the traditional Chinese clothes, Hanfu, with the modern, daily clothes. As we walk on the streets of China, we can see many people enjoying and wearing the modern Hanfu. The increasing appearance and higher acceptance of Chinese traditional beauty elements within everyday life through government-supported trends successfully encourage diverse views of beauty and intervene with the western rooted beauty standards. However, the Chinese government’s approach faces several questions. The first one is the territorial restriction of these trends’ applicable audience as they are majority Chinese due to government-controlled media restriction. Furthermore, the Chinese government limits the perception of beauty based on birth gender as it advocated men to become less feminine, disregarding personal preferences, by not wearing makeup and acting in a muscular manner solely because it is the believed beauty standards for men in China, defying the original purpose of diverse beauty standards.
So, how do we step out from this audience limitation and rigid restrictions? The use of mass media platforms like Tiktok is the better approach for stopping homogeneous beauty standards. These media platforms obtain a much more extensive range of appliances with their accessibility to most parts of the world and have less limitation on the perception of beauty, which contributes to the substantial increase in the acknowledgment of different beauty standards around the globe. Tiktok, which dominated the latest social media world, is one platform that contributes to this awareness. With the freedom of content and a large number of participants in this platform, the amount of targeted audience involved in this awakening awareness increased expeditiously, pushing diverse beauty standards to the world and overcoming obstacles due to both territorial restrictions and biased limitations.
For example, K-pop, competing with the long-established western music market, became highly successful in recent years with the help of Tiktok. The uprising of K-pop is an unprecedented event as it is the first time that eastern Asian faces and music hold a strong influence on a global scale. Tiktok, in this sense, significantly nourished the growth of K-pop and normalized the appearance of Asian facial traits like monolids in beauty standards as it provides Asian faces an opportunity to appear on a worldwide platform that countless people are viewing. A 15 seconds video edit of a K-pop idol dancing on Tiktok has reached a skyrocketing view of 76.8 million with 10.7 million likes in just five months, showing the striking effect of TikTok on promoting different perceptions of beauty to the world. TikTok’s extensive range of appliances allowed a drastic increase in the number of people that are aware and accepting of other beauty standards with the exposure of Asian faces. Thus, through mass media platforms, Asian faces obtain greater acknowledgment for their beauty and add new blood to the assimilating standards, helping to end the ongoing homogeneous beauty standards.
In conclusion, the use of worldwide media platforms like Tiktok for promoting diversity in beauty standards are the better way to stop the homogeneous trend in beauty standards than government-promoted publicity in individual countries because the platforms reach a far more extensive range of audiences than individual governments’ promotion that may be biased and restrictive.
Beauty should be a diverse and inclusive idea that is different for everyone, as everyone is beautiful in their own way. By acknowledging beauty from all perspectives and moving away from a set of rigid and unlively beauty standards, we are able to appreciate the world more delightfully and pleasingly.
