The Superficial Side of Aesthetics and Its Impact

Aesthetics comes from the Ancient Greek word aísthēsis (αἴσθησις), meaning “to hear” and “to perceive.” It is a branch of philosophy that deals with the evaluation of beauty, the judgment of taste, and the study of sensory values. — Sir Wiki Pedia

Today, however, aesthetics expresses the desire to imitate what is popular, to be like everyone else. There are two sides to it. One is the artistic perception of aesthetics. We could discuss this at length, including philosophical arguments.

The other is the beauty centers we see on every street corner—fillers, botox, and similar procedures. I’ll talk a bit about this second, extremely superficial trend. For the rest of the text, when I say “aesthetics,” think of this one.

Aesthetics, in its current form, is in my opinion a social disease. The perception of aesthetics, including the perception of beauty, has been infected by this disease. Like Ophiocordyceps, which invades the central nervous system of ants and makes them climb to the tops of plants so that the fungus can produce and spread its spores. Or like the parasite Dicrocoelium dendriticum, which invades the ant’s central nervous system and uses them as a vehicle to reach the stomachs of mammals.

The American dream, along with the consumption craze and show culture that have spread across the world like a disease, has caused people to drift away from nature and develop a ridiculous sense of aesthetics.

Even a brief search for what kinds of cosmetic surgeries are possible is enough to see how insane this madness really is:

• Facelift, nose job, eyelid surgery, brow lift, ear reshaping
• Liposuction, tummy tuck
• Breast augmentation, breast reduction, breast lift (look at the contradiction—everyone chasing the “ideal” breast)
• Brazilian Butt Lift (my favorite. Fat taken from other parts of the body is injected into the buttocks to create big Brazilian-style hips. People have lost their minds. And of course, there’s a penis version too)
• Botox and filler applications: forehead lines, around the eyes, frown lines, brow lift, lip fillers, chin, neck, underarms, genital area
• Procedures to prevent sweating
• Hair transplants
• Laser hair removal
• Skin rejuvenation, spot treatment, capillaries, chemical peeling, dermabrasion and microdermabrasion
• Environment- Enemy plastic nails seem the most innocent among all

There’s no limit to the madness. I’m not even counting procedures done for medical reasons, but those who hide behind “medical reasons” to justify what they’re doing are also within the scope of this text. And that’s exactly where the problem begins. If you believe what you’re doing is right, why hide behind medical reasons?

And it doesn’t stop there. Cosmetic products are the other side of the coin—tanning creams, anti-tanning creams, whitening creams, solarium, anti-aging, and much more…

When I think about all this, two things come to mind. First, people’s lack of self-confidence, and how—living in a system that constantly tells them they’re special—they go mad when they realize they’re not, and start trying to act as if they are. Second, how far they’ve distanced themselves from nature.

About the first: I wonder—how can you feel special by doing what everyone else is doing, trying to look like everyone else? Doesn’t losing your uniqueness bother you? Why does your unique appearance, inherited from your family and ancestors, bother you so much? Why are you doing this? Is it to look good to others and feel attractive? If so, would you really want to be with someone who loves you just because of a fashionable change in your looks or because of a ridiculous pornographic aesthetic that’s been injected into your face and body? How do you know they won’t judge you later? What if they want you to change again when another trend comes along? Is that really the kind of shallow relationship you’re looking for? Is your ultimate desire to become a simple marketing object? Is your self-respect that lacking?

You might say you’re doing it for yourself, for your own happiness. That still comes down to self-respect and self-love. Then why is your self-confidence so low? Why don’t you question beauty standards built on cosmetics, fashion, and everything you see everywhere? Why do you judge yourself this way?

When you look in the mirror, how do you feel? Proud? Or do you immediately start thinking about your next filler? Is the person you see in the mirror really you? Or is it the artificial character you’ve created? That artificial character definitely influences your personality as well. When you go out, do you wonder if people are looking at you? Do you feel the urge to show off your new face or body? Do you talk about it?

Is your fear actually of life itself? Even if just for a moment, do you feel like you’re defying time? Do you feel like a god, or are you internally flipping off God or nature? For example, do you think you’ve beaten nature by resisting gravity and removing your wrinkles?

When I see people spending so much of their time and money on aesthetics, building their values, desires, and ambitions on it, and doing dozens of tricks to get attention, I pity them. I pity how much they’ve run away from their own nature and from nature itself—because behind those appearances there’s not self-confidence, but completely fragile, cowardly, broken characters.

The second point is about nature and distancing from it. As someone who grew up in the Black Sea region with a plastic surgeon neighbor, the topic of noses was always on our agenda. Being exposed to it so much, you inevitably start seeing it as something wrong after a while. But as I grew up, met different people, mingled with different nationalities, I realized how foolish we’d been. I’ve also had friends who had cosmetic surgery. At first, it seemed like a medical operation, but as the swelling went down and the bruises faded, I saw their personalities change too. Some even changed their interests just to protect themselves. They became completely different people. Especially the face—it’s a huge reflection of a person’s character, a mirror of their life experiences. In my view, changing your face means losing part of your identity. I’m sure you don’t feel that way. To you, it may be an act of defiance or a way to hide your lack of self-confidence.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if the people around me had different noses. They wouldn’t be themselves. They wouldn’t be the people I used to know. They’d lose the individuality that gave their faces character. I have the same thought when I watch movies—whenever I see a character who’s different, comfortable in their own skin, they catch my attention more. I think, “This is normal.” Not those identical artificial Hollywood characters. But somehow, we’ve come to see “normal” as being standard and identical. Like the people in gyms who wear the same clothes, do the same moves, try to look the same, talk about the same things, complain about the same things.

That’s the problem. Everything we consume normalizes this madness so much that we forget what’s actually normal and natural. Yet the source of aesthetics is nature—hearing it, perceiving it, and blending it with imagination. Instead, we think we can be an alternative to nature, that we can sustain what is unnatural. And every new generation starts to believe this. Especially during adolescence, they go through major crises, even reaching the point of taking their own lives. The only reason for this is the beauty standards you never question. By forcing everyone into a single standard—short, tall, fat, thin, big, small, brunette, blonde, with belly, without belly, strong, weak, colorful, colorless—we erase the differences that make us who we are, that belong to our nature, and cause many people to die or to make their own lives miserable. If they didn’t build their lives on these meaningless molds, they could be something completely different—but instead, they get crushed under them.

Have you ever thought about how many lives you might have cost, including maybe your own children’s?

Similarly, in your rush to reach what you perceive as “beautiful,” you become complicit in the destruction of nature itself. So you’re not only at war with your own nature, but with the nature of future generations. And yet you still manage to pose as “environmentally friendly” with your botoxed face. You don’t feel two-faced, do you?

Today’s world is built on consumption and on showing off what you consume—a fake world where broken souls hide. A world where people think they can solve their inner contradictions by standardizing themselves like machines. If there are those who feel lost in this world, they should know—the world is not just this madness you see. Once you hold on to the things that make you who you are, you’ll see that the artificial realm that puts you in conflict is actually quite a pathetic place. It’s not a place of confident, self-accepting, unique individuals.