Ep 7 Beauty Standards edited

The podcast hosts discuss the obsession with beauty standards and the lengths people go to achieve them. They mention Kim Kardashian's procedures and weight loss drug called Wig-O-V. They also talk about other trends like liposuction, breast augmentation, and skin lightening treatments. They highlight the influence of social media, especially Instagram, on these beauty standards. They discuss the pressure women feel and how it affects their confidence. They question whether these procedures are truly for self-care or for external validation. They also mention the economic aspect of beauty standards and how the algorithm favors a specific look. Hello and welcome to our podcast Coffee Plus Different. I'm your host Vainika and with me is my friend and co-host Sanjana. And today we are going to talk about Kim Kardashian's big butt. I'm not your girl, I'm not your babe, and I will paint this town red and grey. But not really. We're going to talk about the procedures she's done to herself to get to the big butt and how the big butt is not big anymore and it just might become big again in another few years. But yes, we're going to talk about how she basically fit herself into that infamous or famous Madeleine Monroe dress. And you know, it's so talked about that she lost weight so suddenly. And that's one of the, you know, the trending things right now, which is called Wig-O-V. Yeah, the secret behind her weight loss is not some magic exercise routine, but a magic drug, which is gaining a lot of popularity, especially in the States. Basically, you know, how Wig-O-V started was Uzempik. It was a drug catered to type 2 diabetes people, and it was a very sort of important drug for them, right? It's actually quite transformational. But what's happening is that when the company or even the people realized that Uzempik had a side effect, which is, you know, weight loss, they started doing, you know, those offhanded prescriptions of getting Uzempik prescribed to them for weight loss. And when the company realized, they were like, oh, yay, let's do this, you know, so they did a whole FDA trial, they did a trial, right? But on obese people, and it showed that, yeah, weight loss was a, you know, this was happening. And then they rebranded the data, and now it's called Wig-O-V for weight loss. And it's quite cheap. Actually, I think it's like $4000 for a month or something like that. Quite affordable from USA standards, right? Quite affordable from Kim Kardashian standards. Yeah. And the thing is, people started using it a lot, to a point that I think Uzempik, there was a crisis. Yeah. In the US. People who actually needed Uzempik, didn't have access to it, because it just wasn't there in the market. It was all Wig-O-V. And that's quite sad. And there were TikTok trends and reels and everything that, you know, people want to go for a wedding, and they want to lose weight quickly, all Wig-O-V. And didn't realize the underlying science behind it, which was that it suppresses your diet, right? And you're not getting enough nutrients and everything, and, you know, you're sort of losing weight. And even the trial was done on obese people, not on healthy weight people. The crux is that, human beings will go to any extent to fit in with whatever is the current beauty standards. Yeah. But who is defining these standards, and to what extent are humans ready to go? So, for example, Sandhya, this is just one of the many things, Kim Kardashian's big part. Her sister Kylie Jenner has admitted to having breast augmentation when she was how old? 19. 19. A teenager, so young. Yeah. And obviously, there's always been things like liposuction, and Korea is crazy after this double eyelid surgery. There's like always some trend, right? Going on and... Of course. Nose job, and getting those big pouty lips. Pouty lips. That's still a thing. I think everyone keeps... It's become injectable. So now everyone just gets injections and makes their lips plumper and everything. And the new fad is buccal fat removal surgery, where your face looks sunken, you have sunken cheeks. Yeah. Like Bella Hadid has now. You know, Vigovi's side effect is actually, it reduces your buccal fat, so you get the hollowed cheek effect. So that's one of the effects of Vigovi as well. And all of this is hugely enhanced by social media, especially Instagram today. It was 1997 when Naomi Wolf, who wrote The Beauty Myth, said that young girls are being exposed to a lot of... Sexualization. To a lot of sexualized images, and kind of feeling forced to be promiscuous early. They are growing up very precocious. And imagine how much more pronounced this is now. How much more pressure people feel because of the social media and the Instagram effect. So much so that when the whole BBL trend happened, quite a lot of women from the US started traveling to Mexico to get it done for cheap. And there were a lot of botched surgeries and people actually died in trying to get a big butt. And you know, if you extrapolate all of this to India, because of course, you know, we are a low income country comparatively and not everyone has access to these resources. But now you do see a lot of aestheticians and aesthetic clinics popping up and there's like so much, you know, treatment. Yeah, we test with fairness. Yeah, there's so much treatment. So what's the drug that people use to lighten their skin? Dutathion. Yeah, that. And there's like so much... You do so and so chemical peels and everything to make your skin look glassy. And hair removal. And furthermore, for, you know, brides to be... So yeah, I mean, talking about this scenario in India, right? Over here, I think what's mostly, I think, what's done a lot is of course, skin lightening treatments, glassy skin treatments. Hair removal is such a big thing in India. I don't think it's such a big thing in the States because, I mean, we have darker hair, right? So it's more pronounced. And I think people just feel like it's their birthright to comment on people's body hair and their facial hair and everything. I have gotten commented on in college. You need to get your upper lip, upper lip... Kya wooch hai removed? You were in college. I was getting this comment since I was 12, since I hit puberty, as if, like, at the age of 12 years old, I should be worrying about my facial hair instead of, like, being in my box or playing around or doing some sort of, you know, what things 12 years old do and not, like, care about how they look and how their facial hair is growing and everything, right? So basically what happens, Sanjana, is that, like we've discussed in earlier episodes, young girls and women are made to feel so conscious by the societal standards, which can come from comments, from media, people they see around themselves, that they start to believe, genuinely believe, that if they do all these things, including makeup and going for these procedures, they are doing it for themselves, to feel confident. It's called self-care now. It's called self-care, yes. Yeah. Going to, like, an aesthetician and getting, like, chemical peels is like, oh, I'm doing self-care today. Okay, great. It might be. I'm not judging anyone. But the question over here is, are you really doing it for yourself or are you doing it to protect yourself from getting comments or are you doing it just to get more compliments on some part of your body? Basically, we are busting the myth of confidence. Yeah, it's like, for confidence? Where are you drawing the boundary for confidence? Yeah. Because for Kim Kardashian, it's Vigo V. Yeah. That may not be as accessible to you, so you have drawn your limit at, say, getting skin whitening treatments and someone else will, like Sanjana, will have drawn their limit at painting her lips red. Or, no, but I did get, like, full body hair removal and I sometimes question why I even did it in the first place. It was expensive. It takes time. Hurts also. So, I have to put myself through that pain. Puberty is painful. Yeah. No, it's not. That's what I'm saying. Why did I put myself through it? And I think I did it because since I was a hairy person and ever since I hit puberty, people have commented on my hair so much that, you know, oh, you're wearing a skirt, your legs are not waxed, why do you have such thick eyebrows? And now, thick eyebrows is like a whole trend, okay? Before, it was not. I would be getting this whole thing, why aren't you getting your eyebrows done? I'm like, oh my God. So, it's like, you know, how much am I supposed to subject my body to? Today, I'm thinning my eyebrows. Tomorrow, I have to grow them out. And now, there are these, you know, makeup things where you draw your eyebrows and make them all bushy and everything. It's absurd. Yeah. And me, there's a time in my life where I was straightening my hair every single day. And my hair was thick. And I was spending 15 to 20 minutes each morning straightening my hair very nicely, meticulously. And they didn't look, I didn't do them that well also. They didn't look that much straight also. They just looked like they were naturally straight. And I loved having those naturally looking straight hair. They were easier to manage. I convinced them that I was doing it because they were easier to manage. But then, I think I was just obsessed because the quality of my hair kept getting poorer and poorer. And I couldn't go out looking like that. So, I used to straighten my hair every day. And the only reason I stopped was because of the pandemic. And then I felt comfortable at home. Not straightening them anymore. They naturally returned to their texture and I didn't chop them off. But, yeah. So, it was not so much about confidence as it was about how I was projecting myself. Yeah, because you thought that if you walked in looking a certain way, people will perceive you a certain way, right? And of course, straight hair, people think that, oh, sleek and you know, so and so, right? But you really can't control other people's opinion of you. So, they will perceive you some way or the other anyhow. Why subject yourself to all that? Not you, but in a sense, why do we depend so much on external validation? Why do we depend so much on compliments? Why are we so scared? The surprising thing is Sanjana, this is now economics. It's not just aesthetics and beauty. So, in 2019, Gia Tolentino wrote about something called the Instagram phase where the algorithm is also favoring that very typical Instagram model face with pouty lips and high cheekbones and big eyes. And that's a nose. That particular face which looks as if all of them went to the same, you know, plastic surgeon. You know, where does the buck stop? Because as many supermodels have also said, a very famous supermodel, in fact, has admitted to actually feeling very ugly at the top of her career. So, beauty is really very dull. Exactly. I think we should focus more on that. I think when we talk about the pandemic, right, it's not like people stopped taking care of themselves. I think that was self-care. Like, I don't think... I mean, if you were sitting and doing makeup in the pandemic because you wanted to, you know, take up as an art, right? It's self-care for you then. But if you're doing it just because, you know, you're so scared to go out in the public and have people look at your blemishes or acne scars, then really, are you doing it for yourself? And, I mean, of course, you can do some things. Some things you may continue to do to feel better. Some things may actually contribute to your confidence. But we really need to be intentional about where we are drawing the line. Or maybe by recognizing it, we have to learn how to draw our line a little bit closer and let quite a lot of these expensive, very outward things go. I mean, maybe, of course, the beauty industry wouldn't let it go. But as individual consumers, we have to be aware. Yeah, we have to make more informed choices, right? And I think what happens is, from a very young age, because you're subjected to certain ideas, right? Especially in India, whether it comes to complexion or weight or something. I think in India, no. I think Indian families are just left, right and centre will comment on everyone's weight. Like, I think it's just so common that people just make you feel so conscious. So, also about how fair or dark you are, Sanjana. Huge, huge topic ever since a baby is born. How dark you are, how fair you are. So, it makes sense that women have become conscious of it. It's not like I don't understand where that thing comes from. Of course, I have been conscious about my body. That's why I've gotten laser hair removal. I just wish I could make more informed choices. I wish I could sort of, you know, be like, get this confidence earlier of not pleasing so many people. Yeah. Maybe a small set. Yeah, exactly. And eventually come to a point where I'm just pleasing myself, right? And I think that sort of brings to the point that, you know, I just wish we were all nicer to each other. Like, I mean, people just didn't comment on each other like that, right? About their complexion or some or the other thing, right? Or the aesthetics, for example. Yeah. But at the same time, I would like to point here that we are not being those super sensitive feminists who are saying that now you can't just comment at all on anything related to women. You will be cancelled. It's not that. It's that you kind of always know, don't you, Sanjana? When someone is doing it with a, you know, undertone of maliciousness or a passive-aggressive ki, Sanjana pati ho gayi ho toh. Versus when someone is genuinely complimenting you because they love your hair. You know that, na? That I think everybody does. When it's targeted at you, you know, you always know where that thing is coming from. How fake nice someone is trying to be or how genuine a compliment is. What you're trying to say is, not that don't give compliments. Please give compliments. Tell people when they look good. Yeah. But still running that this is not a compliment, that you're looking fair today. Or that that's never a compliment. Yeah, just stop commenting on people's complexion, especially in India, I think. I've gotten so, you know, conscious about it that I'm scared of getting tanned now. Like, you know me, I'm always running away from the sun and I'm putting my sunscreen stick like 100 times a day because I've just, and I really want to get away. Because I have realized how much time and energy I waste fretting over tanning. And money, Sanjana. How much money? Beauty costs money. Beauty is. Pain? No, it's not. None of it is true. Also, one more thing, I think our families also do this a lot. I think my mom made me feel very conscious about my stretch marks. The amount of procedures she's made me go through to get rid of them. And nothing can make those stretch marks go away. And I was never conscious about it. It's just that, you know, when people just keep on pointing it out to you, you somehow end up becoming very conscious about it, right? So, yeah, I think be more cognizant of it. Don't let people make comments about you. Tell them that very nicely, this is not justified. We don't want these comments. At the same time, do nice compliments. Yeah. Yeah. And bringing it to the end, in the last segment of absurd things that people say to us. Oh, yes. Tell me, Vandika. What's the most absurd thing you heard? The absurd comments both of us heard after coming back from a break, a holiday, back to work. I heard, hmm, you've gained weight. And Sanjana heard, hmm, you've lost weight. No, no. Your face is looking thin. It's specific, Vandika. It's very, very specific. Your face is looking thin. I mean, now I have to, I'm staring at my face. Oh, is it like thinner? No, is it thinner? And I get so affected. I really, oh, Vandika, I hate it when I get so affected by this. Yeah. We are learning. That's why we are doing this episode. We are also learning and growing. Yeah. Becoming more confident in our own bodies. Yes. Although I'm sure it will be a long, long journey. Yeah. But we are on it. Yes. And with that, we come to the end of the episode. Rage on and smash the patriarchy. Bye.