It’s finally the start of the year again. It’s the time to make vision boards, set resolutions, and plan total rebrands at 2:00 in the morning. I have plenty of goals for the new year myself, but one that I’m committing to, and I hope we all consider committing to, is decentering beauty.
At first, I thought that beauty itself was a losing game, but that’s not necessarily true. It’s when we choose to cling to beauty standards that we lose every single time. To summarize a full article into a sentence: we win when we ignore the pressures of conformity and choose for ourselves what our own beauty will look like, whether that aligns with the “standard” or not.
In this article, I will walk us through the current state of the beauty industry in relation to Gen-Z, my personal journey with beauty, and my plans for continuing to decenter beauty in my life for 2025.
The Beauty Industry, Gen-Z, & Social media
Are you Doe Pretty or Siren Pretty? Girl Pretty or Boy Pretty? Do you have pretty privilege?
What’s your aesthetic? Clean girl? Vanilla girl? Old Money? Are you a Downtown girl? Uptown girl? Coastal grandma? Dark Academia? Light Academia? Coquette?
Have you heard of Lipstick Theory? What about Blush Theory? Hair Theory? Red Nail Theory?
Although it is true that every generation has had its own share of beauty-related fads that influence how people, especially women, view themselves and shop for themselves, Gen Z has experienced beauty pressures like never before. The key difference between Gen Z and past generations is, of course, social media and the rise of content creation.
In 2017, Amazon launched its Beauty Influencer Program which especially took off thanks to TikTok. According to Forbes, 83% of Gen Z women bought beauty products based on recommendations from content creators. In 2024, several videos trended on TikTok discussing how more and more young girls, specifically under the age of 13, can be seen in Sephora purchasing beauty products. In a New York Times article discussing this phenomenon, the CEO states that much of this can be attributed to the video-sharing app.
In my experience with TikTok, there have been many fun trends, such as BarbieHeimer, but there have also been quite a few odd trends from TikTok that are really just body-checking in disguise. A content creator by the name @notjaydejames gained 53.8 million views and 4.8 million likes for simply showing her “perfect nose” from the side. Another TikTok creator went viral for making a video ranking 4C hair, a very curly hair type only seen on black individuals, as the worst hair type and not worth wearing at all. What saddens me most are the several individuals, mostly women, on TikTok who have made posts where they simply ask their For You Page to comment all of the things they can do to make themselves physically more attractive.
Pressures to appear more attractive are bad enough on social media, but it unfortunately doesn’t stop there.
My Journey with Beauty
The first time I was bullied for my body was when I was ten years old. Through middle school and high school, bullying, eventually regarding my entire appearance, didn’t cease. Much of it was tied to my dark skin tone, as colorism is prevalent within many ethnic cultures.
My upbringing ultimately proved to me the fickleness of beauty. When I was around predominantly Black people during my teenage years, I was considered too skinny. Coming to TCU, a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), I began to worry I wasn’t skinny enough. My lips were a little too small for one culture’s beauty standard, but a little too big for the other beauty standard. Besides the differences in how beauty is defined across cultures, there is also the fact that beauty is defined differently across time. Hair has trended, makeup has trended, even bodies have trended — it’s exhausting.
Then, there is the topic of modesty. Growing up in a strict, southern home, I felt that the language around women who wore revealing attire was very derogatory and cruel. If I’m being honest, I was excited to begin college so that I could have the freedom to dress less modestly. That way, I could finally feel like a woman, instead of being trapped in the perception of someone’s little girl. I found that the opposite side of the spectrum was a trap as well. Suddenly, I was overwhelmingly aware of my body; I didn’t want to eat out of fear of bloating. I would compare how I looked in a mini skirt to the other girls around me. I constantly wondered how I was being perceived to the point of not truly living in the moment.
What I’m trying to say is that in the almost 12 years I’ve spent deep in the trenches of beauty standards, I have come to realize that it’s truly a losing game.
So how do we win?
We have to reject it altogether.
How I’m Decentering Beauty in My Life
I am not an expert by any means, but here are the things that I noticed have worked so far when I began thinking about this in 2024. Feel free to steal whatever resonates with you, but remember that everyone’s journey looks different.
1.Appreciating My Other Traits
The first step for me is to recognize my other traits. Beauty is absolutely amazing, but so is intelligence, humor, empathy, leadership, kindness, and so many other things. If I died and the only thing anyone remembered about me was my eyebrows or figure, my life was likely wasted. I want to be known for my generosity, intelligence, and more.
Additionally, this looks like appreciating my skills. For example, I love to write (no surprise there). So, instead of focusing on what I can do next to get closer to a beauty standard that will inevitably change anyway, what if I focused on sharpening my writing skills?
Essentially, we are all so multi-faceted and deserve to honor all of ourselves, not just one dimension.
2.Embracing Body Neutrality
For me, another crucial step to decentering the impact of beauty is decentering thoughts surrounding my body. I’ve been bullied and harassed, criticized and sexualized. I’ve experienced so much with my body that what has helped me lately is not thinking about my body at all at times. Don’t get me wrong, I still prioritize my health, but now exercising in the morning is just that: working towards my physical and mental health.
Personally, embracing body neutrality has also looked like my choice to return to modesty. Keyword: choice. Dressing in a way that focuses less on my body has allowed me to, well, focus less on my body. I don’t worry about it when I’m eating or while I’m walking around or hanging out with peers. This has been incredibly freeing for me, but again, I understand that everyone sees modesty differently.
3.Spending Less Time on Social Media
I’ll admit that sometimes it is hard for me to scroll through my personal Instagram feed without wanting to compare myself to the other girls I see, sometimes my own friends. I’ve found that spending less time focusing on others and more time focusing on my self-care has aided me tremendously. It’s taught me to think for myself when it comes to my appearance and feel confident in my choices.
4.Focusing on Inner Beauty more than Outer Beauty
Last but not least, I have found that redefining what it means to be beautiful has helped me most of all. What started this line of thought for me was my newfound faith in Christianity. I have found many pieces of scripture that speak to the beauty of a kind spirit; kindness is even one of the key elements of love in my faith (1 Corinthians 13:4).
I think that once I started taking the time that I would usually spend focusing on how to look better and put that towards thinking about how I could treat others better, it truly changed my life. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true! Inner beauty is the best beauty a person can have. Outer beauty is wonderful of course, and I don’t think it’s wrong at all to want to look pretty, but how we treat others has to become a greater priority.
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Beauty is great so long as we define for ourselves what it looks like. It’s okay to agree with the current beauty standard, and it’s okay to change with them. What’s important is that we choose to define beauty in a way that isn’t driven by the opinions of others but by how we truly feel.
All of these things take time, so I’m going to, above all, be very patient with myself in this journey, and I hope you are too.