Vanity

Those constant Zoom calls and Google Meets are fundamentally altering how individuals perceive their facial appearance. A study shows that people spending more time staring at their digital reflections than the actual speaker. In addition, thanks to appearance-enhancing filters, they’re finding themselves more likely to consider cosmetic procedures as a result.

Much like staring into a mirror for extended periods, spending hours on video calls has created a new form of self-scrutiny. Platform features like “touch-up my appearance” filters, which provide an airbrushed effect, might amplify this effect by presenting users with an idealized version of themselves. This phenomenon shares similarities with ‘Snapchat dysmorphia,’ where people seek surgical changes to replicate their filtered images.

Survey results show that nearly 89% used videoconferencing platforms more than three days per week. Perhaps more tellingly, 68% reported using appearance-enhancing filters more than half the time during their calls. 66% of participants admitted to focusing more on their own image than on the speaker or presented material during video meetings.

Most striking was the connection between self-viewing behavior and cosmetic procedure interest. Among those who frequently watched themselves during video calls, over 80% expressed interest in cosmetic treatments. Popular procedures under consideration included chemical peels, fat reduction, laser treatments, surgical reconstruction, dermal fillers, and neuromodulators like Botox.

In today's digital age, selfies have become a global phenomenon. Millions of people, especially young adults, spend countless hours capturing and sharing images of themselves. This trend reflects a growing desire for self-expression, social validation, and personal branding. Here are the most current stats as of the end of 2024:

• 92 million selfies are taken every day.
• Individuals spend 54 hours a year (or 7 minutes a day) taking selfies.
• The average “selfie-taker” is 24 years old.
• Women take 1.5 times more selfies than men.
• A full 95% of youth have taken selfies, compared to 63% of those aged 35–54 and only 44% of people over 55.
• Roughly 33% of pictures snapped by 18 to 24-year-olds are self-portraits.
• Millennials are forecast to capture around 25,700 selfies over their lifetime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Kind of makes you think that the world was a little less narcissistic when we had to pay for film.

Anxiety around aging may be universal, but recently some members of Gen Z have been voicing acute distress. A few widely circulated social media posts have advanced the tantalizing theory that Gen Z is “aging like milk,” which is to say, not well.

In one viral TikTok video that has been seen nearly 20 million times, Jordan Howlett, a 26-year-old with a dense beard and professorial glasses, says that he thinks he and other members of Gen Z look more mature because of the stressors heaped on the generation. In another, a wrinkle-free young woman named Taylor Donoghue feigns outrage at commenters who thought she might be in her early 30s. “Bye digging my own grave,” Ms. Donoghue, who is 23, wrote in her video’s caption.

The oldest members of Gen Z are around 27. It may be that, like every human before them, they are simply getting older. The trend is all but certain to persist.

Humans have been trying to chase away gray hair for millennia. Clay tablets from the Assyrian Empire dated to the 7th Century B.C. mention using the gall of a black ox, cypress oil, licorice, and honey to turn gray hair black.

Ancient Egyptians applied oil cooked with the blood of a black calf, according to the 3,500-year-old Ebers Papyrus. (Presumably, if it worked, we’d still be trying it).

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who is spending millions experimenting on himself to slow aging, posted a YouTube video detailing his regimen to reverse hair loss and graying; the video has over 1.5 million views.

Johnson, 46, uses two topical treatments. One contains an herbal extract that, Johnson acknowledges, has colored his hair. But he says something is reversing his grays. When he has looked closely at plucked hairs, he says color has returned to some of them.

What is working? He isn’t sure. Johnson’s routine also includes more than 50 supplements daily and trips to a Honduran island for $25,000 gene-therapy injections.

Tom Brady has expressed frustration with the attitude of new athletes in professional sports. On the "DeepCut with VicBlends" podcast, he discussed the self-centered mindset of younger players.

Brady said, "I think the biggest problem with a lot of (expletive) kids these days, it’s all about them. Their brand, their social media. When it’s about ‘me’ and then not about ‘us,’ well, there’s no way to succeed as a team if all you’re doing is thinking how selfish it is for you to get the attention."

VicBlends agreed, emphasizing the value of elevating others. "It’s cool to show the world how great you are, but the most inspiring thing is how great you can make others."

Brady reflected on the broader implications. "That’s the point of life. Is what we could do – how do you help other people finish the race?"

Maybe money does buy happiness, after all—especially if you can afford more of it than your pals.

That’s according to the findings of a recent working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper used a survey of Dutch households to determine whether believing you’re in better financial standing than your peers can impact your beliefs and behavior.

The most striking finding? Believing you earn more than your peers—whom researchers defined as people of similar age, education, and marital and homeownership status—actually makes you happier.

That impact was evident regardless of actual income, researchers said. In other words, it didn’t matter how much money respondents actually made, only how it compared with others’ earnings. One of the lead authors of the study said, “When you realize your [relative] position is good, then you’re more happy, It’s not about the absolute number.”

According to The Washington Post, there’s a new social media trend of which to be wary.

There is an increasing popularity of travel influencers – models who make a living creating social media content in far-flung locales. They combine two already popular trends: content around makeup and beauty products, and content around travel tips and trends. As these two content lanes have merged into one larger lane, there’s been an uptick in beauty and makeup tutorials for travelers and aspiring travel influencers.

For example, a number of popular accounts on TikTok have promoted the idea of the passport glow-up –an excessive makeover to beautify one’s appearance before taking an official passport photo. But the trend is starting to crest in popularity, not only because other trends are taking their place, but because travel experts are warning users of potential complications afterwards.

“I’ve never been so humbled in my life,” wrote influencer Alisha Marie, in a TikTok video. She told her followers she almost was denied boarding on a flight because the TSA official didn’t think she looked like her passport photo, one where she was wearing heavy makeup. She said, “This is why you should never do hot photos for your passport.”

According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, passport photos must bear an “accurate likeness” to the traveler. There was a similar confirmation from State Department. “If you plan on wearing makeup in your passport photo, we encourage you to stick to a makeup look that is consistent with your regular makeup style.”

That’s a trend that travelers would be mindful to heed.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It’s appropriate to dress well and be presentable to people, but if we chase glamor, fashion, and status, we are following the way of the world.

One-third of U.S. adults said they would probably or definitely take a drug to prevent or reverse graying if such a medication were approved, according to a poll of 9,000 people. Some endorse gobbling black sesame seeds and blackstrap molasses to give gray hair the brush off. Others take liquid chlorophyll or douse their hair in onion juice. In online forums, posts about reversing grays can draw hundreds of replies.

Humans have been trying to chase away gray for millennia. Clay tablets from the Assyrian Empire dated to the 7th Century B.C. mention using the gall of a black ox, cypress oil, licorice, and honey to turn gray hair black. Ancient Egyptians applied oil cooked with the blood of a black calf, according to the 3,500-year-old Ebers Papyrus. (Presumably, if it worked, we’d still be trying it).

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who is spending millions experimenting on himself to slow aging, posted a YouTube video detailing his regimen to reverse hair loss and graying; the video has nearly 700,000 views.

Johnson, 46, uses two topical treatments. One contains an herbal extract that, Johnson acknowledges, has colored his hair. But he says something is reversing his grays. When he has looked closely at plucked hairs, he says color has returned to some of them. What is working? He isn’t sure. Johnson’s routine also includes more than 50 supplements daily and trips to a Honduran island for $25,000 gene-therapy injections.

An article in The New York Times explored the following scenario. Perhaps this routine sounds familiar: You wake up, look in the mirror and scrutinize the dark, hollowed-out skin underneath your eyes. You look exhausted, despite having slept well. And maybe you look older than you are, too.

According to the article, “Dark circles are one of the most common skin complaints … Some skin care products can offer some benefits, but they may not live up to their brightening claims.” The article concluded that most solutions for dark circles under our eyes aren’t really solutions.

Eye creams and serums that claim to improve dark circles can be expensive. And most haven’t undergone any real intensive lab or clinical testing, so they’re often ineffective. Because dark circles can have various causes—there is not always a one-size-fits-all solution for getting rid of them.

But the best part of the article is tucked away in the reader comments section. Two women offered perhaps the best solution on the market—acceptance. Here’s what Clare from DC wrote: “I'm 92. Nobody looks at me anyway. Just be glad you can open those eyes every morning.” Then TheraP from the Midwest wrote: “Maybe we need to just accept the aging process with a certain humility and a bit of good humor.”

Augustin Lignier, a photographer in Paris, created a photo booth for rats. He took inspiration from B.F. Skinner, the famous researcher who made The Skinner Box, designed to dispense food pellets when rats pushed a designated lever.

It became one of the most well-known experiments in psychology. Reward-seeking rats became lever-pressing pros, pushing the bar down over and over again in exchange for food, drugs, or even a gentle electric zap directly to the pleasure center of the brain.

Mr. Lignier built his own version of a Skinner Box—a tall, transparent tower with an attached camera—and released two pet-store rats inside. Whenever the rats pressed the button inside the box, they got a small dose of sugar and the camera snapped their photo. The resulting images were immediately displayed on a screen, where the rats could see them. (“But honestly I don’t think they understood it,” Mr. Lignier said.)

The rodents quickly became enthusiastic button pushers. But then the rewards became more unpredictable. Although the rats were still photographed every time they hit the button, the sweet treats came only once in a while, by design. These kinds of intermittent rewards can be very powerful, keeping animals glued to their slot machines as they await their next jackpot.

In the face of these unpredictable rewards, the rats ignored the sugar even when it did arrive, and just kept pressing the button anyway. To Mr. Lignier, the parallel is obvious. “Digital and social media companies use the same concept to keep the attention of the viewer as long as possible,” he said.

Indeed, social media has been described as “a Skinner Box for the modern human,” doling out periodic, unpredictable rewards—a like, a follow, a promising romantic match—that keep us glued to our phones.

Singer-songwriter and author Sandra McCracken writes in an issue of CT magazine:

Greek mythology may not be a guide to the Christian life, but I appreciate the clever commentary the ancient stories offer. I was recently reminded of Narcissus, the young man who neglected all other loves and physical needs so he could stare endlessly at his own reflection. Narcissus eventually dies while sitting by the reflection pool—the tragic and ironic conclusion to his selfish love.

The old, dark comedy still applies—maybe especially applies—to our modern ego and pride. We have more than just pools and mirrors to contend with. ... Aided by our phones and social media, many of us spend more time with our reflections than even Narcissus did. The overwhelming majority of Americans now own smartphones. And with billions of mobile devices in circulation around the world, the situation is the same in many other countries. We are a selfie society, encouraged to view and post about ourselves often, in hopes of attracting more likes and boosting our “brand.”

To see only ourselves and to spend life captivated by our own dim radiance is, in effect, to die. And death is always a tragedy. To see God, however, is to see resurrection and new life. When we look to Jesus to remember more fully our true worth, we gain freedom from vain self-reflection, knowing instead that we belong to the one Source of true delight.

Author Cathy O'Neal's The Shame Machine, delves into the numerous ways that corporations, governments, and much of the media have weaponized and turned into big business the shaming of individuals or groups. One example is the Kardashian empire:

Kim Kardashian's body is central to both her brand and her commercial empire. Her very profitable company sells makeup, lipstick, and other cosmetics. By early 2020 Kardashian's fortune was creeping toward billionaire status and in April 2021 it was achieved. The founding assumption of her business is that looks are not God-given. It's a never-ending job. And it's expensive. One branch of her branded enterprise involves pitching shelves of products designed to help lesser mortals achieve the perfection of the Kardashian body. For a single Instagram post, she rakes in an estimated half-million dollars. She pops up on millions of feeds, promoting appetite-suppressing lollipops, a fourteen-day detox program, and many more offerings.

She sells fantasy. And the marketing is based on shame: having anything less than a dream body is a choice. If you don't like what you were born with, you can fix it. It's up to you. This is a powerful message, especially for young women. Their anxiety regarding these issues is unrelenting, and it begins early.

These fears fuel endless business for sex-goddesses like Kim Kardashian. To inch closer to their ideal, millions of women strive, worry, work out, diet, buy all kinds of branded garbage, and yet never achieve their goal of looking like her. Many of them feel like wrecks. Beauty has long been the perfect scam, an inexhaustible shame machine.

Kelly Kay Green wanted to be someone. So, she donned a specially made dress, chugged a Coors Light for courage, and ran onto the field at the Super Bowl in February 2020. In her pursuit of fame, Green thought of everything: She selected a seat close to the field, trained with a physical therapist to stick the landing, engaged a lawyer, and bought a Velcro-equipped dress she could strip away.

Green wanted to make it to the 50-yard line from her end zone seat. She did not even make it to the one-yard line. Arrested almost instantly, she feared that her ambitions of internet celebrity would lead only to a long, cold night in lockup.

After her release, though, a photographer was waiting. Reunited with her phone, Green saw her Instagram statistics soaring. Her mug shot rocketed around the internet. Followers multiplied, ultimately hundreds of thousands of them, with many eager to pay for videos and pictures that were often at the very least suggestive. Invitations to high-profile parties arrived, too.

“All of a sudden, I wasn’t just the hot girl or the girl that ran on the field,” she said. “I was a hot Instagram influencer that ran on the field and had worldwide attention.” But she also found that fame has a downside. Green said, “[Fame] looks so inviting and so glamorous, but I learned quickly that [celebrity] events give me anxiety, being around people who are just asking me what I can do and how can I help them,” she said. “All of these things that Hollywood is, and will always be, that looked so appealing to me just turned me completely off from it.”

Green moved back to Tennessee. She still has a copy of her mugshot.

A recent interview with actress Maria Fabriela de Faria, in Global Heroes from The Wall Street Journal, perfectly reveals our culture of self-centered individualism.

When asked, “What is one good choice that everyone can make to improve the world around them?” She answered, “Look for your own truth, LIVE your own truth instead of repeating anyone else’s.” She explained: “What’s crucial to me is to make my audience . . . [question] old beliefs.” She counsels her fans to engage in a daily practice of asking, “What do I need today?” because “the only person who will know what works for you, is you.”

Actor and director Justine Bateman has never gone under the knife and never will. The 55-year-old Family Ties actress is so perplexed by society’s acceptance of plastic surgery that she has penned a new book, Face: One Square Foot of Skin, in which she explores the idea of getting some work done. She says,

Why is the idea that women’s older faces are undesirable, what is the root of all that? How did we get to this point in our current society where cutting your face up, or injecting it, or inserting plastic or whatever, is spoken about so matter-of-factly?

We went from, “Wow someone getting a face lift is quite unusual!” to, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” To me it’s really, it’s like, psychopathic. It’s lunacy, and I don’t like that we’re going along with it without pausing to think about it.

The reporter said, “What struck me in reading Bateman’s book was how much time we spend fretting about whether we should do something about our faces or hold out. And I don’t just mean older women. I have friends in their 20s who also fall into a vortex of products that promise to reverse aging that isn’t even visible yet. The Instagram generation hasn’t been spared, in fact, they may have accumulated more time examining their faces than any before them.”

Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and other social media sites have recently begun offering high-tech filters. With a few simple clicks these filters will beautify the appearance of teenage girls and young women in their social media profiles. The filters have exploded in popularity as millions of users now get “model-esque looks by sharpening, shrinking, enhancing, and recoloring their faces and bodies.” Researchers have named it “augmented reality” (AR) and are concerned that these girls “are subjects in an experiment that will show how the technology changes the way we form our identities, represent ourselves, and relate to others. And it’s all happening without much oversight.”

Both Facebook and Instagram claim that over 600 million people have used the beautifiers. Facebook reports that about 10,000 employees are working on AR and virtual reality products. More than 400,000 third-party creators have produced a total of over 1.2 million effects on Facebook alone.

Girls say an “Instagram Face” is a “small nose, big eyes, clear skin, and big lips.” Researchers are concerned that many young girls express an interest in real-life plastic surgery to obtain a look similar to their online image. Krista Crotty, a specialist on eating disorders and mental health, sees that a sense of anxiety develops when girls live with the incongruity of their online and in-person selves.

Preteens are also being affected. Claire Pescott, a researcher on preteens and social media, reports that young girls say things like “I put this filter on because I have flawless skin. It takes away my scars and spots.” She is concerned that for young people trying to figure out who they are, it can be harmful: “I don’t think it’s just filtering your actual image. It’s filtering your whole life.”

The consequences of the media’s unrealistic beauty standards on teenage girls are alarming. Dr. Jake Linardon, founder of Break Binge Eating and an editorial board member for the International Journal of Eating Disorders, gives a few statistics:

• Half of young 13-year-old American girls reported being unhappy with their body. This number increased to nearly 80% by the time girls reached 17.

• 0% of young teen girls report fears of becoming fat.

• Body image was listed in the top four worries for young women.

• Nearly half of young girls aged between 13-17 reported a desire to be as thin as the models they viewed in fashion magazines and reported that these magazines gave them the ideal body to strive for.

• Simply viewing a Barbie doll has been shown to reduce self-esteem and increase a desire to be skinny in girls five to eight years old.

• Girls who frequently read glamour magazines related to weight loss are six times more likely to engage in extreme unhealthy weight control behaviors (e.g., taking diet pills, using laxatives, vomiting) than girls who do not read such magazines.

It's a sign of the times--and maybe a sign of our culture. People are taking so many selfies, they're getting "Selfie Wrist." Tina Choi, 29, works in digital media promotion. She says a successful selfie can raise the profile and income of her clients. Choi believes selfies are an effective way of sharing a sense of yourself. "It’s really about telling a story. Where you're at. What you're doing. How active you are," Choi said.

But all that selfie taking started causing tingling in her fingers and wrist and later discomfort. After a few months she said it felt like a sharp pain in the corner of her wrist and it actually would prevent her from working. "It's a form of carpal tunnel because this hyperflexion of the wrist appears to cause … the nerve to become inflamed and angry," said Dr. Levi Harrison, an orthopedic surgeon. He said the problem begins when patients constantly hyper-flex their wrist inwards in a rush to capture that perfect angle.

Harrison showed her exercises to do for just minutes a day. After a few weeks, Tina's pain improved. Now she takes much safer selfies. "That is the nature of our generation right now," she said, "We're taking so many selfies these days."

A 1961 research project asked ordinary people to send extremely painful electric shocks to a stranger. (Unbeknownst to the participants, the fake shocks were only delivered to an actor.) A staggering 65 percent of the subjects obeyed. Most of us are confident we would have been in the 35 percent who refused to go along with this program.

But in his essay, "You're Not as Virtuous as You Think," Nitin Nohria, the Dean of the Harvard Business School, has a name for this "gap between how people believe they would behave and how they actually behave." He calls it "moral overconfidence." Nohria insightfully notes our need for repentance and confession:

In the lab, in the classroom and beyond, we tend to be less virtuous than we think we are. And a little moral humility could benefit us all. Moral overconfidence is on display in politics, in business, in sports—really, in all aspects of life … There are political candidates who say they won't use attack ads until, late in the race, they're moral overconfidence is in line with what studies find to be our generally inflated view of ourselves. We rate ourselves as above-average drivers, investors, and employees, even though math dictates that can't be true for all of us. We also tend to believe we are less likely than the typical person to exhibit negative qualities and to experience negative life events: to get divorced, become depressed, or have a heart attack.

In "The Era of the Narcissist," Aaron Kheriaty points out the self-absorption of our era:

Of all the amazing features of the medieval cathedrals, one feature stands out as very strange to the modern mind: We have no idea who designed and built them. The architects and builders did not bother to sign their names on the cornerstones. People today might ask, Why build the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres if you can't take credit for it? No lasting fame? No immortalized human glory? We're perplexed by the humility of these forgotten artists who labored in obscurity. Do and disappear? This is not how we roll in the America of the twenty-first century.

All this humility and anonymity began to change during the Enlightenment. For example, when Jean-Jacques Rousseau's wrote his book Confessions in 1789 he dedicated it "to me, with the admiration I owe myself." The book opens with these lines: "I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I mean to present my fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this man shall be myself."

In contrast, the 4th century Christian thinker Augustine's Confessions (Rousseau ripped off Augustine's title) gives all glory to God, as in his opening line from the Book of Psalms: "Great thou art, and greatly to be praised." As much as we might admire Augustine's humility, Rousseau's language sounds more familiar. "To me, with the admiration I owe myself" is a dedication that would look right at home today on social media.