This ad struck me as the culmination of a long-standing trend. I struggled to articulate it at the time, but I’ll attempt to do just that in this article.

Let’s start by the ad itself. It carries implicit symbols and memes, whose interpretations will vary wildly from person to person, but in general I believe it attempts to convey these subtle messages:

1. In order to be seen and acknowledged as an individual, one must spark admiration and rise above the crowd with a stylish look, makeup and fashionable garments. Appearance is the solution.
2. Feeling seen is about exterior validation (which requires the advertised beauty products), rather than real understanding and connection with another being.
3. You need to command the attention of acquaintances and strangers, their judgement is important for your self worth.¹

Relying only on external validation, specially from foreign entities, as a means to sustain one’s self-esteem is a time honored strategy to produce nefarious results. Yet, it’s celebrated by certain influencers, mainstream media, TV shows, ads and movies that attempt to distort a small sample into a normality.

Demanding Standards

When external validation is postulated as a basic human need, and one’s default natural, vanilla body is not sufficient to garner the validation one needs (as the above ad suggests), it soon follows that external interventions are required to achieve it.

I was fortunate enough to grow in an environment where artificial external displays of vanity were seen as a quirk, and sometimes even frowned upon (depending on the situation), thus not a requirement for a happy and fulfilled life. But once one is born or dislodged into the eye of a hurricane, it is hard to see the surrounding damage, especially when peers abide by those standards, generating an underlying group integration peer pressure.

Hazardous trends

Several off-the-shelf beauty products are known for their toxicity, contributing to increased prevalence of cancer and infertility, yet they stand as one of the cornerstones of modern standards of beauty.

How we show up is important, and is a meaningful way of self expression, but when the baseline for allowing one’s self expression requires one to consume / apply several products (sometimes on the go), or even subject to invasive body modifications, then I would argue that something is wrong in the underlying societal system.

Mind the ouch

One such body modification, turned mainstream, is the injection of botox.

Botulism is an often-fatal nervous system disease, first recorded in Europe in 1793, claiming the death of over half of those patients who had become ill through eating uncooked blood sausages. botulus being the Latin word for sausage. One one-millionth of a gram this neurotoxic protein can kill a man, and one pint would be enough to kill everyone on earth.

In 1989, purified botulinum toxin was approved as a drug under the brand name Oculinum, and later renamed to Botox. In small doses, the same nerve damage that causes fatal paralysis in poisoning cases, helps to remove forehead creases and crow’s feet, with the only side effects being an inability to express emotion using your face, and an occasional case of drooping eyelids.

Today, injecting the deadliest substance on earth into one’s face is normalized, as seen in this TV commercial (where its mid-commercial disclaimers makes one question if it’s a real ad, or a parody²), or as seen in this suggestive London tube ad:

Look Within

I hold nothing against those who choose to subscribe to a certain mode of expression or style. I too, have my own. I do welcome you to introspect why you chose it. If your sincere why comes from a deep rooted desire to feel accepted and valued by others (good to receive these in healthy dosages, but dangerous when overbearing), then it might be something to look out for.

Relying solely on external validation likely results in feelings of emptiness and insatisfaction. I’ve been there several times, and its not pleasant. Instead, attempt to obtain self validation by looking in, rather than out. Some simple, yet powerful strategies:

1. Consider your ancestors, a stable past. For example, what would your ancestors eat, do, that worked out for their health? Our bodies have adapted throughout milenia to certain patterns, and if we are on their descendancy line, surely they did something right. Time is the great filter of nonsense and fallacies.
2. Recognize the cycle: ask yourself why you are seeking external validation, and understand the patterns and needs that lead to it.
3. Practice self-appreciation: build your self-acceptance structure, practice gratefulness and appreciation for what you are and did (a journal might help).
4. Rejection therapy: put yourself in situations you seek rejection. Start small, such as asking for a discount or applying for a job you think you are not qualified for. It helps you realise that rejection is not as bad as it appears, which decreases the need for other’s validations.
5. Set personal goals: instead of relying on others to measure against, take control, and set goals that serve your needs and desires. Keep yourself accountable to hit them.
6. Listen to your intuition: you know yourself best, so why rely on others for answers? Reach within and take distraction free time to listen to yourself.
7. Self care to self validate: do activities that make you feel good, use self affirming thoughts, take care of yourself.