Suckers for beauty

Some people would argue that beauty is skin-deep, that it is one's personality that matters. But who are we kidding? Just as Taylor Swift said in her song Lucky One, 'Everybody loves pretty. Everybody loves cool.'

If it is talent alone that decides a person's career, we'd have many not-so-good-looking singers, ugly actresses, and fat models on TV. In real life though, to be successful we are pressured to look good according to society's standards. That is why our famous celebrities have unattainable perfect faces.

How we appreciate beauty

To tell you more accurately about how we appreciate beauty, I'd give you a specific phenomenon I experienced.

It all started in sophomore year, when our dorm serviced wi-fi. Ash and I would use her laptop to browse through Facebook to search for the prettiest girls we knew and then decide how beautiful  they were.

Just to clarify, nothing here is weird. We simply appreciated our acquaintances' beauty so much that we'd boast about them to each other. It became some kind of competition on who knew the prettiest girl on the planet. Sad to say, it ended as fast as it started. It was a one-day competition in which we realized we had different types of girls we liked.

However, it didn't end there. Recently, in our new dorm, our roommate Cham brought a magical broadband modem, and although it was the slowest I had ever encountered, it worked. Not surprisingly, they searched the pages of their good-looking lady friends. I was reviewing for a long exam so I wasn't a participant but a mere spectator who would give them approval or otherwise.

Shin Min-Ah, a famous Korean actress who played the role of Mi Ho from My Girlfriend is a  Gumiho. Photo taken from the Internet.

Cham never brought the magical stick again, but then on our own, we started to download photos of pretty celebrities, shared them via bluetooth, and gazed at the images in our phones until we were out of the trance. In fact, we'd download photos even of the non-celebrities so long as they were beautiful. Maybe it was stalker-like, but to us three, we were merely looking at the faces who did and who would make it big in life.

The Media

Perhaps we did this because we were in awe of their beauty. Either that or deep inside, we actually wanted to be as pretty, sexy, and perfect as the pretty people probably were.

With this realization, I find it disturbing and would like to blame the Western Popular Culture I so adore. Show by show and advertisement by advertisement, the media would portray the certain kind of perfectness we are supposed to follow. We use whitening soaps, moisturizing lotion, and oil-control face wash for this reason--to be beautiful--because women are meant to be as gorgeously appealing as American models.

Jennifer Lawrence, one of Hollywood's prettiest face today. She played Katniss from The Hunger Games, and she received an Oscar from playing Tiffany of the Silver Lining's Playbook. Photo also taken from the Internet.

Even in China, people are becoming major Western Pop Culture consumers. Signature brands of the US are making their way to foreign malls. I also saw on National Geographic how surgery was becoming more and more famous to the Chinese. One of their most famous actress had her eyes widened, her eyelids doubled, and who knows what else she did to her whole face. You get the idea.

The Average Joes

We are then, left with the conclusion that we are indeed suckers for beauty. We want what we see on TV. So what do we do aside from buying products that could make or break our chances?

Some of us become anorexic. Some of us develop low self-esteem and some of us are pressured to the extent that we go under the knife. Some would post photos on Facebook to fish for the necessary compliments for boost.

Nonetheless, some of us would focus on what we do best and thank God for the imperfect face and body. Some of us would still make it big even without the pleasantries. Some would still eat chocolates to be happy and not mind the pounds.

Just as it depends on who is looking to appreciate art, it depends on who is using the media to be affected. We should learn to be critical on what we see and hear, and on what we accept as norms and goals. We are affected to some extent, but all of us are ourselves responsibility.


We live in a society we didn't choose. We live by the kind of rules we didn't agree on. Our lives are shaped by the community, yes, but our success lies on our hands and the strength of our faith. Not all of us may be beautiful, not all of us may have the edge, but maybe we should think of beauty as more of an 'advantage' than a requirement. A few some may have it, but not all have the heart. Also, not everyone who is adored is happy. Quoting Swift's same song: 'You don't feel pretty. You just feel used.'