Beauty is in the Eye of the iPhone Holder

What is that saying — “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”? Is that from the bible? What did the bible say about hands being occupied by doomscrolling on Tumblr for hours on end? Oh—Solomon didn’t get that far? Well, when it comes to impressionable youth in a digital age, sometimes idle hands might be better. 

The devil’s workshop looks quite enchanting to an eleven-year-old girl who finally got the iPod Touch she had begged her mom for incessantly. The devil’s workshop is seductive and masks itself in aestheticism, and suddenly, that 11-year-old girl is having difficulty differentiating this aestheticism from reality, and picking an unfair fight with every meal and every zit that clouds her once-porcelain skin.

Baudrillard speaks of this, but his preachings mostly land on deaf ears because the chances that an 11-year-old is going to pick up Simulacra and Simulations before she picks up that iPod Touch are slim. After she unlocks the door to the devil’s workshop with facial recognition, she’s already beyond salvation.

The devil locks the door to his workshop from the outside. There’s no escape. If Baudrillard were an influencer, however, maybe then we all would listen. If Baudrillard were a digital philosopher who masked his preachings in the form of 30-second videos sponsored by Sugar Bear Hair Gummies and Noom and Skims and preached about hyperreality and social media and the self as simulacrum in Gen Z internet brain rot lingo and had a filter on that smoothed out his skin in between ads for Ozempic and preventative botox (whatever that is) while doing so, maybe then we would have listened. However, then he’d be brimming with hypocrisy (and simultaneously proving his own point). 

The devil’s workshop has teams of masterminds meticulously curating it to allure and seduce and keep you imprisoned with addictive qualities and feedback loops, and all of a sudden, you didn’t realize your friend Violet had a thigh gap, and you didn’t. Your once-idle hands aren’t so idle anymore because now they’re trying to see if they can fit around your wrist. Now your not-so-idle hands are down your throat because they didn’t fit around your wrist, and that's a problem that was never a problem before your not-so-idle hands started doomscrolling on ED Tumblr and discovered “pro-ana” (or pro-anorexia) communities and discovered words like “thinspo” (short for “thinspiration”). Now your not-so-idle hands are flipping over everything at the grocery store before putting it in your cart, and eventually it becomes so routine that it feels less like a choice and more like an instinctual duty that is impossible to unlearn. Now your not-so-idle hands are purchasing and applying loads and loads of under-eye concealer and shopping for shapewear online and investing in retinol, and looking up the benefits of "preventative Botox".

Beauty trends evolve with the times, but their presence on the internet remains just as prevalent and dictatorial. 

“Clean girl is out, mob wife is in!” 

I seem to make out the letters on my screen to say, as I squeeze my eyes together as tightly as possible to shield myself from the light, which poses a threat to my circadian rhythm. 

“Heroin chic is back! Are these stars on Ozempic or is it cocaine?”

8:52 AM. I literally just woke up.

“Buccal fat removal is trending!” “Thin brows are back!” “Hooters is going out of business because people don’t like big boobs as much as they used to.”

Jesus. I just wanted to check the news to see the most recent mayoral polls update. This is the first one I’m old enough to vote in. I open my email instead. It’ll sure be somewhere in there.

“Top 10 dermatologist-recommended products to get rid of those fine lines beneath your lips.”

Fine lines beneath your lips? That’s a thing? Wait, do I have fine lines beneath my lips? I mean, I’ve never been told I do…but I’ve never been told I don’t. I pull out my phone camera. Wait…now that they mention it…I mean, kinda…when I smile…but I guess they’re not that bad. Wait, maybe that’s just because I’m young—should I take preventative measures? 

I open my email again.

What are the top 10 dermatologist-recommended products?

Top one is $88 for 4.9 ounces. That’s about 5 hours of work at the cafe, but if I get the hostess job, that’s only 4 hours. Hmm, do I want this more than the haircut I was meaning to get? I mean, chin-length hair really suits my facial structure…and they say “once you get a bob, you can never go back.” Hmmm, chin-length hair or chin lines (or lack thereof, I suppose)? As for rent — I’m sure I’ll be fine. If I’m pressed, I can always just become a stripper — that is, if I’m in shape enough. Am I in shape enough?

I rush over to the mirror. I lift up my shirt a little. I slept on a bare mattress that night because my bedsheets served a greater purpose covering my full-length mirror.

Looksmaxxing this, red nail theory that, hip dips this, hair theory that. I remember the day I started picking a fight with my own silhouette. I’d become so apoplectic with rage at the sight of my own pubescent reflection that I would let my BMI plummet to a number lower than my age, my heart rate to a number half of what it’s supposed to be, and my period disappear for years due to malnourishment.

The internet made me realize that no matter how beautiful I was or thought I was, there was always going to be someone more beautiful than me—that no matter how good I looked, I could always look better. That sure—beauty is subjective, but how subjective is it really?

Men on the internet sexualized me well before I should’ve been and made me believe I was the one that was supposed to repent for their sins. The words came out of their mouth, yet I was the one washing my mouth with soap. Being born a girl is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

The internet made me realize that beauty is a tool—a weapon. There’s something so deeply dangerous about having been attractive and knowing it at a young age—about never doubting that the bat of an eye can unlock many doors that others didn’t have access to—about knowing that if you were ever short on some money, you could always get the “smile wide discount”. You learn things early. You know things that you’re not supposed to. I was very young when I discovered this, and I’ve held onto everything I've learned. 

From the instant I found myself old enough to type and cognizant enough to consume media, I was unwillingly exposed to unhealthy behaviors modeled by my peers and internet moguls, which prompted a subconscious but deeply-rooted desire to look a certain way—a desire to hold onto and maximize that very same pretty privilege that unlocked doors to rooms that were impermissible for most to enter. Unsurprisingly, these behaviors metamorphosed into habits of my own. I developed an unhealthy, unnatural mental fixation with food. Food consumed me instead of vice versa.

Behaviors became habitual, and time began to pass over me instead of with me. I began to see time as a challenge and an obstacle—rather than an abstract concept. The devil seemed to have nailed my eyelids open and onto phone screen—with no permission to travel elsewhere—so that he could shove fresh inspiration in my face on the daily. Naturally, I became the one to consciously seek this content out. 

Eventually, I was sent (or sentenced—which is more representative of what it felt like) to an eating disorder hospital at 14 years old—wasted youth in a hospital bed, deprived of the outdoors, tube-fed, and supervised at every moment (including during bathroom trips). Have you ever been incarcerated for a crime against yourself? I know Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were in that hospital room with me—watching over my bed and laughing at me as I sobbed while being force-fed Ensures. Jobs and Gates plucked the Play-Doh out of my hand and exchanged it for retinol—the communion dress off my body and exchanged it for Skims—the chocolate milk out of my glass and exchanged it for a Kool-Aid I’d never be able to stop drinking. Early technological masterminds commodified my adolescent self-esteem until I was hospital bed-ridden from being poisoned by this very Kool-aid.

After being catapulted and forced into “recovery”, the devil’s workshop had my hands tied behind my back—figuratively, not literally—because they were far from idle. Doomscrolling, subconscious comparison, and hyperfixation on old photos of myself counteracted any progress I might have made. My old clothes fit again, but I was still imprisoned by the same thoughts. Maybe at a certain point, I was the devil, imprisoning myself, but would the devil know she’s the devil if she had wounds through each of her palms and her arms spread wide beside her?

It became a long battle of man versus self, years before I was able to actually recover and delete toxic apps and old, sick photos of me from my phone and send myself back to purgatory.

I was interested in getting a clinical perspective on this subject matter to supplement my personal experience and insight, and I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to speak with a therapist who works with adolescents at elementary school ages.

Therapist Kelsey Dagen, MA, ATR, LAMFT, has worked with a plethora of patients of various demographics—their ages spanning from those barely old enough to be able to read, to those too old to be able to read anymore. She’s seen the contrast of those barely touched by the depths of the internet versus the other end of the spectrum of those most touched by and most susceptible to the impact of the internet and all its might. 

“When we are at that young age, we are grabbing onto everything that is being presented—each and every feedback loop—and that usually comes from family, but now at a younger and younger age we’re being exposed to the internet, so that can be very impactful during that pubescent stage,” Dagen explained to me. “Puberty is happening younger and younger. It used to happen around 7th grade and now sometimes we’re seeing it happen as early as second.”

Puberty greatly alters the appearance of adolescents—which is, of course, interconnected with confidence levels. These pubescent stages are when we’re most sensitive to criticism and feedback—whether positive or negative—and building our self-esteem, so what others say about you (including but not limited to in social situations and online) can affect how you feel about yourself almost irreparably. Not only are children undergoing puberty at earlier ages, they’re gaining access to the internet at increasingly younger ages, as our increasing societal reliance on the internet makes it almost impossible to operate without it in the modern age (I’m sure the term “iPad baby” is familiar with many). 

“I think it can be generalized to instant gratification too,” Dagen elaborates. Of course, some Instagram users have a tendency to become hyper-analytical when it comes to the number of likes and comments they get on pictures of themselves in comparison to pictures of their friends, and “If someone leaves you on read on snapchat, it means they don’t like you. You’re ugly.” Dagen pokes at a tragic but true way that younger and chronically-online generations have been conditioned to think. “If someone half swipes you, it means they don’t want to talk to you.” The unfortunate part is I remember thinking like this not that long ago. “This all has to do with our self-esteem at this young age where we are grabbing onto and internalizing everything,” she explains. 

She also brought it to my attention that AI has also led to many cases of bullying—in instances of Snapchat filters and other methods of photo-altering being used to edit images of peers in a less-than-flattering manner and being sent around.

Dagen and I discussed the link between adolescent eating disorders and unfiltered access to the internet, and she specified that what she has to say regarding this subject is her professional opinion based on observations and her years of practice rather than fact, but it appears that “it all has to do with that addiction-type mindset” and that “screen time is addictive” in a similar sense that eating disorders are, so people who develop internet addictions are already predisposed to eating disorders because of their addictive mindsets. She believes that a hyper-online presence and being exposed to these unhealthy beauty standards and pro-eating disorder communities can, in a sense, activate a pre-existent disposition, so it’s oftentimes almost a matter of which came first—the chicken or the egg?

Dagen left me with the following insight: “I try not to demonize technology because it can be used as resourcing—depending on how you filter who you follow, so it can be helpful, but I do want to highlight that it’s not always up to the kids to wean themselves off of this. It’s more of a systemic thing that needs to be addressed, but we are really giving these kids two steps back in life by exposing them to all of this at such an early age. We are really doing them no favor by letting the iPad be the babysitter. We have to lead by example.” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t believe in sanitizing reality or heavily policing children in the name of safeguarding their innocence and can confidently say that a lot of good has come out of my early exposure to the internet, but like many of the most impactful things in life, it is a double-edged sword and a slippery slope.

Being raised on social media when our brains are so malleable can undeniably make this desire for instant gratification more of a long-term, deeply rooted instinct. There’s no question media literacy is declining, and as a society, we’ve gravitated towards favoring efficiency to critical thinking—having evolved into a headline-oriented society that is far more likely to find out about current events from Tiktok than reputable news outlets.

Thanks to feedback loops, instant gratification, and accessibility that have raised a generation of hares rather than tortoises, I have little faith that the majority of my peers will have made it this far into the piece, but I chose to write this piece as someone who is far from immune from all of the things I appear to condemn—as somewhat of a testimony to its unremitting imprisonment.

They say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but who are they and when did they say it? “They” first said it in a year that ends in “B.C.,” so the beholders they alluded to never had access to Tumblr while growing up. They never had strange men on Omegle sexualizing their pubescent bodies and they never had ads for weight loss products and altered pictures of bikini models shoved in their faces during their youth. In this digital age, sometimes the beholder has no choice but to have their perception distorted. Sometimes beauty is in the eye of the marketing companies and the billionaires and the tech bros that create systems generating feedback loops, commodifying adolescent vulnerability. Sometimes beauty is in the eye of the devil—regardless of whether your hands are idle or not.