how 'instagram face' made me love myself more

i'll have... what i'm having

There comes a time in every “26-year-old teenage girl’s” life when they must answer the (pun intended) age-old question:

To inject or not to inject?

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It’s no secret that women are constantly praised for appearing younger than their true age, naturally or with enhancements. We know this. It’s muscle memory at this point to hear someone’s age and immediately (without missing a beat) respond with any of the following:

• Seriously?

• You look way younger!

• I totally thought you were [insert age 7 years younger here].

Even if it’s not necessarily true, and guess what? Even in my twenties, I hear it.

I’ve had middle-aged men tell me that I’m practically a child for being born after James Cameron’s Titanic, yet in the same breath, tell me I look great “for my age” at only 26.

I must have missed the memo where 26-year-olds look visibly haggard. Silly me!

On the topic of age, this isn’t another think-piece about The Substance and what it says about modern beauty standards, society’s disdain for aging, or even Kim Kardashian’s hilarious takeaway from the film. Although I may make a joke or two because I am a full-time, self-appointed, unsponsored ambassador for the “Get Demi Moore an Oscar” campaign.

Kim, you little comedian.

Everything has already been dissected…almost as much as our faces. Ha!

This newsletter comes fresh off the heels of dozens of recent interviews, studies, and news articles about the “death to fillers” era we are supposedly dragging our feet into.

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Are We Entering the Anti-Filler Era?

Celebs Are Getting Their Filler Dissolved, But Is Everyone Else?

When Filler Removal Goes Wrong: ‘My Lips and Cheeks Caved In’

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Are Fillers Officially Over?

Countless celebrities, including Kylie Jenner, Olivia Culpo (whoever that is?), Kristin Davis, Simon Cowell, and even some of the Love Island cast (arguably famous for looking twice their age), have admitted to getting their facial fillers dissolved. But what does this mean?

Have we reached the light at the end of the tunnel? Is the rat race over? Can we finally go home, leave our faces alone, and love ourselves?

Of course not.

According to the 2023 ASPS Procedural Statistics Report by The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there was a 7% increase in minimally invasive procedures compared to the previous year, with hyaluronic acid filler treatments up 8%.

The headlines are simply just headlines. People are essentially reversing their hyaluronic filler… just to go back and get slightly less hyaluronic filler. It LIVES.

The truth is that celebrities and real people alike are afraid of turning into Monstro Elisasue, but they are totally fine with being the version of Sue that has to pull a chicken wing out of her belly button.

Okay, I’ll stop referencing The Substance.

Now that celebrities are “coming clean” about the dissolving process, is it then disingenuous to conceal the fact they are still getting filler? They aren’t denouncing filler altogether, but just…you know, the bad kind that people can tell they have. Boo, that kind! 👎

I am a part of the camp that feels celebrities don’t owe us anything. I just assume they all have work done and they don’t need to “admit” to anything because I have the media literacy (ew, buzzword) needed to understand that everything is most likely a carefully crafted facade and not to be looked to as a realistic standard of beauty… sometimes.

I’m a young woman with a face, so I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t cried in my bathroom wondering why I don’t naturally look like Bella Hadid, only to realize that Bella Hadid doesn’t even naturally look like Bella Hadid.

Only Carla Bruni naturally looks like Bella Hadid.

And that is okay.

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“Instagram Face” is Still Alive & Well

Big Beauty is spinning the narrative that a more natural look is in (even though they’ll push 1000 products on you to “help” achieve it), but I am still inundated with “Instagram Face” daily —in person and online.

Jia Tolentino wrote for The New Yorker In 2019 of “Instagram Face:”

“It’s a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips. It looks at you coyly but blankly, as if its owner has taken half a Klonopin and is considering asking you for a private jet ride to Coachella. The face is distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic—it suggests a National Geographic composite illustrating what Americans will look like in 2050, if every American of the future were to be a direct descendant of Kim Kardashian West, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner (who looks exactly like Emily Ratajkowski).”

You know, what your face looks like when you select the “Hollywood” filter on Facetune. It exists in the real world now and not just among celebrities/influencers, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

“Preventative Botox” has a chokehold on so many Millennial and Gen Z women to the point where everyone is starting to vaguely look the same. An over-filled face is becoming the norm and I don’t think it’s slowing down.

“Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future where science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now, in The Twilight Zone.”

Can I Age Naturally & Still Feel Good About Myself in THIS Society?

As I said before, I’ve grappled with moments of inadequacy in the facial department since the current beauty standard seems to be plastered and reinforced everywhere.

But I am fatigued.

I’ve had people come up to me on the street and ask if I wanted to (casually) attend a Botox Party. I’ve been to a med spa where they took up close pictures of my face just to tell me I need thousands of dollars of facials, extractions, and filler, or else I’d look like the Evil Queen from Snow White by the time I’m 30. Nice try!

Seeing the same facial features slapped onto everyone makes me appreciate what I have. I don’t want Number 12 to look just like me. I want to look like me. Why are we all in a race for the same face?

Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t look like the Crypt Keeper at 40, so why is the fear-mongering working on so many of us?

Everyone is so scared of aging that when we see a wrinkle or an unfamiliar line, we don’t recognize ourselves anymore.

An older version of us doesn’t exist yet, so it’s hard to come to terms with it. We want to mask it with Botox and filler. Problem solved. Wrinkles gone. Along the path of trying to feel more like ourselves, we actually end up looking like everyone else, because everyone has the same idea —slowly morphing into filtered versions of who we think we are.

I had this sad revelation when I watched the 2025 Golden Globes this year and noticed how much filler Nikki Glaser had in her face just to host the event. As a long-time fan of hers, she was almost unrecognizable to me and looked like just another influencer who had fallen into the Instagram Face trap.

[Also, no shame to Nikki, she’s fabulous no matter what.]

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Uniformity Isn’t Hot — I’ll Have What I’m Having

Author, Ellen Atlanta states in her book Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women:

“Uniformity has been used historically as a form of control and subordination: by conforming to copy/paste versions of one another, by assimilating into an assembly line of identical faces, we lose a sense of our individuality and of our humanity. It goes beyond aesthetics; it’s a political act that hinders our self-definition and ultimately strips us of agency.”

The more I see the same face copy-pasted across my feed and at the local Whole Foods, the more I realize that I’m cool with my own. Not because it’s perfect (it’s but because it’s mine. It moves, it wrinkles, it emotes—things faces are supposed to do.

Of course, I’ll continue to wear sunscreen, moisturize every night, and take care of my skin naturally, as best I know how. I’m not some kind of monster!

Ironically, the era of Instagram Face hasn’t made me want to chase an injectable version of myself—it’s made me want to stay myself. I’m not saying I’ll never tweak or touch up (I fully reserve the right to change my mind when gravity starts plotting against me) but for now? I’ll keep my dark circles, crooked nose, and razor-thin upper lip.

And if in ten years, the beauty standard shifts to haggard chic? Well, I’ll be so ahead of the curve.

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