Interview about beauty standards: "Most people are much more attractive than they think."

BRIGITTE: We're talking about teams, I see myself on the screen again and have set a filter to look better. Since Corona and home office, this has become everyday life. How does this affect us?

Rabea Weihser: Our professional lives have shifted to the screen, where we already spend large parts of our private lives. This changes our self-perception. Humans are not psychologically designed to observe themselves all the time and to constantly deal with their own appearance. You can see this in the increased demand for aesthetic procedures and cosmetic surgery. Some people constantly check whether they look OK during a video conference. Surgeons' associations also suspect that people are having more work done on themselves because they can let their wounds heal undisturbed in their home office.

In the book you describe disturbing mental effects of screen time...

Yes, some studies have established a direct link between the time people spend on social media and their well-being and self-esteem. Young people who are still in the cognitive development stage are particularly at risk. Perceptual disorders, body dysmorphia and psychological disorders are on the rise among young people. It starts with insecurity. Why don't I look like my filtered selfie? Or like the person I follow all day on Instagram or TikTok? The endless viewing of distorted faces is unhealthy.

Do we compare ourselves to an unattainable ideal of beauty?

To find social orientation, people first compare themselves with the average of a population: you simply go out on the street and place yourself within a normal optical distribution. Most people are actually much closer to an attractive and pleasant average than they think. This perception shifts when they spend the whole day on social media, where the majority of people who are exposed are far removed from this social average thanks to make-up, filters and surgery. If that becomes the ideal of beauty, we can all only lose in comparison.

You also write about the connection between negative self-perception and hate comments.

We know intuitively that people who have low self-esteem are more likely to put others down in order to be able to elevate themselves above them. So it is a severe negative spiral that is set in motion by these misguided visual comparisons. And then there is the fact that people react much more strongly to bad news than to positive news. The pleasant is cognitively processed easily, but the brain stumbles over disruptive factors. That is why negative headlines work so well. And all the denigration and insults in the comments are much more memorable for us than praise.

Let's talk about the topic of standard beauty. You write in your book that the term standard beauty is empty of meaning...

Common attractiveness studies have usually asked study participants whether they find what they see beautiful or ugly. However, this binary may not correspond to our perception at all. More recent research assumes that it is more important not to be ugly than to be beautiful. The pleasant average is completely sufficient to avoid offending and to be perceived as pleasant.

So have we lost sight of mediocrity?

Yes, because of the very succinct media landscape in which we move, we feel like we have to be more beautiful than average and think that this is the norm. This is a shift in perception.

On social media, the discourse often revolves around "conventionally beautiful" people who enjoy "pretty privilege", i.e. who benefit from the fact that they look good...

"Pretty privilege" is often used as a knock-out argument when attractive people talk about failures or insecurities. They shouldn't make such a fuss, after all they were blessed by nature. But it is very malicious to assume that a person's smooth exterior means that they have a smooth interior, that they don't have unfulfilled desires or mental problems. Pretty people have problems too. Yes, the "halo effect" and "pretty privilege" are scientifically proven. But we can all take advantage of better looks, factually or autosuggestively. There is even an effective performative beauty: if we just act as if we are attractive, we will be perceived as more attractive. Of course, the effect has certain limits.

On the catwalks you can see models who are as thin as ever. Is the body positivity of the last few years over?

The fashion industry was only briefly interested in exhibiting body diversity without feeling any real commitment to it. This was apparently just a trend that came from social media, not an expression of a humanistic conviction. The old longing for slim, toned, healthy bodies, however, keeps coming back. The glorification of emaciated, half-starved bodies is of course absurd in a biological sense. But they were also worshipped in the 19th century, in the 1990s and now. I think it is important to understand fashion shows, and especially haute couture, as a magical world and theater. Not as a blueprint. These bodies have nothing to do with our bodies. This clothing is unaffordable for most people. The problem, however, is that the audience derives body ideals directly from them. When we go to the theater, we know that everything is staged. When we look at fashion photos on the social media or videos from the catwalk, we forget this media literacy.

Body positivity was followed by the Botox boom. Is there a connection?

Cosmetics critic Jessica DeFino has drawn an interesting line here. Generations X and Y grew up with a diet craze, broke free of it and - if things went well - developed body positivity. Gen Z and Gen A grew up with this body positivity, but developed an early fear of aging and reacted to it with a Botox craze. We have just loosened one shackle and are already putting on the next one. Women can't seem to free themselves from feeling deficient and constantly tinkering with themselves.

Female stars 50+ are currently being celebrated, like Demi Moore, who look like they're 30+. So older women are only allowed to be visible if they deny their age?

We are currently experiencing a redefinition of age. Even people who age naturally no longer look as old as 55-year-olds did 20 years ago. Our living conditions have improved, we know how to stay young and active for longer without life leaving too obvious a mark on our bodies or faces. Women over 45 are actually more visible in society and in the media today. Some of them consciously do not want to age, and others allow this natural process to happen. Both exist simultaneously and are OK. The entertainment industry will never voluntarily give up its obsession with youth. But we should not let ourselves be denied the opportunity to infiltrate it with a new joy of ageing.