THE DARK SIDE OF CHINA’S FACE OBSESSION…

[00:00:00]So, we've talked a lot about beauty standards in Western countries like America on this channel. And while they are truly crazy, I want to move the spotlight to a different kind of obsession. And honestly, that's China's terrifying beauty standards. Like, it's so bad that I want to say that it's almost worse than what I've seen in [music] Western countries. We've got paper-thin waists, V-shaped faces, and massive eyes, and just the insane procedures that they are willing to undergo to fit the beauty standards. So, buckle up, besties, because we are going to be discovering China's very dark face obsession. And we also have to answer one question. Why in the world are their beauty standards so toxic in the first place? And before we hop in, make sure you guys like the video, subscribe down below if you're not already. And if you guys have $5 laying around that you're not going to spend on a Starbucks beverage this month, then feel free and maybe consider subscribing to my Patreon down below. It is the only way that you guys can help support this channel. And any of you guys that are subscribed to the Patreon, thank you so much. I'm not even going to lie when I say that when I see the ideal Chinese beauty standard, I feel creeped out. Because it is at a point where these women don't even look real anymore. Their eyes are almost 1/3 of their faces. Their chins are itty-bitty, teensy-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini tiny tiny. And their skin is like eerily pale and white. They truly look like ghosts, and it's actually so black and white how different the beauty standards are where I've grown up versus over there in China. And what's even worse is how skinny these girls are trying to be. And I I'm not even saying that to be mean. It's just if you take a closer look at any of these individuals, their arms are like toothpicks. Like, tell me that they don't get tired trying to open up a jar of pickles. In fact, there is an entire challenge dedicated to holding water in their collarbones. I love my collarbones so much.

[00:01:53]Well, I don't. I I don't love your collarbones. This is tripping me out.

[00:01:58]>> People putting fish into their collar bones, the collar bone challenge. How many coins can you rest on your collar bone? The more, the better. According to the collar bone challenge that emerged on Weibo, in theory, the thinner you are, the more pronounced your collar bone is.

[00:02:12]>> What in the AI is happening over here?

[00:02:15]Respectfully, what are we looking at?

[00:02:17]These people don't even look real.

[00:02:19]>> This is the collar bone challenge where girls and even men would show how deep their collar bone is by stacking as many coins as possible inside their neck.

[00:02:28]>> Many netizens engaged in various spin-offs of the challenge in an effort to point out how ridiculous it was since in >> You have an illness. You do.

[00:02:37]This is insane. Do you know what I'm saying? This is scary. Or even their bird leg standard where they want their legs to look like a bird's leg. Do Do you know what a bird's leg looks like?

[00:02:48]Looks like a toothpick. They want their legs to look thin and long. And by the way, clearly, these standards are very unhealthy. Like when I look at these women, I can already see that they don't have any muscle. These are the types of arms and legs that you get when you don't work out, you don't move your body, you haven't gained any muscle, and you're not eating any food. You're not nourishing your body. sad fact is these are the women that need to lift weights and do some form of training the most.

[00:03:12]Women are way more susceptible to getting osteoporosis, think about having irregular periods, or even PCOS. And weight lifting is one of the greatest ways to alleviate any of those potential problems. So, it just doesn't sit well with me when women are encouraged not to do any of those things, even though we have so much health information to back all of those claims up. Instead, they're actually told to keep up with some of these strangest beauty trends I have ever seen. Because there's actually something called high cranial volume, which was influenced by Korean idols.

[00:03:42]Okay, no, you guys, like I actually don't think you're ready for this video.

[00:03:45]Like the S-H-I-T I'm about to get into is it's it's actually like I I like convince me I'm wrong, because it's insanity. The high cranial volume is where the tops of their heads look more voluminous, which in turn makes their faces look much smaller and more petite.

[00:04:02]>> After removing it, those zeros instantly become voluminous. If you still don't you know how to use the K S K S fitting comb, hurry up and watch here. For those with fine, soft, flat, oily, or thin hair, how to quickly create a voluminous and long-lasting high cranial top. Step three.

[00:04:14]>> High cranium top? This I feel like I'm in a nightmare. Like I was already worried about my weight and my skin and my back rolls. Now I'm worried if I have a voluminous top portion of my head.

[00:04:26]Lord knows my head's already voluminous enough. Cranial top isn't a thing.

[00:04:36]Bro, this is so weird. This app really has something new every day. No, like seriously, I can't keep up with this BS.

[00:04:43]Like this honestly just shows me how bored you are. Because what are you talking about? I have >> low cranial top. I hate it so much. Oh my gosh, no. No, no, my collar bones, my cranial top. We're cooked.

[00:04:57]>> Get get a job. Like go contribute to society. One of the biggest examples is the obsession with this V-shaped face.

[00:05:04]For years now, a narrow jawline tapering into a very pointed chin has been very highly promoted throughout East Asian beauty media as a symbol of youthfulness, elegance, and femininity.

[00:05:14]Now, again, I'm not trying to be mean at all here, because this is really just me stepping into a world that I'm unfamiliar with. So, let me take back and say I'm I'm not trying to be offensive or rude. I guess the way that I have to look at this is the way that some women here might be obsessed with having larger lips and going out and getting tons of filler or going out and getting a big butt. These are just different beauty standards in a just a different part of the world. So, this is like the same thing in a different font.

[00:05:40]I guess the reason that I find it so weird is like I don't find it any less bizarre that people are willing to risk their lives to get a bigger butt. I guess it's just something I'm more familiar with. This to me is just insane because it seems like they're not problems. They're not Like I understand a interesting nose that you inherited from your grandfather and you're trying to be a cute girly girl. I understand why girls get rhinoplasties. This to me, I simply can't understand the fascination. Viral facelift massage.

[00:06:08]>> For an after half face, it's so much more lifted and defined now. I'm going to show you girlies how to get a facelift at home that looks snatched.

[00:06:13]You can use a firming cream to help to lift your skin for even better results.

[00:06:16]I'm using the Olay Ultra Firming Serum first. I'm going to apply here. I love the texture. This is designed to hydrate and firm the skin at the same time. It has PHCA to reduce skin damage and bakuchiol, a natural retinol. A godsend for sensitive skin girlies like me because this helps to reduce wrinkles without being too harsh like a retinol.

[00:06:31]>> It's an ad.

[00:06:32]I'm just letting you guys know it's an ad.

[00:06:35]I already thought that facial massage seriously caused some of your most important tissue to be breaking down.

[00:06:42]Like people that do extraordinary amounts of gua sha, you're really just breaking down tissue because you keep ripping it, ripping it, going back and forth. So I don't know if I trust this.

[00:06:52]A V-shaped face. See and I just I don't know what's What do you mean before and after? She's gorgeous in both pictures.

[00:06:59]I'm not saying gua sha doesn't work, but idols definitely don't use it on their face. Their face will be taken care of by professionals and they don't have time to do that. This could be an ad.

[00:07:07]It's definitely surgery. There you go.

[00:07:10]This ideal has become so influential that there has just been a massive surge in like V face products. Like the facial slimming devices and even jaw reduction surgery. Clock the jaw reduction. I've thought about it myself. They've just become major parts of the beauty industry. Obviously, we just watched all those videos and all they're doing is promoting products to slim your face down that probably don't work at all.

[00:07:31]Cosmetic surgeons across China and South Korea still are reporting that these facial contouring procedures are still amongst the most popular, particularly amongst younger women seeking smaller lower faces.

[00:07:43]>> See now, and if you guys think that I cannot relate to this, you're you're asleep. You're out to lunch. Yes, you are. Because my god, like my ex-boyfriend used to tell me I have the biggest head in the entire world, and that I should never ever put my hair behind my face, because you would see how absolutely ginormous my jaw is. So, if you think for a second I haven't lost sleep about the idea of getting a jaw surgery, I have, girl. I so have. But, you know what? One day I woke up and realized it's just not that deep. It's not that deep. No, it's not. I'm going to embrace what I have. Though I look very eerily similar to my father, it's a good thing. My dad's good-looking. Then, there are the eyes. Now, this one is a little spooky. Large eyes have long been associated with youthfulness and attractiveness across many cultures, but Chinese beauty platforms often take this idea even further. Makeup tutorials, contact lenses, eyelid tape, digital filters, and cosmetic procedures are often utilized in order to create the illusion of larger, rounder, brighter eyes. Now, what makes this so aggravating to me is they are blessed with a mono lid, with a certain type of eye shape that anybody in Western society, we cannot achieve it. So, I don't understand how they could create a beauty standard that is literally the opposite of what these individuals are born with. It truly makes me upset.

[00:08:58]Because no matter how no matter how beautiful they naturally are, they are looking for a result that is not anything that they could achieve naturally.

[00:09:09]Oh my gosh.

[00:09:12]I MEAN, SHE'S GIVING professional makeup artist. I mean, like I mean I'm I'm not somebody that ever felt like you can't express yourself using makeup.

[00:09:25]I do think that that's very interesting, and like look at how incredible, like in terms of like you want bigger eyes. It's giving onset. It's giving visual effects. It it's doing something. I I in a way I just find it shocking that the beauty standard could be so different from what they're naturally given.

[00:09:41]Because there's so many reasons to love your natural eye shape when you're blessed like that. Double eyelid surgery has become one of the most common procedures that is actually done over in East Asia with many patients seeking the operation not because they dislike themselves, but because the procedure has become so normalized that it's not even looked at as like cosmetic. It's just routine. And how do these trends get spread? You're probably asking.

[00:10:05]Well, it's through an ecosystem. This is an entire digital ecosystem where beauty has become something that can be measured, optimized, scored, corrected, and constantly improved. It's an ecosystem built on the idea that every part of a woman's face from the shape of her skull to the size of her eyes, the width of her jaw, the color of her skin, to even the amount of fat sitting inside of her face can all be analyzed and if necessary fixed. And the craziest part is this isn't occurring in some obscure corner of the internet. It's happening on some of the biggest social media platforms in the world. Platforms like Douyin, which is China's TikTok, and Xiaohongshu, which is sometimes called Little Red Book, have become enormous beauty ecosystems where users will often share skin care routines, cosmetic procedures, makeup tutorials, and beauty advice literally every single day.

[00:11:00]This is like these are just crazy like if I have her makeup skills, it's over for you guys. I wish I could do makeup like you.

[00:11:09]I mean, it's a great video, but like I I don't know what my if I was like a 10-year-old girl growing up watching this. Researchers studying Chinese social media have found that these platforms create incredibly dense networks of beauty-related content where algorithms repeatedly recommend appearance-focused videos increasing users' exposure to idealized faces and bodies. And honestly, I think that's what makes this so fascinating. Because the more I think about it, it's not like China's beauty standards are really that much more extreme than anybody else's. I think China has created one of the most efficient systems in the world for manufacturing appearance anxiety. I mean, let's just take another look at how all of these trends miraculously evolved. How did we get to a point where women are noticing such minute anatomical details that no normal person would notice in everyday life? Women began balancing coins, water, makeup brushes, and other inanimate objects in their collar bones with the idea that the deeper your collar bones are, the thinner and more beautiful you appear.

[00:12:07]Some women even poured water into this like hole in their collar bone to show that it would actually hold water. It wasn't wasn't just some random Tik Tok trend like, oh, look, I can actually do this. And I remember looking at these videos just thinking like, why? We're really proud of the fact that if we remain this body weight, we probably won't have a period. Our bones are going to deteriorate. We're going to get osteoporosis. You're not going to be able to have children. to be tired, exhausted, worrying about what you eat all the time. What is the point? And then there was an iPhone challenge where women would literally place their iPhone along the lengths of their knees just to show how tiny and thin their legs are.

[00:12:42]Alongside these trends comparing thigh width to the width of a smartphone or seeing whether both knees could fit behind a phone when standing together.

[00:12:49]Again, the challenge obviously wasn't actually about health because these people aren't healthy. I think that's one of the biggest differences between these online beauty ecosystems versus like real traditional beauty. Beauty has basically been broken down into dozens of microscopic categories that can all actually be optimized independently. And once beauty becomes that fragmented, something really dangerous starts happening psychologically. Researchers studying body image call this body surveillance where people begin habitually monitoring and evaluating their appearance from an outsider's perspective. People begin constantly observing themselves, seeing if their faces are slim enough, whether their posture is flattering enough, or their skin is clear enough. But like, what is enough, right? Studies have constantly linked higher levels of body surveillance with increased body dissatisfaction, [music] anxiety, and unfortunately, disordered eating behaviors. And honestly, I don't think that these beauty challenges are about printer paper or collarbones at all, even. I think they're training women to see themselves as a collection of measurements. Because if these weird platforms can constantly convince women that there's just one more little thing to improve, then there will always be another product to sell, another influencer to follow, another clinic to visit, and then just another reason to keep scrolling. Women's insecurities, as we all know, have become one of the most profitable things on the internet. Once you start following the money, you realize that there's an entire industry that profits off of women never feeling good enough. If women are worried about the size of their eyes, oh, well, perfect. Now we can sell eyelid tapes.

[00:14:20]We can sell circle lenses, those eye-brightening tutorials. They can even sell you cosmetic procedures to fix this new problem. Again, I don't even see it as a problem. It's weird. China has one of the largest beauty markets in the entire world, with the cosmetics and aesthetic medicine industries growing into sectors worth hundreds of billions of yuan. Alongside this, social commerce platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin have fundamentally changed the way that beauty products are sold because people are no longer finding products through advertisements in magazines or even like television commercials. They're discovering them through influencers who are convincing you that they have found the next solution to another appearance-based problem. Researchers studying China's digital beauty economy have noted that social commerce blurs the line between entertainment, community, and advertising, making these beauty recommendations feel kind of like they're friendly advice when they are directly tied to commercial incentives.

[00:15:16]They don't care about you. You'll open Xiaohongshu looking for a makeup tutorial, for example, and And you'll come across some influencer doing the weirdest ugly to like beautiful transformation you've ever seen using the weirdest most like intensive makeup routine in the world, which again aren't even real by the way, because when you actually deep dive and look at these videos, they're clearly filtered or like weird ass AI because [music] you know in a moment make it all.

[00:15:47]Like what is happening? Like what is happening? I swear not only is the after filtered, but the day before is filtered. This doesn't even look like a person. And let's not talk about that cranial bump, right? She's really bumping it up there. It's like it's I'm I'm convinced it's not the same person.

[00:16:02]I I'm convinced that they are doing some freaky deaky stuff for these videos.

[00:16:16]Ladies, I think I've seen enough. I don't think I want to watch any more of those. They give me the heebie-jeebies.

[00:16:20]And because these stories start to feel vulnerable and relatable, I think the audience really starts to lower their guard. They stop feeling like they're being sold to because the recommendation feels wrapped around someone's very real personal experience. And this becomes even worse when Chinese live stream shopping gets thrown into the mix. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but here in Canada, we do not have TikTok shop. We don't have any of these things where people are like go buy in my TikTok shop or link to TikTok shop. Like we simply don't have that, but I can imagine how tempting it would be when you're watching a girl use a product and you're like looks good. Like if I just click that, I'm going to buy it and it's going to come right to my house. Live stream shopping has completely transformed the relationship between influencers and consumers. Beauty creators don't simply recommend products anymore. They demonstrate them live, answer questions, create urgency through limited time discounts, and encourage viewers to purchase immediately before stock runs out. This sounds a whole lot more like a greasy QVC. I mean, we didn't have QVC, but we do have something called The Shopping Channel.

[00:17:18]Very, very similar, but QVC is a little bit more entertaining. But, this kind of feels like a more extreme version of that. Studies have found that this combination of social interaction, the scarcity of it all, and of course, the trust significantly increases the consumers' actual want to buy the product. Because purchasing really starts to feel more like they're participating in an event rather than making like a financial purchase. Like, this just genuinely feels dystopian.

[00:17:45]When you see these women trying to show you a product in 5 seconds while this AI filter is glitching all over them, girl, I can see right through you. You are so translucent. I just don't know how people can watch this, let alone be sold. Chinese woman loses 40,000 followers after her AI filter fails live in front of thousands. I just don't think any of this is real. It's not It's like none of this is real. I I truly like the more that I look deeper into it, I'm not saying that people don't do certain procedures. I mean, that's all very real. But, everything that you see on these apps and the way that they sell individuals, it almost feels like a farce in an attempt to get you to follow or purchase whatever they're selling.

[00:18:25]Because if every day you're told that your skin isn't pale enough or your facial proportions aren't correct, then eventually you're going to get to the point where facial contouring, the eye makeup, it's just not going to be enough for you anymore. One of the things that genuinely surprised me when I was researching for this video was just how normalized cosmetic procedures have become within China's beauty industry.

[00:18:44]Cosmetic surgery there, it seems like it's not treated like some big dramatic once-in-a-lifetime big decision.

[00:18:50]Increasingly, it's marketed as another form of self-improvement. It's presented almost like orthodontics or skin care, where improving your appearance is framed as something responsible people do rather than something extraordinary.

[00:19:02]Some researchers studying China's aesthetic medicine industry have noted that younger consumers increasingly view cosmetic procedures as an investment in themselves, particularly because physical appearance is often tied to influencing opportunities, dating prospects, and even social mobility. And once surgery starts to be framed as self-improvement rather than just surgery, this psychological barrier completely changes. You then start asking yourself, like, why wouldn't I improve myself if every other person is doing it, too? Plus, humans are far less likely to perceive something as extremely risky if they're exposed to it more often. Psychologists call this the mere exposure effect, where repeated exposure to an idea increases people's comfort with it, even if nothing about the underlying risk has actually changed. This reminds me a lot of BBLs.

[00:19:49]Like, people can literally be told, "Bro, you could die from a BBL."

[00:19:53]Actually, the likelihood is relatively high, and they simply don't care because all the girlies are getting BBLs, the rappers in the songs are talking about BBLs, every girl south of Miami has a BBL, so why wouldn't I? It's normal. And then the more frequent that these cosmetic procedures are popping up in somebody's social media feed, the more ordinary it begins to feel. And this is why this entire phenomenon is actually starting to worry the Chinese government as well. It's very rare that governments themselves start publicly talking about appearance anxiety as some sort of genuine problem. But over the last several years, Chinese state media and government agencies have repeatedly begun warning about something they call appearance anxiety, arguing that social media platforms, these beauty apps, and all of these cosmetic procedures are really creating these unrealistic beauty expectations that are particularly having a very harmful impact on young people. Chinese regulators have criticized beauty-focused algorithms, misleading cosmetic surgery advertising, and apps that digitally alter humans' appearances so drastically that they start to distort what real human faces are supposed to look like. Imagine every time you scroll on TikTok, all you're seeing are like not just idealized cosmetically altered faces, but you are seeing faces that are completely impossible to achieve. They're not even real. Like, this is giving so AI computer generated. Because even when the country that is benefiting from the world's largest beauty industry is starts acknowledging that beauty is becoming an unhealthy obsession, you know that something much bigger is happening. Even the criticism coming from China isn't specifically saying that cosmetic surgery is flat out bad.

[00:21:25]The criticism is that there are enormous financial incentives encouraging companies to manufacture insecurity in order to sell solutions. If a clinic can convince somebody that their jaw is too wide, then it can sell you jaw contouring. If it convinces you that your eyes are too small, then it can sell you eyelid surgery. This has become such a concern that Chinese regulators have begun tightening oversight of the medical aesthetics industry, introducing stricter requirements for cosmetic advertisements, increasing scrutiny of unlicensed practitioners, and attempting to really crack down on this misleading marketing that really exaggerates results or downplay surgical risks. Tons of researchers have noted that these regulatory efforts aren't just aimed at improving patient safety, but also reducing the aggressive commercialization of appearance that has honestly flourished across social media and online marketplaces. Cosmetic surgery has grown into an enormously profitable industry, but regulators have become increasingly concerned that rapid commercial expansion has outpaced consumer protection, allowing misleading advertisement and unqualified providers to flourish in some parts of the market.

[00:22:28]And honestly, after spending time researching China's online beauty industry, I don't think the biggest lesson is that China is somehow uniquely obsessed with appearance. I think the biggest lesson is that China shows us exactly what happens when beauty becomes one of the most profitable industries in a digital economy. China shows us what beauty culture looks like when social media, cosmetic surgery, artificial intelligence, influencers, live stream shopping, and billion-dollar beauty companies all start feeding into each other at the exact same time. Because at the end of the day, the scariest thing that I discovered when researching this video was not the surgery or the beauty challenges or even the impossible beauty standards themselves. It was realizing that there is an entire economy built off of women never feeling good enough about themselves. And honestly, I think that is a much bigger problem than any beauty standard ever could be. Thank you guys so much for watching today's video.

[00:23:18]If you enjoyed it, throw it a big fat thumbs up. Subscribe down below if you're not already. And if you guys enjoyed today's video, you can go ahead and click this playlist cuz I know you will absolutely love it well cuz I made it. Have an amazing day or night whenever you're watching and I'll see you guys very soon. Bye guys.