Awesome Totally Awesome Replaced My Bumper

I Replaced My Bumper: A Tale of Avoiding Trendy Plastic Surgery

September 6, 2018/in Awesome, Life, Steez, Trending, You Know My Steez /by Olivia Hill

My formative teen years did not involve the ever-present smartphone of today, but the media still found ways of consistently feeding me the image of “the perfect body.” At age thirteen, it was bleach blond with big boobs and lots of her dad’s money—but as Keeping Up With The Kardashians aired their first season, things started to change. The idea of the “sex V” (hip bones that protruded slightly and were shown off by low, low cut jeans) was replaced by high-waisted shorts that let butt cheeks peek out, if not completely reveal themselves. As our focus in favorable body parts shifted, so did the means to achieve them.

Growing up, tip jars or piggy banks labeled “Boob Job” were everywhere: TV, film, that mom and pop shop that had a B Rating from the Health Department. The silicone implants have not been completely out ruled from our society, but now, we’re more so fixated on big butts (and I cannot lie.) And with the continuous rise of the Kardashian-Jenner family, came the most recent obsession with lip plumpers: collagen injections to the face that make doing simple things like using a straw or eating lasagna so sexy.

But what happens in the next five years? What happens when the Kardashians—or another mogul family—says that non-existent hips and thin lips are the latest craze? Will we literally sit on our plastic asses ‘til the injections deplete?

I’ve always been wary of plastic surgery—while I have insecurities (I am a woman in this country after all) I’ve never saved up for the knife. Reading tabloids as a teen that read, “CELEBRITY X’S NEW NOSE GETS BOTCHED!” made me realize that if people with millions of dollars can’t even get a correct “fix” why would a third of my paycheck put away for years on end afford me the perfect cheek lift?

The lesson was further proven when I got rear-ended about a year ago. I love my car to death and without saying exactly the make or model, (I don’t know any of you and your capabilities to stalk me) know that it has a beautiful paint job. It glows in the sun after a nice wax, but the bumper did have a few dings prior to the accident. After getting tapped and receiving a bit of new damage, I decided to take the car in to have all the marks buffed out and painted over. To spare you all from reading a Yelp review, the short version is that the auto body shop pitched the idea of giving me a new bumper completely, promising it would be a better idea than just working on what existed. What was returned to me was a car with a new bumper that did not match. No glow to the paint—in fact, it literally looks paler in comparison. And I can never go back.

Some argue that due to the semi-permanent nature of injections, one could have their “old features” back in weeks. Which means that if you truly love your “new look” you still have to schedule reoccurring appointments to keep it up! Personally, I prefer my consistent and clockwork consumption of plastic to be in the form of fast food. And unlike lip plumpers, the latter does, in fact, come with free refills.

We live in a world of constant comparison to altered images. When scrolling through photos of everyone’s best life, we sometimes lose sight of how deliberate every image is. When we mindlessly double tap we forget how much silicone has been added and then slightly altered yet again through a “face tuning” app just for one photo. Our subconscious keeps track of these “perfect” faces & bodies and slowly weaken us to the point of purchasing a Groupon on ass implants with free lash extensions when the deal pops up in our feeds. But we must remember that just like the collagen we pump into ourselves, trends fade at varying rates.