English Version | Trends of no return

What is the real cost of keeping up to date? When something is in, it’s everything. Everything until the second it’s out, because then, it’s nothing, and God forbid you be seen wearing nothing. 

Fashion and society have built a social environment that entices us mortals to pursue being in trend. That entices us to keep up and try to stay in touch and within what is considered the best at the current moment. Whilst in fashion most of the time this consists of a particular styling, a pseudo iconic accessory or a terribly sought out garment, when it comes to beauty, the prices can be much higher to pay. 

A simple bang trim, a different makeup application or a particular product sometimes will suffice— call it the fast fashion of beauty. Something popular and seamlessly harmless, after all, makeup washes off and hair grows out. But what happens when the trend is stronger or deeper than just a product or an application? 

Suddenly, trends are about changing the shape of our face, attaining a certain body type and looking a particular, perhaps even unnatural, way. Suddenly, it's not about a specific eyeshadow color or hair style, it’s about if threads are better than botox, it’s about inhuman diets and consultations with the doctor to reach a certain silhouette or decreased localized fat. Suddenly we stop playing with makeup in our bathroom and start flirting with the scalpel, the syringe and the surgeon's table. Suddenly, being popular, being in trend, is a life or death situation, quite literally. 

As humans, we’ve progressed within society to a point where self expression and individualism is not only encouraged but also rewarded. Personal styles become signatures and looks become engraved in our minds and permanently linked to those who we admire and wish to emulate. Simultaneously, an era of self acceptance and personal journeys to fulfillment have made accessible procedures that can go from a simple rhinoplasty to intricate face remodeling surgeries or even more. 

While there is nothing wrong wishing for our outside to look as we feel on the inside, there is a fine line between accessing our true selves and falling prey to how society wants us to look in a specific moment, a specific time and a specific light — mostly just because some supermodel socialite uploaded a professionaly-lit selfie. 

Now, in a world where being unpopular is a fate worse than death and where one sacrifice is never too big in the eternal pursuit of popularity, where does one draw the line? Where do we stop? And where have we gone too far in the realm of trends of no return? 

Playing with one’s appearance is in itself a game. After all, we are customizable avatars in the eternal open-world game that is life. It’s an intrinsic part of the experience to experiment with one’s expression. But

one thing is longer hair and colored nails and another is removing the fat from one’s cheeks or even a rib from one’s cage. 

While there is no limit nor a true specific line as to what shouldn’t be crossed or where the actual point of no return is, it all comes back to ourselves and our own self. The impact that these-so-called trends have on our body is way bigger than what we might be able to comprehend at the time. Not just physically, but mostly mentally. 

When analyzing, one can choose how far to go back, but either way, history proves itself and unfortunately, is meant to be done again. We all have an aunt, mother or cousin who regrets overplucking their eyebrows to a point where only a thin line was what was left of hair. We all have a friend who suffers because instead of hair there’s a tattooed interpretation of what brows should look back in the 2010s. Today, some of us have friends who are walking around with salt and pepper brows, as they swore getting them bleached was the ultimate thing in beauty — only to discover a couple weeks later the excruciating upkeep involved with maintaining their brows platinum and the cost the skin has to pay with every round of bleach that is applied. 

Sure, brows grow out, skin heals and up to some level, tattoos can be removed. On the same line, extensions can be taken out or sewn in, fillers can be dissolved and body mass altered, if that’s the goal of course. It’s a treacherous, hard, journey, but the way back is possible. 

Nonetheless, what happens when the path back isn't there? What happens when the way back isn’t attainable within our human capabilities and unfortunately no cheat code is good enough to alter the matrix that is life itself? 

There, in that moment, is when we reach a point of no return. When the cost of the trend is a price too high to pay. A price we’re most likely to keep paying off for the rest of our time, a debt we’ll only seal when our mortal time itself runs out. 

That, essentially an eternal debt for what? Social approval in our teens? A partner in our twenties? A happier marriage in our thirties? A new romance in our forties? A second act in our fifties? 

At this point, we find ourselves in a physical paradox surrounded by gray moral ground. Because as we said, altering the avatar to better represent oneself is nothing bad, on the contrary, it’s something to be commanded, yet altering the avatar could also be our own downfall. So when does one alter and when does one stop? 

The answer, as mystical, wise and redundant as it might sound, lies within oneself and oneself only. 

The avatar should be altered when the player feels the need to better represent itself, to better identify within the game and express itself amongst its peers. To be clear, the game is life, you are the player and the world is our peers. The avatar is our physical manifestation, thus it should live up to how we see, perceive and wish to express ourselves.

Expressing ourselves. Keep that in mind — it will come to use later. 

Now, could perhaps the line be drawn when the expressionism no longer is because we wish to showcase ourselves in a certain way rather we wish to emulate a socialite, a model or a certain celebrity? Ones one could argue aren’t even capable of keeping a certain look themselves and who are more chameleonic than the chameleon itself? 

Could said expressionism be brought to the surface because we desire to bring a filter to life or to surgically annihilate the need for photoshop later? Or could it be because we’ve lived all our life inhibited by a certain way our nose looks or a certain shape our body takes? One could argue that the former is wrong, yet the latter is right — and even still, the answer would not be definitive. 

You see, much like life, trends itself are ephemeral. Saint Laurent once said, “fashion fades, style is forever”. One could now say, “trends pass, you are eternal”. How does your eternal self hold up against something that is in today, yet inevitable will be out tomorrow? A bleached fried hair is a small price to pay compared to a filler you painfully need to dissolve, and daily contouring is nothing when you think of how removing the buccal fat from the face ages in ten to twenty years. 

It’s not about being against enhancing or altering procedures or surgeries — they themselves are the ultimate alteration an avatar can have. The difference lies within it being an investment into our true self or a sacrifice to fit in what society expects us to be. Here one can deliberately say, the former is right, the latter is wrong. 

Beauty is pain, but it shouldn’t be suffering. Beauty is an effort, but it shouldn’t be condemning. Beauty is an investment and a choice, not a sacrifice and a sentence. No price is worth enough to pay today just to fit in, because fitting in today is not a guaranteed investment for tomorrow. 

By all means, play and customize the avatar. Make your true self shine through. Showcase unapologetically who you are and how you wish to be seen by the world. After all, the avatar is yours to customize and yours to enjoy, no one else's. Just make sure that in the open-world game that if life, in the eternal pursuit of popularity and acceptance, you don’t end up going down a path that has no way back. Paying a price that you can’t afford or following a trend of no return.

Translated from the original on The [Un]Popular Issue, published July 2023.Full stories and credits on the print issue.