Vedashree Yannam

The epidemic of the Sephora 10-year-olds is finally upon us. It is almost impossible to walk into the store without getting slammed by a wall of middle schoolers screaming about the Glow Recipe Dew Drop Serum. We filmed it, we posted it, and we laughed at it. Our generation has been raised to fear aging. At a young age, the media we consumed made us realize that we wouldn’t stay young forever. That had never been a constant worry for children until the 21st century. The concept of Sephora 10-year-olds has really blown up as something almost comedic in social media over the past year, but is it really something that we can just laugh at and ignore? Young kids, chronically online, have internalized the same fear of aging, of not having perfect skin, and of not fitting the beauty standards.

Simply put, beauty standards are the societal expectations and ideals for what the perfect person should look like. The better you fit the standards, the more you are labeled as “attractive” or “desirable.” Beauty standards may vary across the globe, but in every case, they are the traits that are ingrained as beautiful in us from a very young age throughout our lives. If we look at America’s beauty standards for women over time, they are constantly changing and evolving. In the 1950’s, the curvier you were, the more attractive you were. Women were encouraged to gain weight to “fill out their curves” and the classic hourglass figure became popular once more. In the 1960s to the 1970s, women were encouraged to go to extreme lengths to become stick thin and flat-chested like many of the popular models of the time. Women looked up to figures like Twiggy and Kate Moss and constantly attacked their bodies to emulate the long, lean legs and straight shoulders of supermodels. In the 1980s, athletic and toned bodies were all the rage. Everyone wanted to be taller, have toned figures, and frenziedly bought tracksuits and leg warmers. I could literally keep going until this very moment that we are living in, but I believe the point has been taken. Beauty standards change, whether it be in decades, years, or even mere months. In today’s world, the standard is having perfectly clear, glowy skin paired with a “natural” body. Shocking, right? First, we were expected to artificially change ourselves to look good, and now apparently that just isn’t “in” anymore. The epidemic of influencers now trying to reverse their beauty procedures is also upon us.

In different cultures, beauty standards can be very different and even opposing. When cultures clash, the result isn’t too efficacious. In America, the ideal may be skinny and toned bodies. But in Africa, people may be told to idolize curvy and full bodies. The child of African parents who live in the United States may feel the conflict between the two different sets of expectations: the weight of the burden is on them. The child may want to strive for the American ideal because that’s what all their friends are doing, but on the other hand, their parents are criticizing them for every choice they make in that direction. In America, the ideal may be straight blonde hair and blue eyes. But coming from India, one might have dark textured hair and brown eyes. Like all immigrant children, they face the struggle of having to balance both expectations and ideals. Should they embrace their natural hair? Should they chemically straighten it? Should they get colored contacts? This is a big struggle at JP. We often tend to judge each other based on the level of “American” that we are or aspire to be. There is an intangible yet very real scale, and if you’re not exactly at the middle of it, you are either too “whitewashed” or you lack the ability to adapt to a new culture. To maintain this delicate balance, many pretend to be someone that they are not. To fit in, we try to learn more or change more about what we are told we should be. That also applies to beauty standards. Our perception of someone changes based on how beautiful or attractive we think they are. There are also different “types” of beauty. You may embody your culture too much in your clothing and presentation, but you may also “reject” your culture in the same way. The assumptions we make about each other all stem back to beauty standards. The cultural conflict that multicultural children face in America is one that is difficult to navigate, and the concept of perceived beauty is at the center of this conflict. It overwhelms even the best of us. All we can do is try to navigate this treacherous path for ourselves and do our best to help those who come after us.