This week, I read Algorithmic Beauty: The New Beauty Standard by Huang and Fabi. It relates heavily to my topic for my MA project, as filters and modification apps due to a new beauty standard from digital media are what my entire project is about. This entire article is about explaining the rise in algorithmic beauty. This term, in other words, is the idea that the influencers and beauty seen on digital platforms influence real-life beauty standards and how people perceive beauty. “Influencers in the beauty, cosmetics, and personal care fields have some of the largest followings on social media and it was estimated that beauty companies spent $2.6 billion on digital advertising in 2022.8 While there is no direct link between the popularity of beauty topics on social media and the number of cosmetic procedures being done, parallel trends have been observed” (Huang et al). In other words, because of this algorithmic beauty being mainly based on filters that modify face and body shapes, etc, this leads to cosmetic procedures to reach this level of beauty in real life. Eventually, a new algorithmic beauty standard or aesthetic will be popular amongst the digital media, and this process continues to go in a circle, and people change their bodies and faces to match the new standard.
This contributes immensely to my project. A term that would be useful to this article is the hyperreal, which is a keyword for my research; the idea that what we see in the spectacle (algorithms) is taken as a definition for beauty, in this case for reality, but it is only real within the digital hyperreal. This causes people to go and make intense body modifications to reach levels of beauty standards that do not exist outside of the hyperreal. This will be super important when writing about the digital filters and modification apps in relation to beauty standards created in the spectacle. Beauty standards in real life are replaced by algorithmic beauty standards that only exist in the hyperreal, and when young kids see this, they are normalized to the idea of body modifications and certain gender/social stereotypes in relation to their identity.
This week, I have filmed a mock interview to get an idea of where my questions are for my documentary, so I can continue to finalize the questions I want to ask. I also have a confirmed committee member whom I met with this week, and have sent emails to two other professors in hopes of a chair and a second committee member.
Huang, A. Fabi, S. (2024). Algorithmic Beauty: The New Beauty Standard. https://jddonline.com/articles/algorithmic-beauty-new-beauty-standard-S1545961624P8074X/