"Respecting only women you're attracted to is not respecting women." - Anonymous

“Real people aren’t cartoon characters”. Tell that to all the rich people in the world. They seem cartoonishly evil.

I take the perspective that beauty standards are learned and therefore can and should be unlearned. Force yourself to consume more media from people you don’t find attractive. The more you see other body types the more you can see their beauty. It’s really not that complicated.

While I believe beauty and ugliness are subjective, I think there is something to say about inner beauty and ugliness. A person with inner beauty gives off a different vibe than a person who has an ugly inside.

I grew up around French Canadians, who talked about "jolie laide". In English it means literally "pretty ugly" but the French phrase refers to a person who isn't conventionally beautiful, but nevertheless is attractive to others. There are some linguistic essays about it online if anyone wants more nuanced definitions.

Loved this discussion! Though to people's recommendations to "get off social media" i would instead say "broaden your social media". Because social media does have many benefits (especially for those of us who physically can't go places due to health issues and lack of people masking). There are so many people to hear their lived experiences from, so many different aesthetics, abilities, skills to enjoy and stories to hear- but focusing on the very narrow eurocentric beauty standard in who you follow will undoubtedly only make people see THAT as the "objective ideal" when there's so many more people out there than just that 😊

the Syndrome bit really got me I had a girl on Tumblr try to convince me that beauty was based on science, and tried to show "proof" with a picture analysis from some website. That was when I learned to stop trying to argue with people online. lol

Regarding a world where beauty doesn't matter: I'm reminded of a comment about Captain Picard made by a reporter, asking why by the 24th century they hadn't found a cure for baldness, and Gene Roddenberry replied that by that time they wouldn't care.

"Beauty" has A LOT to do with how much money you have. More money = expensive products and clothes + time to focus on your looks and body. Celebs look "beautiful" because they have more money. There's a reason why popular girls are more often than not rich. Beauty is tied to class.

as someone who is consistently seen as ugly by society (im fat, physically disabled, mixed with textured hair, trans, ect.) yet my boyfriend is attracted to me for me and ive also had a lot of people tell me they find me beautiful - i am proof that beauty and ugliness is subjective and that objective societal ugliness doesn't take away that people will find your beautiful

honestly the best way for me to think about beauty is as it just being a feature. ideally instead of taking an everyone is beautiful approach, i feel like thinking of it as just another trait instead of the end all be all is the healthiest for me. being ugly does not mean a person is less entitled to decent respect. so even if i look at myself in the mirror sometimes and struggle to find any beauty there, i know that at the end of the day thats okay. idk hopefully that made sense lol

It's all about those eurocentric beauty standards, and for people like me who were not into that, people have the nerve to think I'm crazy.

Beauty standards are toxic and I try to ignore them as much as I can but it is very hard. As a black woman you get told that your hair is unnatractive, your nose is too big, your skin is too dark and the list goes on. It doesn't help that this stuff is everywhere on social media and sadly even black men join in to make fun of us despite us having the same features. I doubt that people will stop believing that beauty is objective because like you said it gives them power and they use it to deem non white people especially black people less deserving of empathy and care.

(Guy here) one of my friends in middle school was like 5'1" or 5'2" and they put him on human growth hormone so he could be taller, basically they gave radical hormone therapy to a cisgender boy with little or no questions asked. Idk how tall he is today but he was still pretty short when we stopped hanging out at like 15. Weird side effect was he had ripped abs despite not playing any sports or doing any real exercise outside of like gym class

0:05 i like how "they" define what they believe as "just the way it is" as opposed to "just the way we make it".

Even in video games I often have trouble making a good looking non-white character. Yeah sure there are non-white options, but it feels like there’s often 5 white faces to 1 black/Hispanic/Asian face

Lmao not Botox cosmetic being the ad while watching this video 😭

I believe in subjective beauty and I honestly don't even think about "below or above average" or average since that's still subjective. I just love seeing and looking for beauty in everything I see. I hope everyone can see this to because it's wonderful.

As a trans person, I'm disappointed no one in the survey delved into how beauty standards affect us in a special way (especially if you're not white). One of the first things that dawned upon me as I finally accepted I was trans was how the euphoric life I envisioned for myself wasn't just of a femme, it was of an *attractive* femme. My fantasies didn't so much focus on what I looked like, but moreso on how people treated and perceived me. The sort of romantic and sexual attention I desired (especially as someone who's into men) wasn't a given from merely being perceived as a femme, and that realization truly messed me up. It made me question my transition altogether, as I started to fear my whole transition was fundamentally an indulgence in traditional and unattainable feminine beauty standards. Furthermore, while I initially figured I wasn't going to change certain aspects of myself because they didn't make me particularly uncomfortable one way or the other (especially when it came to body hair), I eventually realized changing them would inevitably help me pass, so I did anyways. While I'm happy with my decisions, I'm still quite aware that, in another world, I could've been just as happy if I hadn't done it. Fundamentally, any disconnect to our bodies is a sole result of gender constructs and beauty standards. We would all be both trans and cis if it weren't for it. Another thing which no one in the survey mentioned is how being mentally ill also HEAVILY hinders your ability to realize yourself when it comes to your presentation, let alone confirming to traditional beauty standards, ESPECIALLY if you're trans. As someone with four diagnoses myself, it's hell.

Cheyenne, I will never understand why don’t have as big a following as a Shanspere or a Contrapoints because you CONSISTENTLY put out bangers one after another. No bad videos whatsoever.

The weaponization of beauty and how that plays into patriarchal views is especially fascinating to me. You mentioned this in how men tend to see beauty as objective, because they can then exert power over women in deeming them „objectively“ unattractive, taking away their singular value as beings in a patriarchal worldview. While simultaneously finding comfort in theoretically being able to achieve objective beauty themselves, because it isn‘t their one singular value in a patriarchy, more like a nice asset. Even if you‘re Margot Robbie, you cannot be „objectively“ beautiful in the eyes of men who seek to exert power over you, even if they themselves look and smell like a walking dumpster. In practice, I find this especially sickening when women are told from birth that beauty is their only asset, yet they‘re a shallow bitch if they‘re actually putting effort into their looks, being confident about their looks and have preferences for how their partner should look. We’re told to lower our standards if we even so much as mention that we’d prefer someone a little taller. Actually, we don’t even have to mention our preferences. I‘ve been told on numerous occasions to lower my standards by people who‘m I‘ve given no indication about said standards. Meanwhile, men can give zero fucks about their appearance and personal hygiene and can still call any woman shallow for rejecting them.

the intro of “come as you are” by nirvana ❤

"Beauty is not good capital. It compounds the oppression of gender. It constrains those who identify as women against their will. It costs money and demands money. It colonizes. It hurts. It is painful. It can never be fully satisfied. It is not useful for human flourishing. Beauty is, like all capital, merely valuable." -Tressie McMillan Cottom

I don't know where I belong in this but I've always seen every single person that had seen my eyes as art, I felt no need to see anyone be put in a box of what people place them in. Like any creation even with flaws, I've always seen everyone as art rather than "beautiful" or "ugly" in standard. It's funny since I've been born what society insist on what beautiful is and what ugly is automatically imprinted in my mind, which had harm me and everyone till this day, but I've escaped from it and everytime I look at a person I've always seen them as an art form, from how one stand, walk, laugh, brows scrutinized, gaze, and even the little imperfections that they and society feels are flaws I see as art.

Too many "universality" and "objectivity" studies don't actually demonstrate universality or objectivity --- they demonstrate a statistically significant (for some definition of significance) average. When they report variance, etc. at all, the data is usually pushed into a distribution that seems to support the assumption that the average is the result of an underlying objective single cause which is then subjected to variations, without addressing any of the (myriad) alternative hypotheses for causative or contributory factors. It's the same thing as bad "evolutionary psychology" has been doing for ages -- show that the sample population has preferences that aren't completely random, and then assume that if you can give an evolutionary or neurological explanation for that tendency, that you've demonstrated an inherent, universal, biological preference. I'm sure (/s) it's coincidental that declaring a single objective beauty norm makes it easier to socially enforce that norm as universal (and deviations from that norm by individuals or cultures/communities as "incorrect"). Excuse for enforcement disguised as description.

So happy to be early to this vid. Was really excited for this one!!

Yeah I don't get the obsession with having a fair complexion. Im from India and I have essentially become numb towards being ridiculed for my darker skin complexion, like that's basically a part of my daily life. If people think Raj from TBBT had it tough for being the indian character in an American show. I'll let you know that people here are way more shallow-minded than that.

I have a proposal regarding the idea of health and beauty. There are many correlational relationships which can be observed between things that our society sees as being "ugly" and an increased risk of health issues, typically associated with heart disease. This trend can be found not just between an individual's storage of fat and heart disease, but also baldness and other perceived "ugly" traits. When we have all of these correlates, usually the message we (should) hear from a statistics standpoint would be to investigate for some third extraneous variable that is being measured here. I believe that variable is stress. You can have fun looking up the damage stress does to one's body, but I truly believe being a person born into a society where genetic features outside of your control make people think you are ugly, unhealthy, lazy, etc. is perhaps one of the most stress inducing experiences a person can have. That is an exposure to trauma every day and one which perpetuates itself every time this person looks in the mirror, sees other people, watches a beauty add, goes to the doctor... you see what I mean. Sorry for the long comment but I'd love to have a discussion on this topic because I think it really matters.

So grateful for you for speaking on things/experiences that so often get overlooked ♡ I found your channel years ago when i was looking for more critical perspectives on American Girl Dolls (as a former doll-kid), but we seem to have a lot in common when it comes to experiences as neurodivergent femmes of color growing up in yt spaces. Whether it's about dolls, PBS kids, bullying, Bluey, or politics; you ALWAYS say the things my inner child needed to hear. So glad I stuck around; can't thank you enough ♡

One of my favorite characters of all time is "remedios the beauty," from One 100 Years of Solitude. She's the most beautiful woman in the world, and doesn't care. In the end, she gets tired of being harassed and literally vanishes into the sky. A man legit dies for her, and she thinks he's an idiot. I like that.

Wow! There’s so many great points in this video that I want to respond and reflect on, but I’ll try and keep it as brief as I can. One big point I’d like to add to this conversation is the idea of beauty standards arising mainly from white patriarchal ideas of attractiveness. I think that I would add that there are many beauty ideals that are a result of wealth and class signifiers too. For example, for much of human history pale skin was seen as a marker of refined feminine beauty, due to a bias to whiteness, yes, but also to the luxury of getting to stay indoors instead of working in fields all day. During the industrial revolution the majority of lower class employment moved into indoor factory work, rendering paleness as a sign of leisure time no longer. Then, around the 1920’s the rise of steamship travel to the tropics and train trips to Florida became financially available to the wealthy, so women with the means to do so could escape to someplace warm and return home with a fresh tan. The desirability of a warm golden tan, a sign of money and ample leisure time, still persists to this day. This historical reversal, where a long established beauty standard becomes switched up when social changes make the previous beauty ideal too available to the lower classes, is also seen in perceptions of weight. In many places and times throughout history extra weight was a sign you were rich enough to afford plenty of food, but now in an era of easily accessible junk food, weight is viewed as a sign of laziness and low class status. I imagine that there are aspects of beauty standards affected by class status that I’m not aware of, but I do think that class signifiers in beauty are worth including in the discussion of this topic.

This video is a huge oversimplification of a complex subject. "Beauty" is used to describe a whole range of things. Physical attractiveness (subjective), Health based beauty standards (objective), moral or ideological beauty (subjective), aesthetic beautys (both objective in terms of mathematical proportion and subject in terms of taste such as color, volume, texture, etc.). All of these and more interplay to determine what an individual finds desirable, be it in a human partner or in the beauty of a flower or song. So many people think of beauty as something that is or isn't, that must be objective or must be subjective, when like most social constructs it is far more complex than that. Within our biological imperatives there is room for diversity. The answer is neither subjective nor objective, it is both.

2:27 I want to be clear that I agree with the thesis that beauty and ugliness are subjective, and certainly, noone should be antagonizing others by calling anyone ugly, but I disagree that "trying to get at someone by calling them ugly reinforces objectivity." If beauty were objective, we couldn't attribute moral value to attractiveness, because it would be something entirely outside of your control. Therefore, beauty and ugliness would be facts, rather than subjective valuations of others. As I'm typing this, I think it's clearly still problematic, but it's problematic because of the way that it conflates the value of an individual with the attractiveness of the individual, which I hope we can all agree is the root of the problem; everyone holds intrinsic value for who they are, regardless of whether anyone finds them attractive or repellent, and there's absolutely no correlation between worthiness of love and physical "beauty." Again, I think (though I am only starting the video) that I am going to agree with all of your conclusions, but I want to voice this counter perspective while it's on my mind. Edit: ok, so, I reached the end of the video, and I have a lot of things to think about, still... On the one hand, I am struggling with the impulse to assert a case for objective beauty. This is a perspective I found popping up in my mind periodically, and it totally surprised me because I am definitely not a beauty objectivist, but apparently I still have some internalized beliefs or impulses that occasionally surface. I do have a system that I think more or less most everyone could agree with - BUT, each metric is still subjective and highly dependent upon individual experiences.

I think I’ve found that commodified beauty is the co-opting of features of an attractive person, and implying that the features are intrinsic to attractive traits of the identity as a whole. If a white woman has features of a black woman, and is just so alluring to the white male gaze, the outcome will be that her identity and features are tied to her, and not any interracial homogenization of beauty standards. The baddy era (check out Tee Noir’s video) also conflated physiological traits to aspects of identity. It is never enough to simply appear, one must also act in accordance with the standards that a person or group of people have set for said physical traits. This eventually leads to many people feeling a toil in appealing to the standards that were placed on THEIR OWN BODY! Also, very important, these traits do not need to be based on any objectivity. Racialized traits and their connection to beauty should be an example of such. Blackness is often seen as ugly, due to hateful institutions propagating the narrative. This symbology of the body is what capitalism preys upon, but the extended caveat is that they want to separate the meaning of the symbol from the symbol. In doing so, they can claim it as an objective statement. This line is what separates free will from determinism. If you prevent a person from knowing the science or cause behind any phenomenon, you can claim that extent of knowledge as the objective truth. We see it most commonly now as there being “2 genders”… or as black people being lazy (with the intention of removing diversity initiatives)

As a queer nonbinary person I think about beauty standards a lot, specifically how to defy them. I've found that that can be a dangerous rabbit hole in itself, but I've gotten to a healthier place by telling myself "It's ok if my body and face don't look exactly how I or others think they should. It gets me from place to place and at the end of the day, it's just a vessel for my true self: my soul." Which I guess is a fancy way of saying that what's inside is what matters. Of course knowing that personally won't change everyone's perceptions and biases, but I can advocate for that way of thinking in my day-to-day life. When my friends tell me that they think they're ugly, I remind them that they are more than their appearance. That they are whole people outside of patriarchal capitalist beauty standards.

Wow, this video is probably the best I've seen yet tackling this subject. You were very succinct and informed, expressed things in a clear manner. I learned things in this video that I did not know already. I'm so happy I watched this! I used to be extremely insecure about my looks and was bitter about it. But honestly, working on myself has been very beneficial. I'm more creative, less neurotic, I can interact with people much easier than I did when I felt as if I was a hopeless case. What's the worst that could happen? If they decide to not talk to me because I'm ugly, I dodged a bullet. I wouldn't want someone who would deny me mutual respect because they don't like the way I look, life is too short that shallowness. It took a lot to get me to this point in my life, but I am happy I took the plunge. My personal two cents on this topic is that beauty has, and always will be subjective. If beauty were objective, then I wouldn't find more than half of the people I find attractive to be attractive, and I certainly also would not be receiving any compliments on my looks. I still enjoy wearing makeup, but makeup for me has never been about hiding insecurities or wanting to look better. The main reason I got into makeup is because I've always been artistic and wanted to experiment with color and glitter lol. That being said, I dislike how the beauty industry markets its products. It still very much plays on insecurities, and a truthfully empowering makeup campaign would focus on artistry and self-expression rather than sculpting out whatever shape of cheekbone is most popular.

Fabulous and very interesting video. You always have an interesting perspective on everything and I love it!!

Oh My god That was such a deep and thorough dive Wow. Thank you for your work

I also recommend the documentary "America the beautiful" it also dives deep into this topic as well!!

I personally hold the opinion that beauty is both objective and subjective. I definitely find beauty to be more subjective than it is objective but there are people who are objectively by all metrics attractive. There are people whose beauty is not acknowledged because they happen to fall outside a specific society's beauty standards.

Really enjoying this so far. I think societally we have a conceptual slip between neurology and 'naturalness' that is unfounded. We seem to forget that brains are hugely plastic, pattern seeking and social response organs that form within a culture. Rather we see attempts to abstract emotional response, beliefs about gender and sex, and sexuality out of the culture back into 'natural' via the brain, in a way I can only see as ideological (not to mention often quite poor science. The number of times I have seen evolutionary psychologists leap from 'college students prefer' to 'therefore prehistoric society must have been organised as an individualist patriarchy in which people encountered a random distribution of complete strangers out in the wild while being manly hunter men' is honestly absurd). I think this feeds back into a common desire to find a way to game other people, in order for a minority of people (whether that be managers, scientists or philosophers) to feel like they have some how elevated themselves above everyone else by piercing through to the 'truth of things'. Ideas that 'neurological equals natural' stops us actually needing to engage with the practicality of the habituses and ideologies that form our gaze, the biomechanics that move our eye, and the very material, practical question of 'why am I looking at this person, in this way, now?'. That way we can abdicate our responsibility for those actions, or avoid questioning how our life experience might have constructed us, by clinging onto thought terminating cliches like the idea of 'instinct' or pseudo-Larmarckian notions of attraction. I get very suspicious whenever I see studies of attraction that happen to find that things we find attractive today are 'natural', or 'hardwired', or 'adaptative' (just putting aside the fact that so few things are actual direct adaptations anyway). It always raises that question of 'Isn't it incredibly convenient that all of these elements happen to have survived unchanged into modern culture?' or 'Why should we assume that groups that disagreed with us were confounded by their culture, but ours is completely not effecting us, when we are so very aware of all the effects capitalism and media have on us? Surely we should be further away from any 'pre-civilisation' biological state?' And why should we even think any of that relevant anyway? I didn't intend this comment to be this long. I have a bit of bee in my bonnet about the concept of 'natural' when applied to anything, but I think aesthetics and meaning exemplify it very well. At the end of the day things like attraction are value systems. Why should we assume that any value system that isn't directly engaged in material practice, even has a material grounding to it? Looking for a neurology of beauty is a bit like looking for a neurology of French. You're going to find stuff, that stuff will be interesting, useful and possibly consistent. But if you then try to project that back to other spaces and times you haven't observed, you're making a category error that only looks reasonable because of profound cultural myths we have in place about human nature, personhood, social organisation and so on, and neurologists often aren't critically engaged enough with these questions of ideology, archaelogy, mythology and so on to be particularly convincing in these matters. They just end up accidentally regurgitating the end of history narrative at us (that there has to be an objective truth and that we are coincidentally already there, while previous societies and other cultures are all wrong).

Your videos always calm my anxiety, thank you 🩷

Always stunned by ur videos and reaserch ❤ keep it up i binge watched all of ur vids:*3

What a timing this video had. It appeared in my feed exactly as i was resentfully thinking about the violence I experienced for the same reason.

This is interesting. I know that beauty is subjective and can't be objective but these comments are truly interesting. I've never been able to bring 10-15 people together and have us all agree on what beauty is and I've tried in 40 different countries. People like what they like and it doesn't matter what you look like there is someone who think you are amazing the way you are.

You have such great video topics. I love watching your videos!

lovely, thoughtful video!!! i listen to it like a podcast so i can learn while i clean :]]

Attraction is subjective as individual people have personal preference. But it’s disingenuous to deny that societies have mainstream standards of beauty and ugliness, and your quality of life is impacted by how well you are able to objectively fit into your society’s beauty standards. Plenty of people are able to be physically attracted to people who aren’t objectively extremely beautiful by the mainstream beauty standards. But life isn’t just about individual interactions and experiences. Beauty bias/lookism isn’t just about your dating and sex life, or individual personal interactions. It’s a wider systemic impact that affects everything and everyone. As you pointed out, beauty standards are closely connected to racism, ableism, fatphobia, classism, etc.

Damn this video was everything ive been thinking about but actually articulated and thoughtout. Thank you for this!!! I wonder how different your poll and answers to your poll would have been had your audience been a different demographic. I think that social media creates an echo chamber for users where of course youtube recommended this video to me but isnt the point of these types of videos to reach those who might benefit from these essays? And yet I feel like it won't and if it does it'll bring a ton of heat like viral political/polarizing/feminist videos have in the past. Its like I want these types of videos to reach people (men and women who think theyll benefit from capitalist ideals, but never will) and yet I'm also fear the thought of it. I'm not sure what I'm trying to convery, I clearly struggle with being articulate lol. More of why i enjoyed watching this video. Regardless, you did an amazing job!!!!

Terminally online incels are projecting their insecurities when labelling others 'ugly'

I do appreciate you went into this deep dive about this since i do feel insecure or didn't feel mattered or welcomed by how i grew up or even choose not to follow trend. Well it's nice i was told by my dad or parents i looked like snow white as a kid but it doesn't help as i grew up with puberty and change my mom constantly tells me as a teen and young adult i wasn't have enough weight or i don't have right "boobs" like my older sister or wasn't tall enough and compared it to my other family members and it doesn't help. It doesn't make it better of how i was pressed in highschool or it's a competition because all teen girls wear makeup as acceptable sexy teen women. And give me weird looks because i was wearing braces because of buck teeth ans huge bushy eyebrows and i wasn't stright or tall. As i went to college and grew up being an adult some guys only compliment on how pretty I look because i look like a 12 or 17 yr old and that's acceptable. It's very creepy if that's only acceptable beauty to how they see me. I did find out by my friend he only said this he wants to bang me rather understand me as a person since i have a mild optimism and a learning disability. I don't bother following quote on quote trends since to me it's too exhausting and it makes me even more miserable. I was lucky i have friends to say otherwise and it's more about being kind to others and to be kind to yourself and accept yourself little by little and it's not easy. People being kind and encouraging to be kind to others and yourself makes a big impactful difference.

This was a very thoughtful, well-researched video and I don’t want to minimize the work you put in…and…it killed me when “unless it these people” came up.

Thank you so much for this!

I don't like assigning values like "ugly" and "beautiful" to people, really. For me, those labels just lack nuance and complexity. Even when I see a person for the first time, I focus more on peculiar features and what those make me feel, rather than on whether they are "ugly" or "beautiful".

Yoo I love your videos so much comment for the algorithm

One common trend I see among Gen Z is their want to correct generational trauma and current societal problems for a better life, this is truly heartwarming to see. That being said, I believe that this energy should also be channeled into correcting the vanity and superficial standards that are so prevalent in our society. Social media has played a big role in pushing these standards and it feels like nothing is being done. While Gen Z is working to correct the past mistakes of past generations, they are overlooking their own very prevalent one. The younger generations are obsessed with beauty and very superficial qualities, and they should work toward shifting this attitude toward looking inside. It sounds cliche but "beauty comes from within." This is the message that they should advocate for instead of contributing to the obsession with beauty, anti-aging, and vanity. Gen Z's obsession is leading to a plethora of problems and an unhappiness and anxiety that is hard to pinpoint and get past.

Great video! Just a heads up, there was an ad for Botox right before your video, which is kinda hilarious.

💯Thank you for making this video.

As usual, amazing deep analysis. Thank you so much for sharing!

As someone who's been judged their entire life based on their physical appearance by straight people and other gay people, I'm glad I'm at a point in my life where I no longer care to be beautiful anymore. The constant need for validation outside yourself is going to destroy you mentally.

It’s literally both subjective and objective. Some aspects of physical beauty do have some scientific objectivity. Proportions and health probably relate to physical attraction. But there are also a lot of physical beauty standards that ARE subjective and based on culture/trends. There’s a lot of European beauty standards for example that are not based in science but prejudice.

I'm not gonna say that beauty standards are formed by white beauty but whitening products in Asia are not usually used to be more "white". Pale skin was and somewhere still is connected with social status as when people used to work outside in sunlight their skin was darker than the ruling class that protected their skin by staying inside or in any other way

Loved this video!

Regarding ppl, there is also an aspect of beauty that we are not taking into account: attractiveness. Like some actors who are not considered beautiful but in some roles are very attractive.

I do understand this. Beauty should not be objective. I have nwver considered anyone I have seen beautiful or ugly. I know I am beautiful based on this "objective" standard and my husband is told he is lucky and how he got me, etc. because he isnt considered "handsome". I do not find my husband ugly in any way and the personality of someone is much more important anyway. To me, beauty is all that is seen. My husband likes my personality. I am a complete hippie and I dont wear makeup. I refuse to make myself look better for any reason. I wear what I want, I hate makeup, etc. I dont pursue being beautiful. I dont have control how I look and I do feel bad because others around me feel bad. I dont want them. I have told them that they are beautiful as far as I am concerned. No one needs to feel bad about their appearance. I know I will probably get some kind of hate from people in the comment section because it's "easy for me to say" because of how I look. But I promise you that there are people who think I am not pretty. I dont doubt that for a second. The idea that attractive people are dumb is definitely thing. Many have thought I have to be stupid, shallow, etc. It isnt true. I made straight As my entire life, went to college, and Im Buddhist. I absolutely love philosophy. Just remember, beauty is in fact subjective and beauty standards do change over time. I could be the ugliest person ever next year. I dont know. Who knows what the beauty standard will be.

I would like to share, that I consider myself pretty, I usually recive compliments about my looks, and I put effort into my appearence, and things like the halo effect makes me feel bad, because puts my selfworth in doubt, am I really good at *insert activitity, achievement or things in that sytle* or its just that I'm kinda pretty and proffesors and other authority figures think of my work and achievements as "better or smarter" because am pretty and white

thank you survey takers, thank you Cheyenne Lin!

Good video. I feel like for me at least personality plays into how attractive someone is big time. We've got someone on our work crew who's literally supermodel level, but I have absolutely zero attraction to them, cause they have such an immature personality

Some parts of beauty standards are objective others are not. We are biologically programmed to avoid disease, so a swollen face or signs of infection isn’t beautiful. Our own understanding of health and ability is what creates subjective beauty. Spending time with people who deviate from our beauty standards allows us to unconsciously learn that an ‘indicator’ of ‘unhealthiness’ is a false positive, which means we will start to ignore that. An incorrect perception of reality can also create subjective beauty standards, like only seeing women who wear makeup in public, then a woman who doesn’t wear makeup becomes a deviation. That can create the false idea that women don’t normally look tired, stressed etc. so the perception of it is amplified and assumed to be a sign of unhealthiness. Our perception of normalcy is constantly being manipulated with, so therefore our perception of beauty is too.

Great video.

being ugly sucks, true ugly's like me are the ones who suffer, but people are so obsessed with beauty that they fail to see that the beautiful people in the world are standing right next to them.

About men enforcing objective beauty standards, I think that part of this has to do with the role mimetic desire plays for men. There’s this idea that if an unattractive man has a very attractive girlfriend, he must be extremely wealthy or successful or otherwise remarkable.

For me I find comfort in the fact that the truth is in the middle. Beauty will always be subjective because it's a concept and everyone defines it for themselves, it always changes and it's different in different places even at any one given time, but we can't deny that there're general tendencies that transcend race and culture that are imbedded in the human psyche. Our first reaction to something ugly or beautiful is an instinct, but we can choose how we proceed with it.

I like a lot of this vid and appreciate the content but I think sometimes the phrasing about "eurocentric thin etc." beauty standards ironically perpetuates them. I think these standards have many factors and there is always context that should be covered. Hollywood media is very white-focused but I wouldn't say this is always about beauty, it's about white dominance. Beautiful POC are not always / rarely always allowed the limelight and a big part of white supremacy is the threat of POC beauty/power. This is an important thing and distinguishment to note. So it's not always so much that whiteness is seen as more beautiful, it's that POC beauty is not allowed to feature or win many times. POC-ness is othered, tokenised. I think many speakers on this topic operate from personal experience that is 10-20 years ago and dated. It was more relevant back then but doesn't always apply today. The rise of tech/social media and media production has broken barriers and allows more POC exposure and featuring. A conventionally beautiful, thin, fit etc. POC will get better limelight and treatment in ways than a not as goodlooking, not as thin/fit etc. white person too. Class/wealth/education /social status are all relevant too. Ironically I think many POC/speakers really perpetuate eurocentric, skinny etc. beauty standards by the way they speak on it. Talking in too much black/white and really general terms doesn't acknowledge more and discuss further. In reality, many people with thinness but some thickness and curves can be seen as better and more desirable than actual stick thin people. It's mainly media and red carpet/runway and very particular social circles where thinness is pedestaled. That media is definitely not the overall social norm. A medium tanned, mixed featured, "exotic" and racially ambigious looking, thin but athletic with certain curves/muscle and boosted by plastic surgery look is becoming a top beauty standard for models/celebs and this is an important pointed direction to cover I feel.

When my hair grays it will be so much easier to dye pink, I’m looking forward to it 😊

As a man that used beard, I used to be "ugly" in the sense of not shaving and not being well groomed. Somehow, somewhere between 2012 and 2014 I didn't change a thing, and I became beautiful with my beard. Well, the reverse might as well happen, I think.

I have a question: if beauty is subjective, (i.e. in the eye of the beholder) how does that empower the individual being perceived? It seems more like it's empowering perceivers to call whoever they want beautiful, but it still leaves the perceived being objectified. This is why I've always preferred the "inner beauty" angle. I feel what we should prioritize as a society is a person's character, not their outward appearance.

I like to say something much deeper. I’m mixed and I learned beauty is a big issue. But when we talk about the rich people and models. We forget something. Beauty all of the world wants white or lighter skin. For Asia it started with china bringing it to Asia. That why everyone in Asia wants to look lighter skin than brown skin. Or tan. Then Europe had many beauty products like everyone else did. So beauty standards started when we became people that wanted the right person to like us. Women have the issue too. I never believed that because women dating women means you don’t deal with beauty. Now the reason is beauty is our eyes. I dated different people and learned what it personality which makes you call someone ugly or attractive. Look is only the thought. Now you make me think about a video. But I could talk about beauty. The reason rich man makes the beauty is because women buy into it. Us guys we buy into having six packs. Because we believe that help us get girls before personality.

I think both beauty and ugliness have objective criteria based on region and culture and harmony. But we as INDIVIDUALS take a subjective approach to beauty, since our personal standards and beliefs will change our relationship with that "objective" beauty model. TL;DR My eyes will not see the same as somebody else's, but if we're from the same place, we could probably agree on what kind of person would be hired to be a model.

I don't agree on everything stated in this video but very much respect your opinions. I hope I am allowed to disagree on some points without offending anyone and can only offer my apologies if I did. .

"be kinder to each other" most people are not going to do that any time soon.

It's only face, it says more about how humans are determined by the environment that they live in, cities. Even neuroscience doesn't question itself by examining why only feature/part of the one species is so dominant in "objective science".

Aristotle is the ancient equivalent of a Twitch debate streamer.

Can you make a video about Rihanna's racial harassment of Karrueche Tran? It was based on K foolishly deciding to get involved with Chris Brown after what he did, but Rihanna subjected her to Asian hate for it.

thank you

yeah we shouldn't be bullied for being ugly, but we are, and will be our whole lives.

The way I know that beauty is subjective is the fact that I don't have the exact same tastes as any of my friends in partners, not whether I find someone attractive, not whether I'm interested in someone romantically. None of us find the exact same type of people attractive and beautiful, that is what tells me beauty is subjective because we all have different taste 😂

you cannot make your self not hate yourself or others if it has come from most people being that way.

Taking a trip down to cope town

31:21 bars !!

Thanks!

Outer beauty, depending on preference, will attract people to your domain. But, if your soul is ugly, i.e., you are a horrible person, when people find out about that, they will never disassociate you from it. A prime example in fiction is Griffith.

"When everyone is beautiful, no one will be"- Syndrome

28:50 I don't understand what this pic is supposed to mean. Both of these girls are very conventionally attractive. Can someone explain please

Beauty is both objective and subjective. Thats the only right answers. There are traits on attractive people which change by time and by society, a couple years ago or in certain places in Africa it is more attractive to be a little heavier because it indicates status and resources. However there are also objectively attractive or unattractive trait that our bodies learn recognize as signs of better genes and reproductive capabilities.

Talk to em, Chey

As someone with palsy on half my face and yet has found success in love has pissed me off the thing about symmetry

I think an important part of what we perceive to be beautiful is what is or is not attainable for the average person in society. Think about it. During the Renaissance, the beauty standards were very similar to those of Ancient Greece: red hair, pale skin, plump stomach and thighs, small breasts. These were all signs of a wealthy young woman who was most likely a virgin, since full breasts were seen as a sign of motherhood. Pale skin would have been unattainable for your average working woman, since they would be in the sun more often, and a plump stomach meant you had enough to eat. Now look at the beauty standards popular in the past twenty years. Thin, or slim/thick, with tan/racially ambiguous skin tone. For your average woman working a nine to five job, or a twelve hour shift at a factory, these standards are difficult to achieve. She doesn’t have the time or money to go to the gym and exercise for two hours a day, and she most likely doesn’t go outside enough to get a proper tan -forget those of us with Scots-Irish blood who burn like paper in flame and can’t go out long even if we wanted to. All this to say, beauty standards are influenced by ableism, racism, and misogyny, but also by classism and the fundamental human truth that we will always desire what we do not have.

Thank you for this video. You articulated many of my feelings in a way I have difficulty explaining or verbalizing. I would love it if you made a video delving more into the topic of being 'past your prime'. I'm 25 and have been struggling with this, despite wanting to be more neutral and accepting of myself. I have this internal struggle about wanting to embrace my aging body and struggling with my body image. I was 'brainwashed' into thinking that I hit my prime at 16 and now that I'm 25, I'm 'past my prime'. What doesn't help is that I am constantly asked if I'm married, why aren't I married, if I have kids, why don't I have kids, why don't I want to get married, why don't I want to have kids, all followed up by a 'you'll change your mind'.

I say it is subjective to a certain point, then most cases are objective