Baby Botox

0:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Hannah's on the same continent as me and yet we cannot see each other Star Cross lovers unfortunately it's so tragic so yes I'm in New York Hannah is visiting her family and friends in Toronto because she went back for a wedding we are actually at parallel weddings on the same weekend [SPEAKER_03]: You've been away from Toronto so long that you're calling it Toronto.

0:25 [SPEAKER_03]: Did I? [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, you pronounced the last tea. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, that's horrible. [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, because we, you know, we record these ahead of time. [SPEAKER_02]: It is July fourth and I'm just feeling extremely like I miss Canada today. [SPEAKER_02]: Hannah, I was both talking about how we like, is it cringe to wear Canada merch when you're not in Canada and we decided no.

0:45 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I bought an eye heart Toronto t-shirt and in the heart is the Toronto skyline with like the CNTower and everything and I'm obsessed with it and I also was walking around yesterday listening to views like on repeat the Drake Album stop [SPEAKER_03]: Don't cancel me. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like looking up at the sea in tower while walking down Dundas and I was like, ah, this city.

1:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm about to say something equally problematic, but yeah, truly. [SPEAKER_02]: When I like leave Canada, I become a hell of patriot. [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm like, I love my nation. [SPEAKER_03]: No, like, truly. [SPEAKER_03]: Now that I've been in London and I can notice the differences between like Canadians and, you know, Brits and like, wow, Canadians.

1:26 [SPEAKER_03]: We have our flaws, but like, I like being in Toronto and having people talk to me when they go into stores and cafes and not having it be weird. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll see people do that in New York more than Toronto, so I feel pretty comfortable here with that. [SPEAKER_03]: in London I feel like I'm very tired of like make small talk with people.

1:43 [SPEAKER_03]: It feels really forced and uncomfortable and usually I don't like making small talk but now I miss it and so it's nice to be Toronto. [SPEAKER_02]: The real New Yorkers here are like really lovely and helpful, and the transplants are like, like, my neighbors are all so, so socially-enapted and sane.

1:59 [SPEAKER_02]: I'll be like, hey, how are you in the hallways? [SPEAKER_02]: And they'll just quite literally just stare at me in the eyes and not say word. [SPEAKER_02]: I've just taken to glory at them instead because I'm like, okay, I've tried enough times. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't really, like, reason with your social and aptitude.

2:12 [SPEAKER_02]: You're an adult. [SPEAKER_02]: You should learn how to make conversation in a public space. [SPEAKER_02]: Here we are. [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in a building so like, you know, we were kind of like socialized to talk to each other in the elevator and stuff, cohabiting and a building with someone, and not speaking to them is so strange to me, but apparently that's kind of classic in these parts.

2:30 [SPEAKER_03]: Young people always on their phones don't know how to talk to each other. [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, and yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no. [SPEAKER_02]: So on Canada Day, which was July first, I was coming back from a wedding in Georgia. [SPEAKER_02]: My cousin was getting married and I had a flight.

2:49 [SPEAKER_02]: The flight got delayed several hours. [SPEAKER_02]: I had gone to sleep against my will at six a.m. [SPEAKER_02]: that morning because my family was partying because for the wedding. [SPEAKER_02]: So I was extremely exhausted. [SPEAKER_02]: I had a flight at five p.m. [SPEAKER_02]: I got delayed my several hours and then on the several hour, [SPEAKER_02]: They were like, JK, your flights at another gate.

3:07 [SPEAKER_02]: So then we all get up, we're like, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. [SPEAKER_02]: We started walking to the other gate all together. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a huge airport. [SPEAKER_02]: Atlanta is like, I think it's like the business airport in North America. [SPEAKER_02]: Really? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

3:17 [SPEAKER_02]: Halfway to the gate. [SPEAKER_02]: And then we all get a text at the same time saying that your flights canceled. [SPEAKER_02]: And we were like, brah. [SPEAKER_02]: We all get re-readed on to different flights the next day. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's mad. [SPEAKER_02]: I shed a tear because I was really tired.

3:29 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm a big public cryer. [SPEAKER_02]: If you guys see me in public sometime, and like you see me crying, you've been warned. [SPEAKER_02]: I cry in public a lot. [SPEAKER_03]: We also, and I'm not calling this girl out because it was, it was all funny. [SPEAKER_03]: But we also were once crying in public in New York in the crowd.

3:46 [SPEAKER_03]: and it was like, oh, is this your podcast? [SPEAKER_03]: So we were like, yeah, we just been like publicly crying in a cafe while it was like raining out. [SPEAKER_02]: We got a very moving moment and then we had to kind of be like, yeah, it's thank you so much. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening.

4:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so I cried and then I had to book a hotel and it was just it was truly terrible but a fun adventure and during that entire time Hannah was sharing the same piece of land that I was and I felt very sad about that and very sad that I was stuck so far away from my home land. [SPEAKER_03]: I know, it's weird being in the same time zone as you, but I can't see you, and I can't reach out and touch you.

4:27 [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lock down my phone screen. [SPEAKER_03]: We're so gay. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes. [SPEAKER_03]: I am just feeling really emotional about Canada right now. [SPEAKER_03]: In a way that is really funny and I've never expected myself to ever feel, but I'm just very earnestly embracing Toronto.

4:52 [SPEAKER_03]: When I first got home, I was like, oh my god, people in the city walk so slowly and I've gotten so used to walking at a really brisk pace and I like that. [SPEAKER_03]: And so walking around, I was really annoyed at first, but then yesterday I was thinking, [SPEAKER_03]: How kind of special is it?

5:07 [SPEAKER_03]: Look, this is a big city where people walk slowly. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, that's kind of nice. [SPEAKER_03]: They're not nice. [SPEAKER_03]: I annoying, but there's something special that you can be a big city and still be such slow walkers. [SPEAKER_02]: I love you, but I don't think I could ever get to that line of thinking.

5:22 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, that's because Toronto is essentially a supper. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't support slow-walking. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't support slow-walking. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't get out of my way. [SPEAKER_02]: Get out of my way. [SPEAKER_02]: I walk really fast, compulsively. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love being in New York people.

5:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know, because the streets are lined with European tourists who it'll be like seven abreast, one whole French family all wearing the same rain jacket that they bought from the dollar store and you just have to quite literally shove through them or go, [SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, you know, it really grinds my gears.

5:58 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a guy on TikTok actually who has a whole series about slow walkers. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't necessarily know if I ethically agree with it because he kind of films them from behind as they walk slowly and I'm like, okay, just, you know, it's a little surveillance culture, but I did resonate with the theme of the series, which was good out of my way.

6:14 [SPEAKER_03]: Get out of her way. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Maya. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Hannah. [SPEAKER_02]: And this is rehash, a podcast about the internet phenomenon that strike a nerve in our culture, only to be quickly forgotten, but we think are due for a revisiting. [SPEAKER_02]: This season is about beauty on the internet.

6:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Social media may have snatched our faces, but has it also snatched our souls? [SPEAKER_02]: If you like our show and you want to hear more from us, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash rehash podcast where we have bonus episodes, early access to our regular programming, and it extremely vast back catalog of a whole lot of other content.

6:51 [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't want to join the Patreon, feel free to write and review us on Spotify and Apple podcasts because that helps us out a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: This episode is gonna be a lot more broad than other episodes this season. [SPEAKER_02]: For one, because it's about the general agism and fear of aging perpetuated in beauty oriented circles of the internet, but also because I had a lot of trouble researching it, which we will talk about.

7:48 [SPEAKER_02]: We've called it Baby Botox. [SPEAKER_02]: Not because we're talking about actual Baby Botox, which is basically small injections of Botox that are given to achieve a more subtle look. [SPEAKER_02]: But because I think it's a pretty good term for this current trend of anti-aging skincare and cosmetics, being marketed to younger and younger generations, to the point that even preview best in children are buying into it.

8:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Yikes. [SPEAKER_02]: Do like that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yikes. [SPEAKER_02]: Yikes. [SPEAKER_02]: But to start, I wanted to have a little kiki about our skincare regimens, Hannah, because I'm sure the listeners are dying to know. [SPEAKER_02]: You go first, what is your daily skincare routine at the moment?

8:26 [SPEAKER_02]: And how is it evolved over the years if you can remember recall? [SPEAKER_03]: So my skincare routine like over the years, I had a phase where I had a lot of disposable income because I was working my one and only like nine to five for a few months. [SPEAKER_03]: And so I bought a bunch of like French like a van skincare and I used to do like masks and I would spray with like this spring water spray and whatever, but I never actually looked into what anything did.

8:54 [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think my skin necessarily reflected all the things I was doing. [SPEAKER_03]: I actually found that the more attention I paid to my skin and like the more kind of where things I was doing worse my skin seemed like it was. [SPEAKER_03]: So then I went the opposite direction and I went really minimalist with my skin care to the point where I was literally just using like my slayer water and like not really moisturizing and that was really not right for my skin.

9:17 [SPEAKER_03]: And then, a few years ago, I dumped on the cereva wagon and I decided, you know, using that cleanser and that moisturizers and were you influenced by high room? [SPEAKER_03]: No, I was just influenced by me knowing nothing about skincare and knowing that every girlie on TikTok who was influenced by Hyram was bringing up Sarah V. It was a trickle down effect.

9:39 [SPEAKER_03]: You could say exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: But then recently I was like my skin's kind of changed a bit so I've started using like [SPEAKER_03]: really lightweight products and I use a La Roche Posae cleanser and then it's so it's basically just I have a morning moisturizer and evening moisturizer and then I put on some SPF for the day.

10:01 [SPEAKER_03]: So very very simple and on my end. [SPEAKER_03]: She's so responsible. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean I would say like do I have the world's greatest skin? [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely not, but it's good enough for me. [SPEAKER_02]: it's good enough for her and it's all the fucking matters and that is what we're gonna learn over the course of the season I feel like oh I started using hyaluronic acid also because for hydration that's a new addition I have a pretty similar evolution to you as well like I think you know high school I was using those cleansers that had like the little beads in them that turned out to be really bad for environment and like [SPEAKER_02]: really harsh on your face and then like I went through that face during like the K-buty kind of boom where you know I used to use a lot of products like I double cleanse with an oil and then like water-based cleanser and use some foliant or microfoliant and also very very little moisturizer

10:53 [SPEAKER_02]: which is bad because I have naturally extremely dry skin. [SPEAKER_02]: But as a lovely patrons who have intimate knowledge of our bodily patterns, no, I have been undergoing what I like to call second puberty in the years since I turned to twenty-six, and other reason to join the Patreon.

11:07 [SPEAKER_02]: If you want us to give you updates, I would like our metal-like shoes, because yeah, you'll get them frequently. [SPEAKER_02]: Second puberty, my hormones have gone berserk, and with them, so have my emotions, and so has my skin. [SPEAKER_02]: I went the first half of my twenties like genuinely perfectly clear skin, and now I find myself plagued with acne, which has decided to populate almost exclusively on my neck.

11:31 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like cystic and hormonal, and it's super painful. [SPEAKER_02]: And so because of this, I've had to drastically alter my skin care routine. [SPEAKER_02]: So here it is. [SPEAKER_02]: I watched my face twice a day, morning and night. [SPEAKER_02]: I begin with a lorosh posse, gentle cleanser, just like Hannah, followed by a lorosh posse extra hydrating cream that I use liberally.

11:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Then I used to use this extremely overpriced retinal by skin suitacles, which was sold to me by my hack Canadian dermatologist. [SPEAKER_02]: Now I use an extremely overpriced retinal, which was prescribed to me by my hack American dermatologist. [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I wash off. [SPEAKER_02]: The routine makes my skin very bright and smooth, but classically does not keep my hormonal acne at bay.

12:09 [SPEAKER_02]: But like Hannah, it's good enough for me. [SPEAKER_02]: That's where we're at. [SPEAKER_02]: I would like to wash off. [SPEAKER_02]: You should, I can send you the video that I was sent to, like the teaches you how to, because it's kind of a specific thing and a lot of people do it wrong.

12:20 [SPEAKER_02]: So I can send it to you, Hannah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, please. [SPEAKER_03]: Just girls dabbing and sharing tips, love to see. [SPEAKER_03]: There's really things. [SPEAKER_02]: So, Hannah, are any of the products you use marketed as anti-aging products and do you seek anti-aging as a goal in your routine?

12:37 [SPEAKER_03]: no none of them are they're pretty like basic standard ones do I occasionally look at like you know the kind of burgeoning wrinkles around my eyes and think oh [SPEAKER_03]: Is there a time when someone does start using an eye cream? [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe, but also I feel like I just heard somewhere when I was younger than a lot of this stuff was like bullshit.

13:04 [SPEAKER_03]: So I used to have this really like all skincare is a lie. [SPEAKER_03]: I think obviously that's not true. [SPEAKER_03]: There is skincare that works, but I'm very skeptical about the skincare industry at large, and so I kind of convinced myself at one point that anti-aging products were all snake oil, which I'm sure it is much more nuanced than that.

13:23 [SPEAKER_03]: Also, and I'm not even saying this in a bragging way, I have a more baby adjacent face, so I haven't been terribly concerned about my face aging thus far. [SPEAKER_02]: Baby adjacent is such a funny description. [SPEAKER_03]: Only wouldn't have a full on baby face, but like it's pretty baby.

13:41 [SPEAKER_03]: Like I don't think people are surprised when I tell them my age and it's not me breaking. [SPEAKER_03]: I just have a really young face. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she's gonna age hello gracefully as we'll talk about in this episode. [SPEAKER_03]: Or it'll be like a w-t-t. [SPEAKER_03]: And then, one eighty.

13:55 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: I love sound effects. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's good to know. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we're gonna get into, you know, whether or not anti-aging as a concept is snake oil. [SPEAKER_02]: The only products in my routine that I've been sold to me is anti-aging are the retinols I use, which that is up for debate.

14:11 [SPEAKER_02]: I also dye my grays, which I guess you can consider anti-aging in some ways, or at least like, an aging disguise. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I also, like, almost fully gray. [SPEAKER_03]: So, [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the science is not out on the concept of anti-aging. [SPEAKER_02]: Dermatologists can never seem to agree on whether the term is actually beneficial or just like a cynical marketing gimmick.

14:33 [SPEAKER_02]: A year or so ago, there were a bunch of dermatologists going around online saying that the only real solution to prevent aging was sunscreen. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you remember that. [SPEAKER_03]: I do, and I just think I heard something like that, and I was like, great, sounds great.

14:46 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I was like perfect, makes my life easier. [SPEAKER_02]: But then other dermatologists like my own insist that there are products which contain anti-aging qualities like the retinol that they make tons of money off of. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm extremely, extremely skeptical of many dermatologists, and I'm not saying across the board, but the ones I've worked with have been extremely unhelpful and products pushing in a way that I find gross.

15:12 [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm sure there are many good faith ones out there as well. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not here to say one thing or another about what works and what doesn't work but instead I want to use this episode to talk about anti-aging as it exists in the beauty industry and as it exists online because it really seems to be a topic that dominates most conversations around beauty these days.

15:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember the way anti-aging products were marketed to you when you were growing up or like did you ever see ads for them? [SPEAKER_02]: What was their vibe? [SPEAKER_03]: My only kind of thing that's coming to mind is that back in the day when like cover girl ads were always on TV and there was always like whatever celebrity spokespeople and pretty sure they did like a collab with O-lay that Ellen DeGeneres was the face of.

15:54 [SPEAKER_03]: And it was specifically an anti-aging line and that for some reason has stayed in my brain. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think as the first time I was maybe like, oh, there's special products for like old people or something. [SPEAKER_02]: A thousand percent? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that is exactly what it was.

16:09 [SPEAKER_02]: It would be a similar kind of like older celebrity standing there kind of a colorful background. [SPEAKER_03]: This is like Ellen to generous. [SPEAKER_03]: I think in a white background to be an Ellen or something. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, but it'd be so I remember those ads too, but they'd be like hyper kind of glossy, but you could still see like a hint of a wrinkle in their faces.

16:28 [SPEAKER_02]: I can still picture her eyes like burning at you through the screen. [SPEAKER_02]: So how did we arrive at that? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna do an absurdly drive by history. [SPEAKER_02]: So buckle up. [SPEAKER_02]: Humans have been trying to reverse the aesthetic effects of aging for prevesies.

16:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Anti-aging has been around since at least the in-disvalues civilization from around twenty-five hundred BCE might people who were developing complexion improving powders and herbal hair loss remedies. [SPEAKER_02]: Later, the first number of China sent people out to find herbs of everlasting life, the first and a long tradition of board-rich people trying to live forever, more on that later.

17:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Apparently, our queen Cleopatra, washed in a daily bath comprised of the milk of seven hundred donkeys. [SPEAKER_02]: Once again, donkeys are the backbone of our society. [SPEAKER_02]: Elizabeth and women were putting raw meat on their faces to reduce wrinkles and pre-revolution women were doing this but with aged wine.

17:21 [SPEAKER_02]: The Victorian era was a clusterfuck of negativity as always. [SPEAKER_02]: Scientists started telling people that old age was a progressive disease and then some sort of developing invasive procedures that would re-boost the sex glands because, of course, they did. [SPEAKER_02]: This is very much the era of doctors being like you have cancer and the only way to treat it is for me to make you orgasm.

17:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Twenty a century was a bit more sophisticated but similar sentiment here you had ads in like the thirties for hormone creams telling you that you know it could help your rapidly decaying face and that you could find a man in such basically a lot of like the older you get the last people will want to sleep with you.

17:55 [SPEAKER_02]: type vibe, classic. [SPEAKER_02]: Women's live happened, but as usual, got sucked into the capitalist dyson, and now advertisers were less like your old and ugly and you're gonna die alone. [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't use this product, and instead framing their models as strong and dependent women who could take control of this disease that was aging.

18:14 [SPEAKER_02]: This became the standard and more of what we saw growing up, reaching its apex with those ads that you talked about that would have older models or celebrities like Jane Fonda or Diane Keaton being like this is how I age gracefully or this is how I tackle difficult grace gracefully I think dove and its whole real beauty stick did some work to undo some of that with ads that were like beauty never gets older this is a pro age ad [SPEAKER_02]: But for the most part, the standard was more of the former.

18:43 [SPEAKER_02]: So there was an article from twenty seventeen that is going to be used as the basis for a lot of information I'm providing in the earlier half of this episode, including much of what I just told you, Hannah, which reported that from twenty ten to twenty fifteen, the anti-aging sector fell from being worth two point two billion dollars to one point nine billion dollars.

19:02 [SPEAKER_02]: At the time that the article came out, certain publications like Allure were banning the term anti-aging because it sold, as explained by Allure's editor-in-chief, the message that aging is a condition that we need to battle. [SPEAKER_02]: Yet even so, there seems to be a boom in the two years between at twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen, where the industry for anti-aging products was then projected to be worth eleven billion by twenty eighteen.

19:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So think about the jump from one point nine billion in twenty-fifteen to eleven billion projected in twenty-eighteen. [SPEAKER_02]: Millennials were investing more and more in cause miscede goals, which are products that purport to have medicinal benefits as well as cosmetic ones. [SPEAKER_02]: Now looking at the data from statistic, the global anti-aging products market was valued at forty-seven billion dollars in twenty-twenty-three and was projected to grow around six percent in the next decade.

19:53 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like using statistics as solitary evidence for a whole bunch of reasons, but it's pretty undeniable that the industry has seen a seismic shift from this brief decline to an absolutely booming in the past ten years. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a guess as to why this boom might have happened around this time?

20:11 [SPEAKER_03]: I think, twenty-fifteen is around the time when like we started seeing people maybe have more open discussions about their use of injectables and I feel like perhaps we just started seeing this sort of move towards having Instagram phase which we'll talk about more in a later episode and I could just feel like there was this like sudden kind of shift in vanity [SPEAKER_03]: in those years where it's like suddenly because all of the technology was becoming more available, suddenly we just became more hyper-aware of our faces, but do you have an explanation?

20:52 [SPEAKER_02]: No, I completely agree with what you're saying to you. [SPEAKER_02]: I think like, yeah, social media playing like a massive role. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, having social media does what you were saying, though, basically with these psychological updates all across the board. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're going to see this hyper awareness.

21:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Take hold. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there are so many factors here. [SPEAKER_02]: So that is one huge one. [SPEAKER_02]: Another big thing I pulled out was this one tidbit from an article in twenty twenty three by the aesthetic surgery journal that the most notable change in cosmetic dermatology over the past two decades lies in a shift from correction and reversal treatments for millennials to preventative measures for gen Z. Basically cosmetic dermatology companies were mostly tailoring their anti-aging products to older people mostly older women right like those ads we were talking about.

21:37 [SPEAKER_02]: But then realized that because of this, they were leaving out a massive untapped market, young people. [SPEAKER_02]: who hadn't aged yet, which is kind of crazy. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because it's like, you're thinking about anti-aging, of course, it would be for this one niche market, but they're like, why don't we just make this a universal thing instead?

21:53 [SPEAKER_02]: Why don't we make this for everyone? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, everybody is technically aging. [SPEAKER_03]: Everybody should feel ashamed. [SPEAKER_03]: Baby's age really rapidly. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, actually, like, they really need to start doing something about that because they started off so I'll cue it little and then look what happens to them.

22:09 [SPEAKER_02]: But there also must have been something going on in the consumer base that would make them inclined to be investing in cosmocidal goals and more specifically anti-aging products. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been racking my brain for what this might be like a more cultural shift that happened between twenty fifteen and now you've touched on part of that which is like social media and like updates and technology Kardashians etc.

22:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that there are any other maybe cultural factors that would have impacted us being scared of aging or at this time as young people? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean it's hard to say because this is also like the era when I became an adult so like I turned twenty and twenty seventeen and so I feel like obviously this is just something we well we actually wasn't thinking about at all in my early twenties but like this is when we would technically start becoming more aware of that stuff [SPEAKER_03]: but like also I think this era is sort of when beauty started changing from which we'll be talking around the glossier episode but like I do think the shift to like the idea of skin care as makeup slash no makeup makeup and like your face like your bare face I think maybe also like put a heightened focus on skin and like skin care and like how your skin should look and like those expectations like

23:28 [SPEAKER_03]: having a chewy face, having a fresh face, having all of that, probably also played a role in like caring a lot about like what the skin under, you know, what used to previously be tons and tons of foundation looks like. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's one theory that I have. [SPEAKER_02]: It's more like an inner glow kind of thing as opposed to like covered this up.

23:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Well and again like I don't like we will talk about it in the future episode but I do think this idea that we think we're being liberated from like wearing tons and tons of makeup but all that does is like place expectations that we'll look just as good without the makeup which I think started at the same time like this is when people started really paying attention to like skincare routines and like beauty routines and all of that so I don't know to me that makes sense [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's not like there came a shift in like, you know, accepting acne scarring or something like that with this shift to, you know, oh, use less makeup.

24:28 [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like use less makeup and hopefully you're gonna still fit the beauty standard. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's like, oh, stop doing contour because hopefully your face is just naturally snatched. [SPEAKER_03]: And then if it isn't, you can get filler in your cheekbones, you know.

24:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that era kind of came out of this other era that I've been thinking about. [SPEAKER_02]: I think in the years following that like, you know, Bush era obesity panic wherever one was like, [SPEAKER_02]: You know, America's feeding kids garbage at schools and watching supersize me, we saw this cultural turn towards like health and wellness instead, which proved to be a very lucrative industry.

25:02 [SPEAKER_02]: It's this idea that you're like investing in your health and I think that gave way to these like newer types of or newer conceptions of beauty as well and like cosmaceuticals. [SPEAKER_02]: Also, COVID, classic, I think would have had a seismic impact on the way that we view our own skin.

25:20 [SPEAKER_02]: Similar to what you're saying with us like hyper focus on the way we look, I think that in many ways it made us kind of focus on ourselves because it trapped us inside with nothing but our phones and our mirrors, right? [SPEAKER_02]: I also think that it made us kind of culturally obsessive, compulsive, like extremely rooted and increasingly elaborate routines, one because we had nothing else to do, so we were trying to stay sane.

25:41 [SPEAKER_02]: and two because it was a time of like heightened paranoia about health reasonably so yeah so you know we already see this growing wellness market enter the west and i can see how that would just explode during covid [SPEAKER_03]: Totally, and also I think people were like had this pressure of coming out of lockdown with a glow-up.

26:00 [SPEAKER_03]: Like people were like, I mean, I might have blocked down and look, I came out of lockdown looking the worst. [SPEAKER_03]: I think I had in my adult life to be honest, but like, I think a lot of people were like, I'm gonna use this time to get fit. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, is this time to like fix my skin?

26:13 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't really watch this type of content typically, but I used to just watch people skincare routine videos on YouTube at this time. [SPEAKER_03]: I just went, yeah, you're right. [SPEAKER_03]: It was just generally like the public consciousness. [SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like TikTok kept making products go viral, like survey.

26:31 [SPEAKER_02]: No, I won thousand percent was part of that. [SPEAKER_02]: You're such a good point of wanting to glow up post-COVID. [SPEAKER_02]: Except mine was like, oh, after COVID, I'm gonna get the splits. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I think really tried to get my splits perfected again. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I got close enough, but gave up like halfway through.

26:46 [SPEAKER_03]: I think that that's a noble goal. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_03]: I came out of COVID with like, cystic acne. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, like not getting any vitamin D probably doesn't help the skin either, like we were only really being helped. [SPEAKER_02]: So yes, there's been a rise in prejuvenation in the beauty industry, which is essentially non-invasive preventative measures taken to ensure that you won't age poorly, anti-aging, but for young people, essentially.

27:14 [SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of products and procedures that this encompasses, so you know you get. [SPEAKER_02]: Dermal fillers, laser skin rejuvenation, micro-dermapraison, chemical peels, wellness supplements, face masks, whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: But we'll be focusing on a few in particular that have really taken off online, especially one is preventative Botox.

27:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Botox, for those unaware, is a neurotoxin, which is essentially a substance that is used to intentionally damage nerve tissue. [SPEAKER_02]: In this case, blocking muscle contractions, which makes the muscles move less and therefore not respond to facial movements that would cause wrinkles.

27:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, lifting your eyebrows or frowning or smiling, even since the advent of the technology, it was mostly older women who were getting Botox to combat the facial creasing. [SPEAKER_02]: But Hannah, what is preventative Botox? [SPEAKER_03]: Preventative Botox is when younger women like in their early twenties even go and get injections to keep their faces from making any of those expressions like to keep them in place so that they never develop any fine lines in the future rather than I suppose getting older and then trying to like counteract the fine lines in question [SPEAKER_03]: They're basically like, let me make sure I don't smile at all throughout my twenties so that I may have a smooth face in my thirties.

28:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Literally, literally. [SPEAKER_02]: And do you know anyone who's gotten it? [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I've heard of people getting it, but like no one that I know well has like personally admitted to it. [SPEAKER_02]: I know quite a few people who've gotten it personally. [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like good in real life, but part of that is just because like people skin is good, we're young, whatever good means, quite a quote.

29:00 [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, basically it's Botox that's marketed to young people as a way to tackle wrinkles before they even form. [SPEAKER_02]: There are people who say that preventative Botox can actually age you faster, which is a trend we're going to see here with these procedures. [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of like filler does.

29:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Dermal fillers are the injectables people get in their faces to achieve a full youthful face, like a collageny face, which were originally sold as something that you had to get on a semi regular basis in order to maintain them. [SPEAKER_02]: But there was this doctor, Dr. Gavin Chan, who found that he has a YouTube channel, who found that they actually dissolved in a much slower pace.

29:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're instead migrating to different parts of the face and causing that saggy, poachy pillow face look that we talk about in the Mara Logo episode. [SPEAKER_02]: For Botox, it actually causes facial muscles to a weekend at a faster pace, which can make your skin appear thinner and looser, which of course is the opposite of a useful collagen-esque look.

29:52 [SPEAKER_02]: They also force other muscles to work over time. [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're not making the usual facial expressions to avoid wrinkles, you'll compensate by making unusual ones and causing wrinkles elsewhere instead. [SPEAKER_03]: Why also was curious that if your muscles are out of commission, [SPEAKER_03]: Doesn't that mean there won't be a strong?

30:11 [SPEAKER_03]: So like when you stop using Botox, those facial muscles might drop or something. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: It weakened them. [SPEAKER_02]: It weakened them. [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing about this is that similar to the filler thing, it means you'll need more Botox to help that out.

30:25 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a process of more bigots more, which is great for the people who are making money off of it, right? [SPEAKER_02]: There's this quote from this Vogue article I was reading where they say, if constant eyebrow furrowing has resulted in the first signs of an angry crease, or premature crow's feet due to naturally thin skin, or a persistent cause of frustration, injectables can help.

30:45 [SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to ask, does this remind you of OZEMPIC in any way? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think it's just this idea of if you're naturally just enjoying life in some ways or like whatever here's a way to counteract that for you. [SPEAKER_03]: If you've made the like moral failing of enjoying life basically and I know with those I'm big it's a bit more complicated than that but in a general sense the idea of not to worry guys if you've been having too much fun or like not been [SPEAKER_03]: shaping your entire life around fulfilling some kind of like vanity.

31:20 [SPEAKER_03]: We've got the science to counteract your misdoing. [SPEAKER_02]: That is exactly what I had been thinking as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, yeah, it was not basically complicated in the sense that if it's like medical exemplary, it's always not big, that's different. [SPEAKER_02]: But we're talking about it more in the cosmetic realm.

31:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's something sort of sad about it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just that it's, it went so often missing from the conversation around these things is the idea that, you know, with those epic, like food brings joy. [SPEAKER_02]: It has like emotional psychological [SPEAKER_02]: social and cultural joy.

31:47 [SPEAKER_02]: Like you're saying, this idea of enjoying life, but these products just completely override that idea and rip it away from us. [SPEAKER_02]: Food is just like a major part of life, but instead it's kind of positioned to something that we need to conquer. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think with this in the preventative Botox, it's like, you know, emotions being a part of life.

32:04 [SPEAKER_02]: like you would kind of quip to vote, you know, people smiling in their twenties. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're lucky enough to be here and to be able to experience like a whole range of emotions because that's what makes us human. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that facial expressions are a visual signifier of the emotions we feel.

32:18 [SPEAKER_02]: I think wrinkles are kind of beautiful in some ways like, oh, that person smiled a lot in their life. [SPEAKER_02]: They have smile lines. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, that's beautiful. [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I'm Ariana Grande stopped getting Botox. [SPEAKER_03]: She said she got her father taking it because she said she wanted to actually like have [SPEAKER_03]: the evidence of her life, like on her face, like she was excited to like, develop like smile lines.

32:38 [SPEAKER_03]: That's nice. [SPEAKER_03]: Is there kind of like tattoos almost? [SPEAKER_02]: I like the thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, Botox positions that as the enemy, you know, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: So the next product procedure that is popular online is probably my least favorite morning shadow routines.

32:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Hannah, what is your nighttime beauty routine if you have one? [SPEAKER_03]: It's literally like, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, I put on moisturizer. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, now like I said, now I put on a hyaluronic acid and then I put my moisturizer on. [SPEAKER_03]: I have a night moisturizer and I've lost it somewhere so I'm using my day one.

33:20 [SPEAKER_03]: That is literally it. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure there's like more I could be doing. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so lazy. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that's beautiful and probably works really well for you, Hannah. [SPEAKER_03]: I cannot fathom a world in which I take more time out to do more steps.

33:38 [SPEAKER_02]: No, I truly am taking so long in the bathroom. [SPEAKER_02]: Like if I'm doing my like actual routine, I am taking forever because I'm already doing so much and it already feels like I've stripped my routine back in half. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't know, it's pretty crazy. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do, you know, my aforementioned skincare routine and then I just like take magnesium because I'm sleeping problems.

33:58 [SPEAKER_02]: But then I eat a little bit of time snack. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I take my probiotic pills because I have a bad gut brain connection. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I put my eye mask on and I put my ear plugs on and I pass the fuck out. [SPEAKER_02]: Ideally, is what happens with me. [SPEAKER_02]: But nothing, nothing too crazy.

34:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And I just sent you a video on TikTok. [SPEAKER_02]: I've sent Hannah a hundred of these since we started researching this season, but I just want you to describe this one for us, like, you know, kind of what you're seeing here. [SPEAKER_02]: Hannah's eyes are growing wider and wider. [SPEAKER_03]: How do you sleep comfortably with any of this on your face thus far?

34:29 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'm finished. [SPEAKER_03]: Wow, fascinating. [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us what you saw here, and I tell us what you saw. [SPEAKER_03]: So this goes box up through her morning shadow teen. [SPEAKER_03]: She first puts on these, this like, these face masks that stick to your face overnight.

34:46 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, that feels really uncomfortable to sleep in. [SPEAKER_03]: Then she puts on a lip stain so that her lips are stained for the next day I suppose. [SPEAKER_03]: then she puts her hair in heatless curls which means like wrapping them around one of those like long thingies. [SPEAKER_03]: I actually want to try that sometime as someone who doesn't want a heat style her hair, but has- There's ones I'm pretty down for.

35:09 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a big fan of like putting my hair in like something and then waking up and it looks [SPEAKER_03]: Curly. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I've been thinking about that, but my hair's maybe not long enough for that. [SPEAKER_03]: And then she puts on a, he, he, chin strap. [SPEAKER_03]: And then she puts her hair in a silk bonnet while it's in the heatless curls.

35:29 [SPEAKER_03]: And then she puts on eyelash serum. [SPEAKER_03]: And then I suppose in part two, I would have seen her shed it all in the morning to have glow. [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, wait, wait. [SPEAKER_03]: Or whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a part two. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we haven't seen her shut it. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she's like, keep watching for part two or follow for part two.

35:47 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, girl. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like the little bit just like cynically trying to make money. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's just a lot of things where I mean how big are the differences that doing all of this make perhaps large. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: I've always, again, I know lazy girl skeptic where I'm like, that seems like a lot of work.

36:04 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to look. [SPEAKER_03]: This is my relationship to all of beauty and like skin stuff is like, [SPEAKER_03]: I'm too lazy to look into what actually works or not. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't believe that that they same things work for everybody because our skin's all different. [SPEAKER_03]: And also I don't have the patience to like see after like a few weeks what changes things make.

36:23 [SPEAKER_03]: So personally, I'm like this is crazy. [SPEAKER_03]: You're like, so I can't really. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm way too lazy to be that vain, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: That's good, that's good, Hannah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, vanity and laziness, we kind of need to put them in like a venn diagram, you know.

36:39 [SPEAKER_02]: This is a very popular trend on TikTok and Instagram reels, like very wildly popular. [SPEAKER_02]: And some of them are parodies, a lot of them are dead serious, but you can tell the people are probably intentionally playing it up for the camera as well. [SPEAKER_02]: It feels kind of similar to those videos where they put like insane globs of foundational over their face for no fucking reason, just like wasting that girl.

36:59 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that drives me crazy. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like rage bait. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's rage bait. [SPEAKER_02]: But some of these are earnest. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, what you'll typically see is like someone putting a plethora of different products and gadgets on their face, head and neck, in order to get that perfect proverbial beauty sleep.

37:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Usually the grillies here like Hannah had described, which would put on like a silk bonnet, or the heatless krillers. [SPEAKER_02]: And a sort of an eye and face sheet mask that they'll sometimes layer on top of each other, which is crazy. [SPEAKER_02]: A lit mask, sometimes a neck mask.

37:29 [SPEAKER_02]: There was this one video where a girl was like, [SPEAKER_02]: My tech neck routine is a twenty three year old with a forty three year old neck and the neck is revealed to just have like a single line going through it of like fat from probably just like moving up and down increasing I guess which is so normal sometimes they'll do one of those red light therapy robot looking masks sometimes they'll wear a neck brace thing like Hannah had seen and they'll like bind their lower face to get a snatch to look I guess and then the video is them just like taking off or shedding all of the stuff basically [SPEAKER_02]: and ending up just looking extremely normal afterwards, like the results are so inconsequential.

38:08 [SPEAKER_02]: They were the psychologists interviewed in one of the articles about this, who says, if folks adopting this trend come to feel that they must adhere to every step in a certain order or can't be flexible with a routine, even if a given context makes it unworkable, for example, you get home late or have an impromptu sleepover, it has the potential to create a lot of distress and start interfering with making the best overall choices and other parts of life.

38:30 [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know that really did hit for me. [SPEAKER_02]: I think just with all the obsessive compulsiveness that we talked about, I had kind of intense OCD as a child. [SPEAKER_02]: I had a lot of weird little tricks and routines that I had to do in order to feel safe, I guess. [SPEAKER_02]: I just think these culturally like rigid routines have made us really inflexible.

38:50 [SPEAKER_02]: I was really in a trap for a while where I would like need to go to bed at like ten pm and do this entire bed time ritual beforehand or else like I wouldn't get a good sleep or I'd have like a bad day the next day and it feels almost like pathological sometimes in a way that's like yeah if you happen to be sleeping over someone's house and you can't do your routine you feel like completely thrown off balance [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, set to you up to probably have a bad night's sleep.

39:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Right, no one right, noids are a big one too, like they just blown the fuck up online and are promoted as like the ultimate anti-aging product because they promote skin cell turnover and essentially boost collagen in the face. [SPEAKER_02]: But also, again, they run the risk of aging you prematurely because they increase the risk of sun exposure.

39:31 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm definitely not reapplying sunscreen enough to make up for the effects of my retinoin. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, people love them because like this one CEO of a skincare company called Bliss said, you get lots of instant gratification, which if there's anything like this attention deficit, culture needs, it's like immediate results.

39:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Retinol has been really big on social media, especially TikTok, where the hashtag is over seven hundred and fifty nine thousand posts. [SPEAKER_02]: under it at the time of writing this episode. [SPEAKER_02]: And the prevalence of this kind of stuff on social media is very bad. [SPEAKER_02]: So people have been reporting sightings of little kids, mostly little girls, populating the aisles of Sephora and filling their baskets at checkout.

40:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And Hannah, I don't know about you, but I was definitely a kid trying stuff on and taking pictures at the Sephora at my local mall growing up, as I'm sure you were. [SPEAKER_02]: You weren't. [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't go to, oh, I guess, Duffer and Maldon have a Sephora. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a different mall, my local mall just got us to for a like last year.

40:26 [SPEAKER_03]: So I didn't start like playing way around with makeup till the pandemic probably. [SPEAKER_03]: Like I wore a little bit of, I wore like eyeliner and mascara and that was it. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, me too. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, when I was younger in middle school, I would wear like blue thick eyeliner.

40:41 [SPEAKER_02]: And clunky, clunky, blue mascara. [SPEAKER_02]: I loved blue mascara. [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I wear lip gloss, but like most of the time not. [SPEAKER_02]: And then in high school, I started wearing kind of more lipsticky stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: Or I'd fill in my eyebrows because that was a big trend back then to how like the Lily Collins eyebrow.

40:54 [SPEAKER_02]: I looked really bad. [SPEAKER_02]: No, she was so pretty. [SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't wear any like face makeup or anything. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I guess you would find this even more lonely. [SPEAKER_02]: But like why do you think this instance of it has been alarming people so much? [SPEAKER_02]: Like young kids in Sephora?

41:07 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just that like one of the things that at least for, you know, we might be the last group or like section of a generation to have like had this as like a childhood. [SPEAKER_03]: that was at least semi-free from those types of concerns and pressures that we then start feeling in adulthood and that social media and the internet have really brought on in a more intense way.

41:30 [SPEAKER_03]: But I think when I was like twelve, we were learning about makeup tips from like seventeen magazine if that. [SPEAKER_03]: Like we kind of got to be ignorant from a lot of the more adult sort of pressures. [SPEAKER_03]: And also obviously you're vain in your obsessed with how you look in all of these different ways because you're between But your scope of like how you could look or what you should look like is just so much smaller You know, I thought the key to Beauty was gonna be being able to pull off a smoky eye which I'd never tried to do I thought that was like this cool grown-up adult thing and that was like the extent of like what beauty was and then [SPEAKER_03]: You know, these kids these days are so aware of like ten twenty steps skincare routines and like all of these new added on things and I think they're just like inundated because they are on screens and I think we're just it stresses people out because we're starting to see the impacts of like raising children on screens raising children with access to TikTok and like

42:29 [SPEAKER_03]: the ideas it puts in their brains and like it makes me rating seventeen magazines which I'm sure put all sorts of like weird ideas in my head that makes that really quaint and wholesome in comparison. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah a thousand percent I think like people freaking out about you know kids [SPEAKER_02]: Looking older these days or like you know when I see teenagers these days and like holy shit your makeup looks better than mine like you guys are so sophisticated in your techniques obviously I think a lot of that is from the beauty guru era which we're gonna touch on a bit this season briefly, but it is this whole idea of like access like they have this extreme access to like instructional tutorials that we didn't have as much growing up even though we did you know have internet and stuff like that

43:10 [SPEAKER_02]: So like, the actual real life effect is like, oh, me and my clunky, blue mascara and blue eyeliner that I didn't really see anywhere. [SPEAKER_02]: I just was a child that thought the color looked good or like, that it was fun. [SPEAKER_02]: Or my mom encouraged it because she was like, okay, if you're gonna wear makeup, wear something fun and colorful to this, which is like, they actually are just copypasting from what they saw on the internet.

43:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so when I said the beauty industry was marketing anti-aging stuff to younger people, I meant very, very young people. [SPEAKER_02]: There have been a bunch of brands recently that have been super popular with children, drunk elephant, bubble skincare, tower, twenty-eight, and glow recipe, because they're kind of marketed towards kids, like just using super flashy, colorful, bubbly packaging, have you seen?

43:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, any of them. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like tower, twenty-eight, I'm like, yeah, that looks like a nice bubble gum. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm pretty interested in it. [SPEAKER_02]: They basically all look like that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like kind of hub a Bubba style. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's get in here.

44:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And apparently Gen Alpha has grown really quickly as a beauty consumer group. [SPEAKER_02]: They are projected to reach a spending power of five point five trillion dollars by twenty twenty nine. [SPEAKER_02]: Where did they get that pocket money? [SPEAKER_02]: What the fuck?

44:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Mom and dad, mama. [SPEAKER_02]: I guess their parents have money. [SPEAKER_02]: I know I thought that was kind of crazy too because I was like, okay, if the kids are in Sephora buying products. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I wasn't buying products at Sephora. [SPEAKER_02]: I was just trying them on.

44:28 [SPEAKER_03]: As a twenty eight year old woman, it's a big day when I decided to go buy something from Sephora. [SPEAKER_03]: That's really expensive. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been holding off on buying my tinted SPF having to use my shitty SPF because I'm like, well, we have to budget. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I went to Sephora to buy like foundation recently and then I said, fuck it, I went to Walmart.

44:47 [UNKNOWN]: Walmart. [SPEAKER_03]: Walmart. [SPEAKER_03]: I bought elf foundation because makeup is expensive. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it's truly crazy. [SPEAKER_02]: I am not kidding when I said that the last time I spoke to my twelve-year-old niece, she told me that she was using red and all, which I obviously freaked out about.

45:04 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if we're talking about these anti-aging products, having the potential to age you faster, what kind of effect do you think they'd have on like children's super delicate skin? [SPEAKER_03]: But also, they just shouldn't even be thinking about what's going to age now. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the one time in your life where you get to be free of those types of like intrusive thoughts.

45:20 [SPEAKER_02]: I know, well it's the psychological effect and then also like a real life physical effect of like actually harming their skin dermatologists have obviously worn against it and called it a money-making scheme but there seems to be no stopping it and this is just a tangent but it made me think a lot of it like the death of the tween store like you know when we were growing up in Canada we had the sends a girl and we had these like tween places that had clothing that was designed just for us siblings siblings abocombie which was different from abocombie in fish they was for kids [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot.

45:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it was like age-appropriate, but like funky and cool, and it had a bit of cash-a still. [SPEAKER_02]: But when I asked my nieces where they shop, they're usually just kind of like, I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they just kind of buy adult clothes, but are smaller and size, and there's nothing for them specifically.

46:05 [SPEAKER_02]: That's fun. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think the tween is a concept just kind of dyed out? [SPEAKER_03]: a little bit, or like maybe it feels like less of a marketing demographic because again, tweens just like have more exposure to teen media. [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like as a tween wanting to watch stuff that was made for teens or like younger adults, you got to a point where you feel ballsy enough to just like watch it openly, but then I'd be usually like secretly looking at MTV or like watching teen dramas, but I'd be like, oh my god, I don't know if I'm supposed to be watching this, like whatever I think I felt a little more protected in that age, [SPEAKER_03]: get obviously like I don't know any tweens right now so I don't really know what you know is big with them but I do feel like you know you're tween and you're on YouTube like you're watching stuff that's probably also made for people that are older than you at the same time

46:58 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it takes the excitement out of a lot of things. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think that the excitement of being able to kind of transgress something or do something that's like less permissive. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I remember watching blades of glory and being like, oh, this is so inappropriate.

47:11 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not allowed to watch this, but now it's like they're so overexposed. [SPEAKER_03]: but also like the tween is a fairly recent concept and like invention to like it is a marketing kind of invention as well. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think especially the tween like capital T tween that's probably like from the two thousands because before that you have junior high and like you did have this sort of in between group but it was sort of I don't think clearly defined.

47:38 [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe the tween is a failed marketing experiment because the sense of girl closed. [SPEAKER_02]: I know, and why ever did it because it was so awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: I love my fingerless sleeveless, the sleeves that you could wear, you know, those ones. [SPEAKER_03]: Every other thing they sold had a monkey on it.

47:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_03]: Which was awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: And then also they did a Zoe one-on-one collab line, and that was also awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: So I was super excited to research this episode when we first drafted it up. [SPEAKER_02]: This was the one I was most excited about, but honestly, the research process kind of sucked.

48:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's because it was almost impossible to find a publication that was willing to outright condemn anti-aging as a concept that's culturally constructed. [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them will even kind of like, you know, they'll critique it but then provide affiliate links for anti-aging products in that same breath.

48:25 [SPEAKER_02]: They were all in some way feeding into it, you know, like talking about the pros and cons of these products or talking away using the language of like, oh, this product can help and it's like helping what without ever questioning what help means. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, are we actually helping our health, or are we helping the appearance of looking healthy?

48:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And they're all just kind of reinforcing this idea that aging is bad, sometimes inadvertently, and that we should do something about it, essentially. [SPEAKER_02]: This one article about Sephora kids is kind of like better that they're hanging out and wearing face masks than going on their phones, as if it's like an either or binary situation.

48:59 [SPEAKER_03]: Also going to buy those face masks because someone on their phone told them to buy it and they might just go like post about it to their friends. [SPEAKER_03]: My little cousin, she and her friends post like basically haul videos and stuff on their Snapchat for each other to watch. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, they probably do it because of their phones.

49:16 [SPEAKER_02]: They're like putting the face masks on and then, yeah, just texting. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, come on. [SPEAKER_02]: Don't be naive. [SPEAKER_02]: There's one of it prevented of Botox that goes on and on about like Botox is like, [SPEAKER_02]: How to use it is how to get it and like what it can do for you and then end the article with a single line that's like Best advice of all though forget about all those perceived imperfections and just smile One really odious articles called the zoom effect is real and it talks about how zoom gave us all facial dysmorphia But it's basically one big ad for this cosmetic dermatology medical spa where they're like [SPEAKER_02]: Zoom was right, your face is busted as fuck, and then they basically recommend like Botox and Micronetling and Hydrophacials, like just kind of inventing the problem and then providing this like fake solution.

49:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And then another one that actually blew my mind was in glamour, where the author is like, all this backlash to morning shiver teens is giving, I'm not like other girls energy. [SPEAKER_02]: Because we're apparently like putting down high maintenance women. [SPEAKER_02]: She ends up with being like, let women enjoy things.

50:16 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the shameless plug for our pick-mees episode and why this rhetoric is so fucking stupid. [SPEAKER_02]: And like actually harmful, but no women are not shaming women for the sake of it when they're critiquing your ridiculous morning shadow routine video. [SPEAKER_03]: Also, the thing about being a woman is that if you're not feeling like you're doing enough, you're gonna feel shame about it.

50:35 [SPEAKER_03]: And if you feel like you're doing too much, you're gonna feel shame about it. [SPEAKER_03]: We're all deeply ashamed of ourselves and each other at all times. [SPEAKER_03]: And so we gotta stop with this, pitting the high maintenance and the low maintenance girl is against each other. [SPEAKER_03]: We all hate ourselves.

50:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Talk on it, Mama. [SPEAKER_02]: Speak on it. [SPEAKER_02]: The fear of aging is one of the deepest seated fears in our culture. [SPEAKER_02]: And the way that humans attempts to temper that fear is through what is called biohacking, which is essentially like intervening with your body in an attempt to maximize its function and longevity.

51:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Cosmos tutorials are essentially more popular in like accessible forms of biohacking, all the things that we just talked about. [SPEAKER_02]: But there are more extreme versions as well. [SPEAKER_02]: You can like do DNA hacking, body hacking, which is like implanting devices in your body cyborg style.

51:20 [SPEAKER_02]: or like bioprinting where organic substances like tissue and organs are created using a three-d printer. [SPEAKER_02]: That's been really helpful in the medical community, but people use it. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's kind of on the verge of being used for cosmetic purposes as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, a lot of this is like super advanced medical science.

51:36 [SPEAKER_02]: That's very inaccessible to the public. [SPEAKER_02]: Unless you're very, very, very rich. [SPEAKER_02]: Hannah, who is Brian Johnson? [SPEAKER_02]: And what does he famous for? [SPEAKER_03]: He's the freak man who is using I believe it's like his teenage sons like skin cells or like some kind of his cells to try and make himself look younger and like be ageless like he he's in his forties or fifties fifties probably forties forties and he's just like this weird rich vampire freak [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and he does like he does look young but in a really uncanny ballet way.

52:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's not skin cells, it's blood. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, why better? [SPEAKER_02]: What's even creepier than Johnson and his father? [SPEAKER_02]: Injected a leader of blood from Johnson's seventeen-year-old son named Talmud. [SPEAKER_02]: In the world's first multi-generational plasma exchange, in an attempt to reverse the effects of aging, there's no compelling evidence to back up that plasma exchange actually helps anti-aging processes.

52:40 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Johnson is the founder of Colonel, which is a neurotechnology company focused on developing non-invasive brain computer interfaces that he sold a PayPal. [SPEAKER_02]: I made a lot of money off of. [SPEAKER_02]: And basically now he's dedicated his life to the pursuit of living for as long as possible.

52:55 [SPEAKER_02]: That sounds like a really shitty life. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and we will discuss that. [SPEAKER_02]: His daily routine, which he has documented extensively on his YouTube channel, includes monitoring his body fat, heart rate variability, blood, stool samples, and the number of erections he has per night.

53:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Every night, he also takes two dozen medicines at five a.m., consumes one hundred vegan calories, and exercises for an hour, then uses blue light invasive glasses before finally going to bed. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what some of that is, but that's what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: He's also invested millions of dollars into a data-driven project called Project Blueprint, which is a form of biohacking where, in his words, he creates an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can myself.

53:40 [SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, now you can build your autonomous self as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's a clip of Johnson on the Doctor Mike podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: People think that Blueprint is about health and wellness or about vegetables, and it's really not. [SPEAKER_01]: It's what to do on the eve of superintelligence.

53:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And that task is to live the healthiest life possible for what goal. [SPEAKER_01]: It is an observation that our intelligence relative to an insect, where orders of magnitude more intelligent than insects. [SPEAKER_01]: And we can do things that insects can't do. [SPEAKER_01]: AI is going to be orders of magnitude more intelligent than we are.

54:18 [SPEAKER_01]: It will do things we can't do. [SPEAKER_01]: And one of those things could be solving aging. [SPEAKER_01]: We don't know, but it's reasonable to contemplate that that could be a situation. [SPEAKER_01]: If that's the case, and we're this close to these tools being available, then we may shift as a species from caring about wealth accumulation and status and power to simply don't die.

54:45 [SPEAKER_02]: So he's basically saying we're gonna shift from caring about wealth and money and being greedy to just caring about like not dying. [SPEAKER_02]: If we make anti-aging accessible to everyone, what do you think of that Hannah? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, do you see any merit to that concept that one would be got the other?

54:59 [SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe I'm rid of the other? [SPEAKER_03]: No, I think greedy people are going to find a way to like basically probably use less wealthy people to help them extend their lifetimes in ways that scares me. [SPEAKER_03]: If we, I don't know if we're going to get really extreme about it. [SPEAKER_02]: Do we really want those people living forever?

55:17 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't need Elon Musk to be around for longer than he probably is already projected to be around like no fans. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, absolutely not, and also like, I'm so sorry. [SPEAKER_03]: I have none of these guys ever read like any kind of vampire literature. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, have you never seen interview with the vampire king?

55:35 [SPEAKER_03]: Because Brad Pitt is tortured by his immortality. [SPEAKER_03]: The Collins in Twilight tortured by their immortality. [SPEAKER_03]: Immortality is a curse and death is a gift. [SPEAKER_03]: That's so beautiful. [SPEAKER_03]: Queen. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know.

55:54 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like, yeah, like you said, it just makes me feel like, you know, he's spending all this time doing these extremely elaborate routines, but it's like your life must be so devoid of joy. [SPEAKER_02]: And just remind me of a comment. [SPEAKER_02]: I saw on a morning shed video where someone was like, imagine doing all of this just to get hit by a car tomorrow.

56:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's so true like what is your quality of life engaging in these like insane anti aging practices but even more so like even just to a smaller extent like yeah the morning shed routine I'm really skeptical that the concept of don't die would super seed human greed like I don't think that [SPEAKER_02]: greed and fear of death necessarily have that much overlap like we're a lot of people are scared of dying I just think people living forever would also cause a massive population crisis like we're gonna be fighting for resources and the people who are gonna be able to focus on their own health during this like on coming climate apocalypse are the only people who will be able to have that leisure time so like rich people it's just so delusional

56:48 [SPEAKER_03]: Time is already a currency, but it's gonna be more so and like a much more literal sense. [SPEAKER_03]: Like I don't think that that means greed goes away. [SPEAKER_03]: It means people are gonna be greedy for something other than just money. [SPEAKER_03]: But like greed is not going away.

57:03 [SPEAKER_03]: greed has been a part of human civilization from the beginning. [SPEAKER_03]: And like if the most valuable thing is like your literal life force, then that's going to be where people channel that greed into. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, people like Brian Johnson are going to be like living forever and also hoarding water in oxygen.

57:19 [SPEAKER_03]: They're going to be like, wow, now that I'm immortal. [SPEAKER_03]: Peace and love, brother. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's go join a commione or whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: No, because anyone's seed Mad Max Fury Road. [SPEAKER_02]: Come on. [SPEAKER_02]: It also reminds me of what biz said in the moral logo episode about how it takes.

57:32 [SPEAKER_02]: It kind of takes money to take something to the extreme. [SPEAKER_02]: There's something just so hubris dig about anti-aging. [SPEAKER_02]: And you just think it's something related to the leisure class. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, [SPEAKER_02]: I just thought so much during researching about Victorian peasants not giving a fuck about what they look like because they just don't have time to think about it because they're poor and they need to work which is really a sign of how bad times have gone and that like being a Victorian peasants seems alluring and romantic to me.

57:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Why am I fantasizing about being a Victorian peasant right now? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, being that's how the quest we feel by our own vanity is that we'd rather be oppressed by literal factors. [SPEAKER_02]: Being able to live forever is very obviously not something that the working or middle or even upper middle classes are going to be concerning themselves with once resources could even scarcer like we said and yet here we have people from these income brackets still investing ridiculous amounts of money and what is essentially a very frivolous and wasteful anti-aging industry.

58:24 [SPEAKER_02]: The classic argument now is like, well, it's not frivolous because the fear of aging or my appearance in general affects my mental health. [SPEAKER_02]: So like, I'm investing in my mental health. [SPEAKER_02]: Like that classic kind of like choice feminism style argument. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a chicken in the egg thing though, right?

58:40 [SPEAKER_03]: Because I think babe, your mental health might be bad because you're spending so much of your mental energy thinking about things that ultimately you cannot control to the extent that you would like to. [SPEAKER_03]: you're never going to fully be able to conquer death or aging. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think actually one of the beautiful things about being human is the fact that we all inevitably, if we're lucky enough to get there, reach that point where we are older and where we are facing mortality.

59:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that we just need to do this like massive overhaul and think of it the way that we look at aging, like you're saying, you know, maybe rethinking death. [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think makes us so scared of getting older and like looking older? [SPEAKER_02]: Like what is that associated with?

59:25 [SPEAKER_03]: usually I am thinking about it from the perspective of like okay as a woman we know that like culturally it's just so like use is valued more than almost anything and that that is just so much more true for women and that if you're being realistic about where do women find power often in our culture it's through men it's in proximity to men and how men value them by their looks [SPEAKER_03]: and they're youth.

59:53 [SPEAKER_03]: So it's like obviously a fear that many women experience. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's sometimes a pragmatic thing to be like, well, it's better to be perceived as younger because I will genuinely be treated better sometimes. [SPEAKER_03]: But then also, I mean, being a young woman also gives people entitlement to treat you like shit in a different way.

1:00:13 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you can't really win your a woman. [SPEAKER_02]: To add to that, I agree that the loss of [SPEAKER_02]: sexual power especially as a woman is something that like to me is very scary like I think it's something that I almost I'm very aware of the concept of sexual power and like being youthful and the idea of not having that and like well what am I gonna think about you know and it comes with so much like you know gendered conditioning as well, but yeah, I think like the fear of all obsolescence is massive especially in a gendered sense I agree [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because I mean, how often are we actually confronted with this sad, scary image of like the aging man?

1:00:49 [SPEAKER_03]: Occasionally it happens, but like when we see an older man, we assume that there is a life story behind that man. [SPEAKER_03]: There is like wisdom. [SPEAKER_03]: There are like all of these things. [SPEAKER_03]: He gains things with age, whereas like a woman loses things with age, right?

1:01:03 [SPEAKER_03]: And like this is just like naturally something that, of course, we're dreading, not because we think that there's anything wrong with [SPEAKER_03]: getting older, but because we know that that's not how our culture sees it. [SPEAKER_03]: That being said, I think just across the board, I think people are scared of getting older because it does remind you of your mortality to a degree.

1:01:26 [SPEAKER_03]: Even in my late twenties, like my body is not as strong, it doesn't bounce back from things as quickly as it did in my like teens. [SPEAKER_03]: My early twenties, you know, my muscles need more work, you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_03]: Like you just noticed things that do change. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's frustrating, like my dad getting older, you can see him being so frustrated.

1:01:46 [SPEAKER_02]: He's become even more forgetful these days. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, I can see him being so frustrated by like not being able to do what he used to be able to do. [SPEAKER_02]: You think you can do these things and you can and it's like, yeah, it's a sad thing for sure. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

1:02:01 [SPEAKER_03]: So I think it makes sense. [SPEAKER_03]: Because your body does lose some of its functions. [SPEAKER_03]: There are practical reasons to not be a super hyped about getting old. [SPEAKER_03]: I think the more external parts of it maybe we could do ourselves a favor and get less upset about that was because it might [SPEAKER_03]: make it easier to deal with all the other stuff.

1:02:26 [SPEAKER_03]: We already have to deal with the fact that my hearing's probably gonna go when I get older because it's a thing in my family and I already have bad ears. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, that already sucks. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't need to be worrying about getting like worry lines on my forehead or laugh lines because I would take all the wrinkles in the world if I could make sure that my hearing stayed.

1:02:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Health is everything, really. [SPEAKER_02]: And when you feel like you don't have your health, [SPEAKER_02]: It's all consuming. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I do think a lot of it stems from being reminded of your mortality like you said. [SPEAKER_02]: I do think that death is lonely and it's unknown and it feels very final.

1:03:02 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that it's something we can fold anyone for being scared of, but I do think that there are other cultures in the world that have a better relationship to death than we do. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, in Hindu culture, we believe in reincarnation. [SPEAKER_02]: So when my grandma passed away, we made her this like little bucket of things that she could use for the journey of her soul, and then we really sit into the lake.

1:03:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And it just felt very, very beautiful. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that like, Hindu rituals, we have a lot of them when someone passes away. [SPEAKER_02]: It can be extremely tedious and frustrating. [SPEAKER_02]: But it also feels extremely cathartic. [SPEAKER_02]: There are also cultures to do a great job with the cornering ancestors, like in Chinese or mine cultures, which I think have like a really [SPEAKER_02]: Nice conception of death as well.

1:03:40 [SPEAKER_02]: I saw a video recently about cemeteries in the way that they were originally used in Western societies as public parks, but have since been gated off from society. [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of the comments were talking about how this played into the way that our culture stigmatizes death.

1:03:53 [SPEAKER_02]: So I do think that, you know, I think that it's so fair to really dread the aspects of aging that inhibit you from living daily life or cause pain, like actual physical pain. [SPEAKER_02]: But I think the resisting to aging makes it even worse for us. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like the psychological impact makes it so much worse than maybe just some sort of acceptance.

1:04:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously that's so easy for me to say as a twenty-eight year old. [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it takes a lot of work to kind of unlearn some of the fears that I have not done myself, but I'm just thinking broadly. [SPEAKER_02]: I also think aging this view does like a failure of self-control.

1:04:27 [SPEAKER_02]: This idea that you aged poorly because you didn't take care of yourself, which is so Western to me. [SPEAKER_03]: Well totally, and it's like, again, it's like, oh well, why weren't you thinking in a long-term consequences of this? [SPEAKER_03]: Why weren't you like, [SPEAKER_03]: treating your body as like respectfully.

1:04:41 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, why did you like go out too many times? [SPEAKER_03]: Why did you whatever? [SPEAKER_03]: And it's like because you wanted to because you were having fun. [SPEAKER_03]: And like I'd way rather get to like a certain age and have good stories and life lessons than know that I was like a boring person that had to go home at like eight pm every night.

1:04:56 [SPEAKER_03]: So I could do my two hours skincare routine. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the anti-clubing comments I keep seeing on TikTok make me so depressed. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a lot of articles being like, why do young people not club anymore, which is like, [SPEAKER_02]: It's expensive too valid, but so many people are like clubbing is disgusting and it's unpleasant and blah blah and it's just kind of like, oh, it's okay if you don't want a club but it's like now there's like a whole shaming culture around partying and it's like I think it's good to have a balance of like thinking about things obviously in the long term sometimes in a bit too short-minded is that the right word?

1:05:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I don't know, it's short-sighted. [SPEAKER_03]: Someone told me recently I sounded like I was ESL for idioms. [SPEAKER_03]: You are, you literally are ESL for idioms. [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think sometimes it like maybe I'm a little short-sighted, but I just genuinely think that making a lot of your decisions around like the fear of aging now [SPEAKER_03]: You're wasting time when you are going to be looking back when you're older at yourself now and be like, wow, I was so young.

1:05:59 [SPEAKER_03]: I was so beautiful. [SPEAKER_03]: I was whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: I covered that and be that. [SPEAKER_03]: No matter what, you are because you will age in some capacity. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, why not just enjoy yourself and not make yourself mental over it in the intern. [SPEAKER_02]: When I do think that it speaks, it's like increasing solitariness among people too.

1:06:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Staying at home and doing your routine, et cetera, is like a very lonely solitary activity. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that, you know, even going back to the anti-clubing talk, it's like all these people being like, why would I do that when I could stay at home and watch a movie alone? [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, that's great, but, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: Get out there.

1:06:31 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, get outside. [SPEAKER_02]: Go in the sun, wear a little bit of SPF. [SPEAKER_02]: If you get a little bit of a burn, that's probably not great, but I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that it's just a lot of this kind of promotes staying inside and being alone in a way that I find concerning.

1:06:45 [SPEAKER_03]: And my relationship, so like we said at the top, I've been covering my grades, dye my hair since I was like, nineteen. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not because I am scared of looking old because I know I don't look old even with the grace like I look young that's not even that it's that I think that gray hairs like a lot of signs of aging or things you earn and I feel like I attribute like wisdom to that and one day I'm going to like just fully rock my gray hair but that's been I feel like I've like lived a life that has earned that and I kind of like looking at signs of aging in that way where it's like I've earned this [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I've laughed enough times that I've earned this or like I've had these experiences and that's why like you know when I have gray hair it means that I've gotten to a point in my life where I don't know just like that wisdom that like we just associate with it is genuine and I'm too dumb right now to have gray hair Yeah, I think you know wrinkles the stripes we earn from being fun and interesting

1:07:59 [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.