Style October 19, 2016
South Korea has the highest rate of plastic surgery in the world per capita, according to latest figures. From an early age, South Koreans are exposed to advertisements and billboards of young, light-skinned women. In subway stations alone, there is an abundance of before and after images of people who have undergone plastic surgery. Do you need a smaller nose, double eyelids, a more defined jawline? If you live in South Korea, plastic surgery is likely your answer.
In fact, plastic surgery is sometimes offered as a high school graduation gift. Instead of purchasing their children new cars or the latest technology, parents and family members suggest cosmetic enhancements. “To grow up in a society that’s very frank about the way you look changes the way you perceive your personal relationship with beauty,” Eugene Lee Yang tells BuzzFeed.
Because of the strict beauty ideals in this culture, people are not only exposed to regular insults about their “imperfect” features, they also “feel like it’s a good career move to get plastic surgery,” says Maggie Jung in the video. In fact, as of 2012, around 20 percent of women in Seoul have had some form of surgical cosmetic surgery.
BuzzFeed’s video above takes three of their Korean team members, Maggie Jung, Ashly Perez and Eugene Lee Yang, under the hypothetical knife. After meeting with a plastic surgeon who judge their features based on Korean beauty standards, their faces are Photoshopped to reflect the “changes.”
The photos of their “new” faces all featured what the BuzzFeed team describes as “subtle” changes: double eyelids, smaller noses, thinner faces and more defined jawlines. But regardless of how subtle these changes were, none of them liked it. “When I was in Korea I thought, at some point, that if I got more plastic surgery I could look more Korean and fit in,” Ashly Perez says. “But now that I’m seeing what the plastic surgery could be, I’m realizing that the parts of me that don’t fit in are the parts that make me unique.”
Have you ever been pressured to change your image? Although plastic surgery is prominent in South Korea, beauty ideals are imposed on men and women all around the world. Some people alter their features with excessive makeup and others suffer from eating disorders.
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