Get ready for some scary, fresh from Boing Boing.
My book Uglies is set in a future in which readily available cosmetic surgery has lead to an “arms race” of attractiveness. Everyone is forced to have huge eyes, super-clear skin, full lips, and all the other signs of neotony that evolution (supposedly) makes us look for when choosing a mate.
But what never occured to me until today is that you don’t need a lot of surgical technology to create this dystopia. All you need is . . . Photoshop.
Behold the world of Angels with Attitude:
From the contest rules:
These photos will be judged on facial beauty, expression & fashion, and overall appeal . . . but should not be extremely or overly retouched. (We are judging the child – not the retoucher!) Overall Winner will receive 50.00 Angel Dollars.
“Angel dollars?” you make ask.
Well, “angel dollars” are just like real dollars, except you can only spend them to enter certain teen and pre-teen beauty contests. These contests are run by the same people who run this “not overly retouched” photo contest. It all fits hand in glove, from digital camera to computer screen to real-life angelic beauty smackdown.
By “angelic,” interestingly, these folks seem to using the same criteria as my Uglies dystopians: creepily huge eyes, clear skin, full lips. But what’s amazing to me about these photos (go gaze at them, if you dare) is that they show how a small group of people can go into a feedback loop and wind up off their collective rockers. This site is not a satire. Nor is this one. This is nothing less than an honestly held aesthetic about what human children should look like.
Can you imagine what will happen when cheap cosmetic surgery is safe and reversible enough for little kids? These won’t just be photos anymore.
Of course, maybe “angelic” is the right word. I mean, angels in the Christian Bible were actually terrible to look upon, right? (Jud 13:6, anyone?) But the word that comes to my mind when I look at these pictures isn’t “terrible.”
It’s more like . . . “eww.”
Eeeewwww indeed. Now I’m going to be thinking of Jon Benet Ramsay all day…
This page scarred me over the weekend. What’s been bugging me is the one baby on the page that looks completely normal. By comparison, it’s the one that is out of place–a completely normal looking kid, as far as I can tell.
AHHH! AHHH! Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and complete eww-ness.
Thank you for that insight into the scary world of what could be normal in the near future…
and just stopping by to say that So Yesterday and the Midnighters were one of best YA books I’ve read this summer and as a frequenter of the Donnell library, I’m sad to miss you. But thank you for writing insanely good books.
Yeesh! That is tres creepy and scary. It also reminded me of photos of Jon Benet Ramsay. It’s hard to stop shuddering about this.
What is it with parents wanting their kids to look like that?!? Why can’t they just let kids be kids? They will grow up soon enough, so just let them have a normal childhood.
I also take exception to the fashion magazines aimed at young (pre-teen) girls. I guess it isn’t enuogh to make teenage girls worry about their looks, now we have to start in on them when they’re still in elementary school.
I hate to sound like a prude, but my God! what are these people thinking?
I think the fact that an “eww” reaction is so common suggests the limits of neoteny’s role in the human assessment of beauty. For most people, a beautiful woman does NOT look just like a child. There are certain similarities, but there are also important differences. Cheekbones, for example, are more visible after baby fat has been lost, and so are correlated with sexual maturity.
Compared to apes, all human faces — male and female — are neotenous; all humans look a lot more like baby chimps than adult chimps. But I think very few adults are considered attractive while maintaining a strong resemblance to human babies. (Helena Bonham Carter and Alexis Bledel are the examples that come to mind.)
I’m definitely grossed out too. I’d be interested in seeing the demographic of where all of the different entrants into these contests are from. How many are from cities, suburbs, rural areas, etc.
Oddly enough, I just reviewed the data and it turns out that all of the entrants can be traced back to a single source. Apparently, all of their ancestors arrived together on the mother ship. It seems that they are merely succumbing to some latent desire to separate themselves and their children from the “normal†characteristics displayed by the ape like beings that inhabited the land at the time of their arrival.
Too damned scary. As the mother of a 2-year-old girl (totally cute any beguiling without any photoshopping) I worry. I worry that she will want to look like that, I worry that my sons will reject women who aren’t perfect-looking, I worry that the really fabulous aspects of their personalities will take back seat to their facial features, or BMI, or whatever else becomes the popular way to look in 10 years.
I wonder what these girls think of themselves when they are not in “perfect” mode, like when they first wake up in the morning or coming inside from running around playing. If they are praised for being beautiful and wonderful and whatever else when they are all done up in full pageant-mode what could they possibly want with their natural selves? That’s the real damage for these girls.
I love waking up my daughter in the morning – she’s got messy hair and a groggy look on her face. She’s beautiful then and throughout the day, dirt in her hair, chocolate smeared on her face, whatever. I wouldn’t want her any other way, and certainly not looking like one of these pod-people.
wow. That is literally all I can say. If I were a ruder person than I am, I would be repeating over and over “oh my F***** God” (sorry God). I just can’t stop staring. It’s ridiculous! I mean, if the adult women were hard enough to look at, just think of the children! If they are trying to capture “childhood” facial features and looks, then why are they turning the little girls into grown up hoochies? I could imagine though, if you were brought up that way, like in Uglies, people seeing the adult women as “beautiful” (although I don’t agree). After all, in the middle ages, pudgy was the new skinny. The Mona Lisa now days to us would look like someone in a slimfast class. But still. Putting the Children out like that? It border lines insanity. Like that little girl that was murdered in a beauty pagent. What was her name? Jon something. But yeah. You bet my drift. But hopefully nothing like what happened to the people in Uglies will ever happen to us. This makes me sick enough to start aa “Smoke” even before some sort of operation comes around! I don’t know Scott, you could be a phsycic.
oops. The link for the picture isn’t working… 🙁
oh well. Go to this: “http://beckycarter.com/images/MDFjulywinban.jpg”
Will this be us in a few years??? Clones???
Oh. my. god. That’s frightening. Very scary indeed. I don’t understand how that can be considered beautiful. They look beyond plastic. Like they’ll never blink again. Especially to little kids, where they’re already completely and utterly adorable. No one needs that.
I’m really, really glad that you’re all so horrified. Much hope for the human race.
But I think very few adults are considered attractive while maintaining a strong resemblance to human babies. (Helena Bonham Carter and Alexis Bledel are the examples that come to mind.)
Huh. And I thought Helena Bonham Carter was just cute because she’s Betty Boop.
As the mother of a 2-year-old girl (totally cute any beguiling without any photoshopping) I worry. I worry that she will want to look like that, I worry that my sons will reject women who aren’t perfect-looking, I worry that the really fabulous aspects of their personalities will take back seat to their facial features, or BMI, or whatever else becomes the popular way to look in 10 years.
Yeah, it’s the feedback loop that scares me the most. Like, before cosmetic surgery actually existed, you wouldn’t have predicted the kinds of things people want from it. So much of it’s not about beauty, it’s about some kind of weird competition or something. (Which is, of course, what “Angels with Attitude” is: a competition.)
But then people start to get used to these inhuman exaggerations . . . and even expect them. But speaking as one of the Left Behind, I frankly find Tom Cruise’s teeth creepy. So white.
was just looking at the pictures and i think thy are adorable !!!but i have seen some that look like cartoon characters or china dolls but anywho does any one know how to do that in photoshop also does anyone know of a retoucher for hire,i am a photographer and i am looking for someone that can retouch photos like that ..thanks wen
Ah! And I thought I was the only one who thought Tom Cruise’s teeth were creepy!! (Well, I think the rest of him is too….) I was definitely freaked out by those photos of the ‘pretty’ people. They looked just like…dolls. My co-workers were all freaked out too. Then everyone left and I kept looking at the photos…and they started to look almost normal. THAT freaked me out and I immediately closed the website. Ew. I hope we never really come to that.
-R.
Amerians are bizzare!!!!!!!!!!! This would never, ever happen in Australia, even in the most rural or redneck towns. no taste whatsoever. And when were these photos taken?? like, 1990? No? recently?!!! hahahahahahahaha!!! oh my god, there is a fashion time warp going on. Even funnier, the comment from wen, above! Wen, have you completely missed the point? buy yourelf a copy of friggin’ photoshop and use the liquify tool on their eyes! And then watch as your business slowly becomes bankrupt.