Wrinkles – or more specifically, how to stave them off – are an age-old anxiety. But in recent months, more people than ever have been forced to confront these fears, thanks to TikTok’s ‘old-age’ filter, which overlays the face in real time to show how our skin and facial structure might look some decades down the line. Among the millions of TikTok users who’ve tried the filter is Kylie Jenner. “I don’t like it,” Kylie says in a clip responding to her digitally-aged face. “I don’t like it at all.”
‘Old-age’ and similar filters are symptomatic of the youth obsession that plagues our culture, and which appears to be impacting people at ever-earlier stages of their lives. In fact, Gen Z now spends more on skincare than any other generation, as more people buy into the idea that perceived flaws must be combatted before they’ve even begun.
This is true of even the youngest members of this generation. Last month, a now-deleted TikTok, which was subsequently shared across Twitter, sparked a conversation about how the beauty industry is harming teenage girls. In the clip, a girl is heard saying, “Here’s some things that I do to slow down the ageing process as a 14-year-old,” before proceeding to list and apply a range of products.
This particular video might have elicited shock, but its content is hardly surprising. While previous decades saw skincare products marketed at teens primarily focused on eliminating zits, now the narrative is increasingly shifting to preventing wrinkles and fine lines. Beauty brands like Spoiled Child have even released a line of anti-ageing products for Gen Zers. Its ad campaign barely tries to conceal its ageism, with a slogan which reads: “GETTING OLD IS GETTING OLD”.
Along with TV shows like Love Island and The Kardashians, where the stars talk about how they use filler and botox themselves, the old-age filter might be seen as helping to fuel the boom in ‘tweakments’ among people in their teens and twenties. The ‘preventativebotox’ hashtag has 1.8 million views on TikTok, with influencers such as Alix Earle, age 22, documenting their experience of getting the procedure on the app. Meanwhile, a number of clinics now use TikTok to advertise their services, making dubious claims such as “prevention is key!”.
In reality, much of the anti-ageing advice we’re fed on TikTok and similar platforms is pseudoscientific. There are no large scale clinical or observational studies of preventative botox proving its effectiveness. And while botox may be a relatively safe procedure, it can carry a huge financial burden. The NHS website says that botox prices range between £100 to £350 in the UK, depending on the clinic and the area being treated, with the effects generally lasting around three to four months. Given the pressure to regularly ‘top up’ procedures, it’s easy to see how more people are finding themselves in cosmetic debt.
The number of teens wanting botox has risen so sharply in recent years that it has prompted government action. Last year, the UK government introduced a ban on botox and lip fillers (when being done for cosmetic purposes) for under-18s in England. And, more recently, the UK has introduced a scheme meaning that people administering botox will have to hold a licence to prevent botched procedures.
While these regulations are welcome, they do little to address a culture that has valorised youth, and the greedy corporations seeking to capitalise off the insecurities of people — mostly girls and woman. Jessica DeFino is a beauty critic whose newsletter, The Unpublishable, seeks to debunk myths about the beauty industry. She identifies multiple reasons as to why people are taking preventative measures against ageing at earlier stages of life.
Part of it comes down to companies looking to boost their profits by marketing their anti-ageing product to even wider audiences. “Gen Z is really starting to enter the market and have their own spending power,” says Jessica. “So [for corporations] it’s kind of just a no brainer, I think.”
The collapse of siloed media is another factor Jessica points to, noting the death of teen magazines such as Cosmo Girl, Elle Girl and Sassy. “The media and the commercials [used to be] very different between age groups,” she says. “I think with social media specifically… these messages aren’t as targeted anymore. So younger people are being exposed to the same anti-ageing messaging that previously had been targeted at more of an older audience.”
DeFino also highlights the role filters like ‘old-age’ play in “instilling younger people with a very real fear of what they might look like if they don’t do all the anti-ageing stuff. This fear inspires a lot of purchasing”. She adds that beautifying filters which blur fine lines and wrinkles can have the same effect. “We get used to looking at ourselves like that online all day and it’s very easy to compare your real-world appearance to your digital avatar.”
The exploding popularity of skincare among younger generations also has links with the rise of wellness culture. Self-care has become synonymous with skincare, as corporations look for more ways to commodify our leisure time. “The language of care is embedded in a lot of these products, even as the products are not about care at all, but about control and physical manipulation of the body to a very strict standard of appearance,” notes Jessica. With teen girls now reporting record levels of sadness, it’s perhaps unsurprising that so many are turning towards products which offer a vague promise of improved wellbeing.
We’ve seen how, as ‘body positivity’ became increasingly en vogue, the focus shift towards skincare and away from the eulogising of thinness that felt inescapable in the 90s and early 00s. But moving the conversation from fat rolls to fine lines was never going to be the answer to the oppressive beauty standards people face. As Jessica puts it, the focus on skincare “is just a more socially acceptable way to convince women primarily to control themselves and funnel their time, money, energy and headspace back into their own bodies”.
That these immense pressures have become virtually inescapable for even the youngest members of Gen Z is a damning indictment of the beauty industry. It’s something that should horrify us more than our digitally-aged selves.