“I’ve always been confident about my chin and jawline,” says Adam — who didn’t want to use his real name — a 37-year-old real estate agent who often uses Instagram and TikTok to promote his business, and sees a correlation between of success and the chiseled jaw she got thanks to Juvéderm. “People trust a traditionally masculine persona,” she told me.
Adam was good-looking before his cosmetic surgery, but now he looks like he belongs on a reality show with high-end realtors showing homes amid personal strife. If you’ve ever wondered why everyone on your social media feeds now looks like they’ve stepped straight from central casting or a billboard, there’s a lot more at play than judicial filtering.
A New Yorker 2019 article by Jia Tolentino coined the term ‘Instagram Face’, positioning it as a predominantly female phenomenon. She described it as “the gradual emergence among professionally beautiful women of a single, cyborg face,” whose Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner combination has silicone-mimicking poreless skin, high cheekbones that can be read as artificial, and fleshy lips. beyond what is usually seen in nature. This persona has been made possible by advances in cosmetic surgery and is largely driven by the ubiquity of self-promotion through social media.
The word Cyborgian it suggests a certain extravagance expected in women’s cosmetic trends. And because it’s socially acceptable for women to get their work done, some consider them to have Instagram Face denotes success and upward mobility.
It says a lot about the fixed state of masculinity that men want the same heteronormative version of handsome that has defined male beauty standards for years. According to Chris BustamanteDNP, which he holds Rich Aestheticsa medical spa in midtown Manhattan that caters primarily to men and is known for its facials and sexual aesthetic workclients come to him for traditional masculine features like a square jaw and strong cheekbones.
“Even some patients who identify as non-binary want their features to be defined more in a masculine way. They may play with gender through makeup or clothes, but they want their foundation to be sculpted and defined,” she told me.
According to a YouGov Study 2023, Nearly 60 percent of American men estimate that they are perceived as masculine, a desire that has existed for years and is not inherently worrisome in itself. However, it feels like social media (and its executives extreme alpha-male influences) has exacerbated the obsession with telegraphing one’s masculinity, which manifests itself in interesting—some might say toxic—ways, ranging from the rise male body dysmorphia in extreme facial augmentation such as it looks great or … shows up at the RNC with immovable supervillain eyebrows and a Cyborg forehead without wrinkles.
Youth and prowess are big parts of masculinity. Bustamante said many men in their 40s and 50s come in saying they’d like work done to combat aging at work, which was echoed by the other practitioners I spoke with. Also resonated? That it’s not just older CEOs, celebritiesor influencers go under the needle.
“When people find out what I do, they think I’m working with boogies all day,” registered nurse Lindsay Kincaid of New Leaf Restorative Medicine—was not in an “ornate marble high-rise” along a “green stretch of Park Avenue,” but in a nondescript brick medical building half a mile from my grocery store where I live in Asheville, North Carolina—he told me, ” But they’re everyday people and everyday guys who come to refresh themselves.”
Non-invasive cosmetic procedures – think Botox or fillers like the aforementioned Juvéderm – are on the rise. THE American Academy of Plastic Surgeons found that non-invasive procedures for men increased by 253 percent between 2019 and 2022 (total cosmetic procedures increased by 207 percent over the same period). They are much more affordable than traditional plastic surgery and don’t require two weeks off to recover. Kincaid says a consultation and treatment can be done in 45 minutes. if I wanted to, I could get a Ryan Gosling-inspired jawline during my lunch break.
On Instagram—where else—I sought out everyday kids to understand their decisions to pursue the cosmetic arts.
A doctor in his 30s told him that for the past few years he had regular botox every three months. An account manager in his early 30s told me he just had his first injections a week ago to get rid of a crease on his forehead that has always bothered him. One marketing executive hasn’t taken the plunge yet, but was saving up some money to give himself a square, chiseled jaw for his 40su.
The treatments and procedures are becoming so popular that I’ve started noticing them from my Instagram feed as well. When I met a Teva-clad friend at a brewery to discuss his regular Botox treatments, I noticed that he hadn’t posted on social media since 2021. That doesn’t mean he’s not scrolling, however. the average American spends 2.3 hours daily on social media and 71 percent of people admit to regularly photoshopping or Facetuning posted photos. Like the social media that potentially inspired it, male cosmetic surgery is accessible, acceptable, and possibly moving toward banality.
A key reason male clients give Kincaid to get their work done is that he’s the face of a business in some capacity, a growing concern in a society where we all essentially have a personal brand, and something I struggled with recently.
Two years ago, I consulted a fellow marketer about how to take my freelance career more seriously. I was advised to start one Instagram account where I could publish not only my work but selfies Also—“You don’t just sell your writing. you’re also selling yourself,” they told me. “Your personal brand can help land assignments.”
So I asked Kincaid how she would optimize me.
He suggested light glabella injections to fade the lines between my eyes and my temples to infringe on my growing crow’s feet. I could do this for $605 (they were 20 percent off!), which is about what I could spend on a weekend trip, so not chump change but well within this regular guy’s budget.
It’s also very close to my rate for freelance writing assignments.
