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- 🧠 A new study suggests TikTok engagement may influence body image and cosmetic surgery acceptance among young women.
- 📱 Appearance-related commenting on TikTok links to both higher body appreciation and increased openness to cosmetic surgery.
- ⚠️ Following celebrities on TikTok indirectly increases cosmetic surgery acceptance by amplifying body dissatisfaction.
- 🏋️ Fitness influencer content promotes surgery as a form of self-optimization rather than fixing flaws.
- 🧬 Repeated exposure to algorithmically successful beauty trends reinforces identity through appearance.
TikTok’s Growing Influence on Self-Image
TikTok changes pop culture. And it also changes how millions, especially young women, see themselves. The app has short videos, strong algorithms, and a focus on visuals. This often makes societal beauty standards more intense. A 2024 study in Psychology of Popular Media looked at how different actions related to looks on TikTok—like commenting or following influencers—affect body satisfaction and make cosmetic surgery seem normal for young users.
Platforms and Perception: Why TikTok Hits Different
Instagram and similar platforms show still pictures. But TikTok is different; it moves fast. Videos are often not perfect, but they pull you in. They mix lifestyle vlogs, beauty tips, health advice, humor, and trends into quick clips. This new video style changes how we interact with beauty. It highlights not only how people look but also how their looks move, act, and change.
Younger users are in late adolescence or early adulthood. This is an important time for them to figure out who they are. TikTok acts as both a stage and a mirror for them. On TikTok, users can share stories about themselves. They also look for approval and show who they are to friends and strangers. When a platform gives rewards like likes, shares, and viral status for visual content, people feel pressure. They want to look good on screen. This becomes part of what it costs to be on social media.
Types of TikTok Engagement That Affect Body Image
The study shows that how people use TikTok matters. Many blame the total time spent on the app for bad results. But the way people interact with it truly shapes what they experience and how they see themselves. Researchers divided this into three types of interactions based on looks. And each type had different results.
1. Leaving Appearance-Focused Comments
People on TikTok don't just see beauty standards. They also help make them stronger by praising them. Saying nice things about how others look ("You’re so pretty!" or "Glow up queen!") might seem fine. It might even make someone feel better. But it can also make looks seem more important for how people value each other.
2. Following Celebrities
Celebrity content often shows common beauty standards. These are made stronger by stylists, filters, and sometimes plastic surgery. When users follow these accounts, they regularly see perfect-looking people. This affects what they think is normal or what they wish for.
3. Following Health/Fitness Influencers
Health and fitness content might seem good or helpful. But it often focuses on making things "best": better abs, stricter diets, perfect routines. These accounts often suggest that changing your body makes you a better person. They quietly say your current self can and should get better.
The Double-Edged Sword of Appearance-Based Commenting
Giving compliments can make users feel better about themselves. Dajches et al. (2024) found that young women who often commented positively on others' looks on TikTok said they liked their bodies more. This good feeling might come from feeling connected to others or feeling good about themselves. Therapists might call this helpful social behavior.
But there's a catch. The same people were also more likely to say they accept cosmetic surgery. This brings up a key point. Praising beauty can make you feel better for a short time. But it can also make beauty seem too important when deciding someone's worth. It creates a world where how you look ties into your self-worth. And surgery can "improve" that.
Giving compliments doesn't happen on its own. It's part of a culture driven by algorithms where looking good gets rewards. Even kind acts can make people focus too much on how they look.
Positive Feedback vs. Appearance Fixation: A Slippery Slope
This happens two ways: people feel better about their bodies, but they also become more open to surgery. This shows a strange fact about how we think. Some positive focus on looks can help users like how they appear. But if feeling good mainly comes from looking good, people get stuck. Then, looking good becomes the main reason they feel good.
This shows what psychologists call appearance-based social capital. Social capital usually has to do with trust, relationships, and money. But on TikTok, it's often about how you look. Your appearance becomes a way to trade value online. It feels good to get this value, but it depends on conditions and doesn't last.
Celebrity Influence: When Aspiration Breeds Dissatisfaction
Celebrity culture has always set beauty standards. But TikTok makes this influence much stronger. It gives you a steady stream of celebrity content chosen just for you. Users who follow TikTok celebrities saw indirect increases in how much they accepted cosmetic surgery.
Here's how it works:
- When you see celebrity content, you feel worse about your body.
- And that bad feeling makes you more okay with cosmetic surgery as a way to fix it.
This cycle has happened on other platforms as well. But TikTok mixes realness with a fancy look. This can make the content feel even more convincing. These are not shiny magazine pictures. They are "real" people talking right to you. But they often have good lighting, makeup artists, surgeries, and hidden filters.
Seeing these ideal images affects your feelings and thoughts. You will compare yourself to them. When someone shows a perfect skin routine or a "no-filter" video that still looks great, it sends a quiet message. It says you could look like this too—if you put in more effort. Or perhaps, if you paid for help.
Fitness Influencers: A New Model of Surgical Acceptance
Fitness and health influencers tell a different story than celebrities. Their story is about control, hard work, and changing yourself. The study found that people who followed health influencers didn't always feel bad about their bodies. But they were much more open to getting cosmetic changes.
This shows a change in why people get cosmetic surgery. It's less about fixing things. Instead, it's about making your looks better for performance, appearance, or "personal bests." If you strongly believe in a culture of always doing more, surgery might seem less like a shallow act. It might seem more like a planned improvement.
Body measurements and beauty goals can be counted now. Things like waist size, hip-to-waist ratio, and how even your face is. Beauty then becomes a number. Cosmetic changes fit right into this idea. They are just another tool for self-control.
Normalization of Cosmetic Surgery in Digital Culture
Older generations saw plastic surgery as a last option or something for rich people. Today, it seems much more normal. Social media, especially TikTok, presents it as a way to gain power, not just fix things. People see before-and-after videos, vlogs about talking to doctors, and procedures shown with pop music and captions like "just another self-care day!"
TikTok beauty trends—like lip flips, buccal fat removal, and jawline shaping—become popular. This is not only because of big results. It's also because they fit how trends are made. They look good, can be copied, and the algorithm likes them. Soon, these become common ideas of beauty. When you scroll through TikTok, you see many faces changed by surgery. These are made to look normal through trends and changes. Then, how you see things slowly changes. Those looks don't seem special. They become what you expect.
Instagram has many edited pictures. But TikTok uses movement and how people express themselves. This makes changes seem more "real," but still just as desired.
Social Media and the Brain: Understanding the Feedback Loops
Social feedback, like likes and compliments, turns on the brain's dopamine pathways. This makes you repeat behaviors that got a good reaction. This is central to how social media affects your mind: if a behavior gets a reward, you do it again.
If your makeover gets thousands of hearts and reposts, your brain marks this as something to do again. This dopamine cycle is very strong during the teen years and early adulthood. That's when your brain changes the most. And it's when you are still figuring out who you are.
This brain pattern connects with how you see yourself. You start to believe the praise you get. And what gets approval online begins to feel like your true self. Or who you should be. Sometimes, this can make users change their bodies to match their online self.
Cosmetic Surgery as Identity Curation
Today, cosmetic surgery isn't only about fixing flaws. It's about making your "real" self match the digital self you show online. This new way of using surgery to manage who you are is very clear on TikTok. On this app, certain visual styles are very popular.
People get procedures more and more to look like a certain ideal. This could be the super fancy TikTok makeup style. Or the "clean girl" look. Or the strong jawlines and fox-eye features popular because of celebrity filters.
Surgery becomes a tool to change how you look. But this time, the change is lasting. It's not just taking out a pimple in an app. It's about shaping your nose so it looks like your favorite filter.
TikTok, Identity, and the Risk of Visual Enmeshment
If how you look is the main way you show yourself, changes to it can feel upsetting. A week with bad skin isn't just unlucky. It can make you question who you are. If you lose your "glow-up" progress in real life, it might feel like you're losing your place or importance online.
This is especially risky for young people still growing. If your self-worth keeps coming from how you look, you start to rely on what others think. This wears down the inner confidence you need to handle changes, criticism, or competition.
The idea of visual enmeshment means someone can't tell the difference between how they look and who they are. This is more and more connected to using social media. TikTok doesn't create this alone. But it makes it easier and gives rewards for it.
Gendered Algorithms: Who Pays the Appearance Tax?
TikTok is not fair when it comes to how people look. Women users, in particular, get rewards for fitting into visual culture. They show their face, bodies, and clothes, acting feminine on camera.
Men still deal with trends and looks. But they often get popular through humor or skill. This shows a bigger pattern in society. Women are valued more for how they look. And men are valued more for what they do.
This online appearance tax—the constant need to look good—means more emotional work for women online. And more trying out cosmetics. And more watching how they look.
How to Build Media Resilience in the Age of Algorithmic Appearances
We know TikTok is a big part of culture. But users can still take steps to keep a good self-image:
- Choose what you see: Don't just let the algorithm choose. Follow creators who go against typical beauty ideas. Or follow those who focus on things other than looks, like DIY crafts, comedy, or social causes.
- Interact on purpose: Before you comment or post a picture, ask yourself: am I doing this to connect or for approval?
- Change what beauty means: Show normal skin, unedited pictures, and many body types in your own feed and when you share.
- Know how the AI works: Learning about algorithms can help you deal with too much focus on looks. It shows how your interests control what you see.
- Stay grounded: Build who you are on things other than looks. Focus on hobbies, relationships, and values.
The Role of Clinicians and Educators
To lessen TikTok's focus on looks, experts need to help:
- Teach media skills early: Give young people the tools to think about what they see and how they use the internet.
- Support body acceptance: Don't just focus on loving your body. Instead, point out that our bodies are for doing things, not just for looking at.
- Talk openly: Schools and clinics should make places where people can talk honestly about online pressures. They should do this without shame or quiet.
- Focus on many parts of who you are: Help young people base their confidence not on looks, but on their different roles. Like being a sibling, friend, athlete, or writer.
Navigating a Beautiful but Biased Digital World
TikTok can bring out creativity and happiness. But it also quietly changes how we value ourselves and others. Platforms reward selected beauty. Comments praise looks more than being real. And surgery becomes common, not rare. When these things happen, it's important to take a step back.
To use TikTok without losing your self-worth, you need to understand media. And you need to be kind to yourself. This online world is good to look at. But it also has a slant. Knowing this can change everything.
References
Dajches, L., Gahler, H., Terán, L., Yan, K., Zeng, J., & Stevens Aubrey, J. (2024). ‘I Made You Look’… and Comment: Exploring the Role of TikTok on Body Image and Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery. Psychology of Popular Media. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000566
