Everyone Is Becoming Hotter to Stay Home and See Nobody
The most onerous beauty and wellness routines only work if you have nowhere to go and nobody to see--and that's the point.
So, I actually wrote this piece a month ago, but had it in drafts because it “wasn’t relevant.” And then, this viral quote from this viral article on wellness appeared on my feed (and likely, many of yours).
In January alone, I’ve done Botox, Emface, IPL, scheduled Moxi / broadband light, seen my orthodontist, cardiologist, GP, OBGYN, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, trainer, and pilates instructor. I’ve renewed my health insurance and medspa membership. I’ve drawn blood three times and given two urine samples. My current skincare routine is 6-8 steps, my daily supplement stack is 17 pills (20 on Mondays) and a peptide taken subQ, and I’ve engaged at least 5 high-tech tools from my home device library (red light, SAD light, PEMF, etc). I’ve tracked every meal, macro, and relevant micronutrient.
Like everything on the Internet: grain of salt. This person knows she will get a reaction by making everyone else feel inadequately peptidemaxxed. This is the affluent millennial female version of Clavicular (if it’s even true) and I can almost guarantee you that this newsletter will contain affiliate links for red light masks and supplements, meant for the niche audience who wants to buy those things.
This quote prompted a lot of women to declare that all of this is total bogus that will never make anyone look better because they don’t do anything like this and they look effortlessly beautiful (doubt: if cosmetic enhancements truly made everyone look worse, people would stop doing them. I’m sure you look great though.) But the more frequent critique was that this author is “out of touch” because most people can’t afford to do all this shit. I also refuse to engage with the “out of touch” thing. If this feels out of touch to you, you are probably not the target audience. She never once says, “And SO CAN YOU, including the median American in an Ohio IHOP!”
But before I even saw this quote, I had already written about how laborious wellness rituals like the possibly-fictional ones this author claims to be doing rely on something other than large amounts of money: large amounts of time spent alone at home.
It’s not just this Substacker—the influencer economy is full of content in this genre, with one singular focus: an ever-increasing list of onerous wellness rituals, most of which are presented as “self care” but with a subtle nod to becoming hotter and more desirable. But all of these things would realistically impede real-life socialization, making little to no impact on your desirability as a partner, especially when you factor in how isolated and constrained you will be. In fact, extended social isolation appears to be an unspoken requirement for all of these rituals to be completed. Everyone is becoming hotter and healthier to stay home by themselves.
