the 80’s
The rise of cable television was a leap toward the future of how we consume media and are influenced by others. After the launch of Music Television in 1981, the airwaves were never the same.
Music and artists were transformed beyond the broadcast. Before this, music traveled through radio or records, while grainy televised performances were only an occasional phenomenon. With its glorious debut, MTV featured The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” which juxtaposed the celebration of radio and the bold new claim to a new, never-seen-before era of music. Musicians were no longer just voices of the radio. They became fully realized personas, and as a result, the visual components within the blaring spotlight became just as crucial as the music itself. The music videos were equal parts art, performance, and let’s be real, pure marketing genius. A feast for the eyes that revolutionized how we consumed pop culture.
The connection between entertainer and audience became much more intimate, and influence became much more prominent. Musicians like Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince became visual icons, pushing boundaries in fashion, expression, and social norms.
This captivating influence on viewers by the masses became the obvious choice for advertisers, which at this point, is a pretty common theme for capitalist America. In beauty and fashion especially, brands pushed sales by using “fear of missing out” tactics to tap into viewers’ desires to emulate their idols. Looking and living like these celebrated figures became a cornerstone in advertising, a powerful motivator for consumer behavior.
However, as celebrities became the new beauty icons, their carefully constructed images and lifestyles were simultaneously broadcasted and scrutinized. This relentless exposure fueled an “obsession with the ‘ideal’ body- a narrow definition of glamour and desirability.
the 90’s and 2000’s
Ever scroll through your phone and feel a pang of comparison? It’s easy to get caught up in the curated feeds and filtered realities of today’s digital world. But have you ever stopped to wonder how we even got here? Well, the seeds of our hyper-connected, image-obsessed culture were sown way before Instagram and TikTok, in the fascinating and often problematic era between 1990 and 2007 – a total game-changer for beauty, media, and how we saw ourselves.
Let’s take a trip- not very far- down memory lane to understand how the digital revolution of the 90s and early 200s shaped the beauty standards we’re still navigating today.
It was a magical time when flawless skin and a perfect figure weren’t just rare genetic lottery wins, but rather something that could be manufactured with a few clicks of a mouse. This is what happened with the introduction of Photoshop in 1990. It was a game-changer for image manipulation. It provided the means to a flawless and unattainable ideal of beauty, altering appearances on a mass scale. This transition to physical perfection was adopted by beauty and fashion companies on a massive scale, manufacturing and commercializing the idea that imperfections were undesirable.
The explosion of fast fashion during this period further contributed to the shift as brands like Zara and Forever 21 made “high-fashion aesthetics more accessible,” but this accessibility came with its own set of pressures, as the rapid turnover of trends and the low cost of clothing encouraged a constant cycle of consumption, subtly reinforcing the idea that staying current and beautiful required perpetually updated wardrobes and beauty products. It aligns with the broader “consumerism & advertising boom” fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution, where consumer goods, including fashion, became more widely available and aspirational beauty marketing flourished.
The early 2000s also witnessed the rise of MySpace, early influencer marketing, and tabloid journalism, which introduced a new level of accessibility to beauty culture, further feeding a growing appetite for visual perfection. While not the sophisticated social media landscape we know today, these early online spaces began to cultivate a culture of self-presentation and comparison, laying the groundwork for the intense focus on online image and validation that would follow.
The anticipation of the iPhone’s release in 2007 serves as a powerful bookend to this era. It foreshadowed a future where the digital and physical worlds would become inextricably linked, further blurring the lines between reality and digitally enhanced ideals of beauty. The media-driven beauty standards established in the 90s and early 2000s, fueled by image manipulation, celebrity worship, and the pressures of consumerism, set the stage for the hyperconnected world we live in today, where these influences continue to shape our perceptions. Later on, it became more apparent that the greatest shift in defining beauty came not through visual information alone, but through how we receive and distribute information. Improving the methods of how content is shared and received, increases the risk of disturbance within our own understandings of self and others.
the present
At first, this beauty standard was an easy brainwash, as the general population remained unfamiliar with Photoshop’s potential. But as we become more aware of these regularities, we are still affected by what we see. Why is this? How can we look at something, despite knowing that it is an adaptation of reality and not the truth, yet still compare ourselves? Why do we crumble under the pressure to achieve this manufactured beauty standard?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explores the concept of the aesthetic from the 18th-century theory of taste, which explains that judgments of beauty are immediate, akin to sensory judgment. In other words, we sense that things are beautiful, rather than reasoning our way to that conclusion. This concept of “immediacy” offers a crucial understanding to why visual media is so impactful. Throughout this investigation, we have seen how different adaptations of mass media- from the halftone printing process to photography, film, television, and the internet- have reshaped human perception of beauty. The power of these visual mediums lies in their direct and immediate impact on our senses, bypassing any obligation for conscious reasoning. Even when we know that images are altered to achieve perfection, the immediacy of visual information triggers a sensory and emotional response.
In a deeper dissection of this contingency, we can unveil the “interested pleasure” we experience when judging something to be beautiful. Immanuel Kant explains that an “interested pleasure” occurs when pleasure is accompanied by the need to engage in a particular input that we see to bring it into existence. In application, judging something as “beautiful” can become an interested pleasure because of the actions we take to achieve it- to bring it into existence within our own lives. It is an essential part of advertising to influence audiences to take these actions. It is how a product influences an audience to react- to make a purchase.
Ultimately, our perception of beauty is directly tied to the visual input we receive. This has been demonstrated through a series of interviews about body image as some young women emphasize how easy it is to be filled with self-doubt, especially with social media. An interview with Liv Erwin explained how she constantly compares her body on social media. Another interview with Isha Vyas explained how it’s hard not to compare yourself to so many different people and different ways to be pretty. Even when we recognize that a presentation of beauty has been manufactured, we still participate in a subconscious reaction. We are always affected. The power of visual communication has already established its threat for misinformation and distorted narratives, but as media technologies become more sophisticated, our sensory perceptions become even more vulnerable.