What is the history/culture behind the preoccupation with appearance?
Firstly though, Happy Independence Day 🇰🇷🇰🇷
I will preface by saying, I am not very well-versed in Korean culture and history at all, so I do apologize.
I know that the US still ranks the top in plastic surgeries and medical tourism has vastly increased in South Korea, but whether someone gets plastic surgery or not, dieting culture still seems strong, beauty/skincare is a major industry, etc.
To my understanding, it’s considered respectful to care about your appearance and it shows effort and commitment. It’s not just ‘we chose this candidate for the job because they’re better looking’, but ‘we chose this candidate because they put EFFORT into looking better’. Looks are just a part of it is as well, you need to have good social skills and have done well and ranked high in academic scoring. Perfectionism in general seems to be a major part of the modern culture.
To an extent, this reigns true in many places, you shouldn’t go shopping in sweats with unruly hair, you should look presentable, right? And of course, the halo effect is a real phenomena. Every country cares about this kind of thing, but in SK, from the outside looking in, it really does seem prevalent.
I also have the sort of unpopular opinion that Koreans are NOT trying to look more western, if this were true, their inspiration pictures would mostly be of white celebrities, not East Asian celebrities. Light skin as well has sort of always been a standard and symbol of wealth and ‘purity’ for women almost worldwide.and ofc, worldwide, us women apparently ‘lose value’ with age 🙄 because MOST facial concerns have to do with wanting to look younger.
My question though is, what exactly happened between the 80s/90s and now? Why did this preoccupation with appearance become so prevalent?
My GUESS is that it’s a combination of a recent traumatic history that has affected collective self-esteem and identity (colonization tends to do this), combined with an already competitive culture in part, or wholly due to capitalism, and beauty industries/corporations getting bigger, then adding to their growth and using celebrities, advertising, social pressures, etc, to keep the masses concerned with their appearance, as doing so allows them to profit.
And now, in the 2020s, the growing reputation of being attractive and leading in cosmetics, etc. has become/is becoming a part of modern Korean identity and pride.
These are just my long-winded speculations though, I’m interested to hear responses.