u/gilsoo71

What this fails to distinguish is the difference between wanting to look your best, by maintaining a healthy lifestyle, skincare, and fashion, from the obsession to change oneself to becoming someone else, wanting certain features from plastic surgery, and judging others superficially based on a certain set of external criteria.

My personal take on this is that, Koreans from a young age don't have a chance to become unique and individualistic; you live in the same apartments, go to same schools and hakwons and spend most of your entire formative years in studying, then you're subject to get the same jobs offered by a few companies by acting in a same manner and workstyle, and yes, being Koreans, you pretty much are born looking very similar to each other, more or less.

And the end result of all this effort, is success and money, material possessions and status; choose your white or black shiny car that you can hardly afford. So it's inevitable that they continue to go this route with regards to their looks. While in countries like america or Europe embrace individualism and people are able to find their own style and uniqueness, unique lifestyles and careers, Koreans dig deeper to try to find an edge from what they are accustomed to, instead of venturing out to be different and embrace differentiation.

That's why when once in a while a new fad appears, everyone rushes to take part, because they feel they're a less than someone else if they do not, regardless of how inherently rewarding or beneficial it is. It doesn't matter - what matters most is that they do the same and to extremes, at times.

In all my years on Korea this is one of the most frustrating aspects of Korean society, where instead of trying to break outside of the box, they choose to make that box more shinier than someone else's box. I'm not saying of course this is how everyone is, but I'm the context of obsession with how they look, this is one of the root causes.