Instagram Face Is Here, and Teenagers Are Getting Surgery to Match It

There’s a look you’ve probably noticed on social media. It shows up in Instagram feeds, TikTok videos, and everywhere people gather online. Lifted cheeks, plumped lips, bigger eyes, a heart-shaped chin. Writer Jia Tolentino gave this look a name seven years ago: Instagram face. What started as a niche aesthetic among celebrities has now become so normal that plastic surgeons are reporting a significant surge in cosmetic procedures among people under thirty. The troubling part? Teenagers and young adults who aren’t even done growing are getting Botox and fillers, procedures that were once reserved for middle-aged folks trying to reverse aging.

The pressure to achieve this look comes from every direction. Social media algorithms reward filtered, perfected versions of ourselves and punish authenticity. Young women receive constant messages to improve, optimize, and perfect their appearance while getting almost no counterbalance that their face is acceptable as it is. A twelve-year-old doing anti-aging skincare routines, an eighteen-year-old considering a facelift, a twenty-year-old getting filler injections. These aren’t anomalies anymore; they’re becoming the norm. Tolentino worries that in pursuit of this digital perfection, we’re erasing human imperfection itself, trading genuine confidence for a filtered version of ourselves that no one can actually maintain in real life.

What makes this even more complicated is that Instagram face pulls features from multiple ethnicities, yet AI systems replicate these features as almost exclusively white, thin, and young. It’s a beauty standard that sounds diverse on the surface but perpetuates a narrow ideal in practice. As parents, friends, and communities, we have a choice: we can continue feeding the algorithm and the insecurity it creates, or we can push back and remind young people that their natural faces, with all their unique characteristics and changes over time, are genuinely beautiful. What’s your relationship with social media and beauty standards? How are you helping the young people in your life navigate this pressure?