Body modifications/cosmetics/jewellery

Neither of us support the use of any body modifications, cosmetics or jewellery.

My mother used to put a gold bracelet on me as a young child. My friend stated that, as a child, he distinctly remember doing such things as wearing a necklace or bracelet and then ‘removing them due to the nuisance.’

Other than this, I had little exposure to body modifications, cosmetics or jewellery until age 11, when I suddenly saw almost every girl my age adopt a significant degree of cosmetics. I found this distasteful at the time.

At age 14, in an answer to an online Q&A question, I stated that ‘I don’t like tattoos’ and that if I had to get one, it would be ‘microscopic’ and ‘on one of my hair strands’, so that I could ‘cut the hair out of my head so I don’t have to have the tattoo.’

At age 17, I stated:

‘I see girls claim they don’t wear makeup because of society; they wear it “for themselves”.’ I proceeded to make references to hunter-gatherer tribes that wear ‘nothing but a rag around their waist’ and stated,

‘They are so oblivious to the fact society is controlling them. They wouldn’t even know what makeup is if they didn’t grow up in the society they did. They learn it from the people around them, and this therefore decides whether they wear makeup or not or get fanatical about “beauty” and “fashion”.

They have been influenced by the market; they saw adverts and tried to keep up and follow trends; they were peer-pressured.’

At age 17, in response to several photos, I stated, ‘Makeup and piercings; ew, those words make me cringe.’

At age 17, my friend stated:

‘I’m in no willing position to defend makeup. It’s disgusting.’ I replied, ‘Exactly. The lack of it makes everyone better, 100x.’

I continued, ‘For me, you can’t have no makeup without no earrings or tattoos or piercings. They all have to be gone. You can’t remove one without removing the other.’

At age 18, I stated, ‘I consider hair-cutting another bodily modification, just like tattoos, piercings and makeup. It’s not natural, plain and simple.’

At age 18, I stated, ‘I have never, ever, ever got a haircut for any style reason. It has always been a necessity, including when it was short [as a child], done by my parents’ orders, or now when it gets too long. I never change my hairstyle.’

At age 18, my friend stated:

‘I’m sure there are thousands of things I have had an aversion to in the past: short hair, jewellery, logos on clothes, designer items.’ I replied, ‘I hate all body modifications. … I could list dozens of things I don’t like about them.’

My friend replied, ‘Yes. They are totally unnecessary.’ I replied, ‘They look ridiculous, following a trend. I hate the personality element that is responsible for their decision to get piercings.’

At age 18, I stated:

‘I don’t know why people do it; I don’t know why people use Snapchat filters. I remember when it first started. I was like, “Why are people in such a frenzy over Snapchat filters? It’s not like no other apps have ever been able to apply filters to faces before.”

It scares me. I see it everywhere, anyone who I try to develop relationships with.’

At age 19, I stated:

‘Just found the “Reasons for piercing” section [on the Wikipedia article for body piercing]: “A 2001 survey in Clinical Nursing Research, an international publication, found that 62% of people who have had piercings have done so in an effort ‘to express their individuality.’“^[1]

What a load of utter rubbish. They’re following fucking trends. They’re not individual; they’re the polar opposite, couldn’t be more so. The thing is, they could argue that people with piercings are in the minority, therefore it’s less individual to not have a piercing.

But here’s the thing: having a natural body is the default position. It’s given to you from birth whether you like it or not. There’s no trend aspect about it. It’s not something you see as a trend and copy.

But piercings are derived from society. They go out of their way to follow a specific trend, of doing a specific action, with a specific material, in specific locations, which are given specific names in the piercing world, just because it’s what others are doing. It’s not individuality at all.’

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘I’ve never met or seen a female ever that doesn’t wear jewellery. Something is wrong. I truly haven’t seen a girl that doesn’t wear jewellery or, at the least, a bracelet, or a ring, or a necklace. There truly isn’t one. Never, ever seen one.’

At age 19, I stated:

‘Also, this is now a repeating pattern: people are saying they use Snapchat filters because they think they look better in them, as in they want to hide their face.

It makes it multiple times more infuriating that that’s their reasoning. They shouldn’t even be trying to fix it. They should just stomach it and move on, because it’s their natural state, so they’re never going to look better, full stop. Natural is best. End of.’

At age 19, I stated:

‘[Snapchat filters are] totally clownish. No one could ever see that as appearance-enhancing. It’s a cover. It covers the face and distorts it to make it look less like it naturally does, hides it.

It’s like clown makeup. No one could ever see that as serious. The appearance-enhancing part is a joke, because it doesn’t actually look serious. It looks cartoonish. It’s totally obvious that it’s fake, so it falls back to its purpose of being used as a cover.’

At age 19, I stated, ‘You know what else is funny in a way, a funny pattern to note? Every girl who’s ever worn makeup, when I’ve asked them to show me themselves without it, they’ve either still had it on or had a Snapchat filter. It truly is like a glue stuck to them.’

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘When you consider 99.9% of people look like this, they’re all the same person to me. It’s just this one faceless, identityless being.‘

At age 19, my friend stated:

‘I now know truly why girls wear Snapchat filters. Basically, they have entered a high-school-like environment, and they just enter this culture; they “adapt” to it.

Due to the insecurity and lack of popularity that arises from being exposed to those people, their way of thinking gradually gets shaped to what the bulk of students see. It triggers their human or emotional instincts, especially if they have acne. They will use the filters to hide it.

But in my world, acne doesn’t put me off, but filters make me feel sick. Basically, any insecurities cause them to latch onto this culture. It’s unsurprising that they don’t know any other way of thinking. … I can see how it all happens. … There is a psychological desire to impress or be popular.

I could never speak to a girl who wears Snapchat filters, because it immediately means they are part of that culture, and they have a friend culture of that nature, which is probably inescapable. … It’s practically impossible for them to be like us.

Obviously, they’re all going to be like this. It doesn’t surprise me at all, and then their whole family is like it as well. They’ve been bombarded with the culture. There is no other possible outcome.‘

My friend later also attempted to pursue the route of asking someone with the social mindset about the reason why they do a social-mindset practice, not realising that it could never be felt subjectively by us or rationalised objectively by them. He stated,

‘I’ve decided to speak to one, or rather that girl turned out that she does wear Snapchat filters from time to time but never makeup, obviously an unsurprising result.

I need to hear it first hand. I need to hear their “logic”. I need to see it, and I need to see their situation and what specifically they don’t like about their appearance and what they want it to look like and why.

Now, we will finally get a feel for what it’s like to be in their world, having grown up in the modern era with all those influences, and why they do what they do, and at the same time, I will not reveal my own views. I’m wording it in a very non-forceful way, so we can extract all the info.

I’m going to ask what she wants to look like, what she dreams of looking like, and see what photo of what girl she produces and then ask why and what it will achieve looking like that, what it will enable or facilitate her to do or acquire if she were to look like that.

I believe there is a lot to be explored. We can truly get to the bottom of how their logic works for them.’

At age 19, my friend stated:

‘It’s the practice of having an unfounded opinion of one’s own appearance that is not based on logic or seeing the bigger picture, so they act on an emotional whim and apply a Snapchat filter but fail to see the higher layer and what they’re actually doing, which is presenting themselves as a clone, just presenting themselves as a copy of everyone else.

They also don’t understand why they’re drawn to wearing Snapchat filters or why it makes them look better. They aren’t in control. They don’t know why they do these things. They are completely trapped. They are moved by the hands of emotion and social influence and how it interacts with their predictable neurology.’

I replied, ‘Thinking Snapchat filters make you look prettier is one of the ugliest and most wretched patterns of thinking I have ever encountered in my existence. It has to be that the same mentality that leads to Snapchat-filter-wearing leads to alcohol consumption. It all ties in together. Practically everything bad we know is a result of that one mentality.’

At age 19, my friend sent a screenshot of message from a girl stating, ‘Lol ok. I always thought [Snapchat filters] made my face look less weird but you’re not the first person to say this.’ He remarked in a voice message:

‘It really enrages me, though, because they think that their face is weird without Snapchat filters, and it’s such a skewed logic. It’s a skewed logic, and it just has to be that their logic has been hijacked by that social reasoning. It just has to be, because it’s not a normal thing to think [in the animal kingdom].’

I replied, ‘They have the social, empathetic mindset. They gobble up people’s opinions like it’s nothing. … They can’t see the whys. There’s absolutely nothing special about Snapchat filters other than their popularity; that is why they like them and find them appearance-enhancing [though subjectively, to them, it isn’t].’

At age 20, I sent a photo of a girl who had no cosmetics, body modifications or hair modifications and stated:

‘It’s very hard to come by photos like this, devoid of any obnoxious influences. All photos have horrible embellishments. It’s extremely rare to come across photos like that.’

My friend replied, ‘Yes, yes indeed. It’s actually unbelievable that you can’t come across that, when it’s a person in a default appearance. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s mind-boggling.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘Least effort is also what I’ve been saying; it’s the default position, default state, and they stray from that, and what they end up doing is ignoring all the natural differentiation caused by human genetics … and turning themselves into literally everyone else. They do the opposite of what I assume is their intention.’

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘At this rate, I’m more attracted to facial deformities than I am makeup, jewellery and horrible clothes.’ At age 19, I had stated, ‘A congenitally missing finger: that, I am able to not care about.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘Girls who don’t wear makeup have an impetus to do so, a strong one, one they almost have to fight. They have to fight the social pressure. They defend those who do wear it. We don’t have that. That’s the fundamental difference.’

At age 19, my friend stated, ‘I don’t know what rationale they have, how they think it makes them look better. It’s the fact makeup is literally only for others; it’s disadvantaging yourself to impress others by putting an oily substance as an obstacle course on your face, causing itching and preventing you from scratching, going in your eye.’

At age 20, I stated, ‘Nail polish is so annoying. I don’t understand the need for people to have all sorts of necklaces on and bracelets for no reason whatsoever. I can’t go a minute without seeing it and wondering why the fuck it’s there, why the fuck they couldn’t just not wear it, couldn’t go without it.’

At age 19, my friend stated:

‘It’s like this totally pointless thing they can’t justify. It’s like applying shit to their face. It’s like smearing dog shit on their cheeks. … That’s what I mean about it being solely neurological, and everyone who gets exposed to it reacts in the same way that has that neurology.

They’re not liking it because other people like it [subjectively, though objectively, they are]. They liked it because their neurology behaved in a predictable way, and when they saw other people with that makeup on, they liked it because of that neurology, but they had to see other people do it, definitely.’

At age 19, my friend stated:

‘The fact they think makeup can be natural or not natural. They see these totally false classifications. It’s a false landscape.‘

I replied, ‘It was one of the most stupid things I’ve ever read, but unfortunately, it confirms what I already knew, that it is offensive to tell these girls they look good without makeup. You can’t win with that. You can’t even enter the topic. It’s considered off-limits for men.

You can’t tell them, because their neurology is dictating that they put on makeup no matter what, so it’s always seen as an attack on their effort or self-expression, even though literally all fucking girls are doing it, meaning it’s not self-expressive whatsoever, because there’s no self aspect to it. They’re conforming to something done by all females, due to neurology out of their control. They can’t help but be offended about it.’

My friend replied, ‘I don’t know why they act like not wearing makeup is conventional. What they’re doing is conventional.’ I replied, ‘Yes. It was infuriating.’ My friend continued, ‘They are looking conventionally attractive, by wearing purple eyeshadow, to the group of people who do it, and the models are all wearing similar things in the same locations.

But I’m not sure why they don’t identify that. I’m not sure why they still see these things as unconventional. They all do these things and genuinely believe it makes them individual or unconventional.

It’s like they’re lagging years and years behind. It’s like they think society is still some 1990s film conception. It’s like they’re genuinely totally unaware of the categories and mass trends whilst doing them and adhering to them totally, unaware of conventions but fitting them perfectly and then claiming it is unconventional.

But you’ve only got to look at the girl who said that girls who don’t wear makeup or jewellery are easy to find, and it begins to make more sense. These people are actually delusional.’ I replied, ‘Yes. They lie further on the schizophrenia end of the spectrum, where the delineation between reality and fiction is blurred.’

My friend replied, ‘If their observation skills are that inaccurate, then of course they’re never going to spot even more subtle things. I almost see these people as looking through goggles that filter things out.’ I replied, ‘Yes, they do.’

My friend continued, ‘Or they become so fixated on something that they don’t see anything else, and that’s dangerous when it’s combined with emotion and social impressionability.’ I replied, ‘Yes, it is, very.’

At age 20, I stated:

‘I have a very view-strict conception of cosmetics, because I almost don’t care how a particular cosmetic makes a person look. In my mind, it’s not “making them look” anything, because the “them”, in my mind, is still the natural person underneath.

It’s the thinking behind it that forms the basis of the disgust and ugliness. My views are very solid in their approach and logic. The thinking is practically all that matters when it comes to these things.

I don’t care if a particular makeup or modification looks a certain way, because it’s not them. I will never see it as them. It won’t change “their” appearance to me.

What I will give a shit about and be disgusted by is the thinking. Some modifications will have more illogical thinking than others, so it looks like I’m finding certain modifications uglier or prettier, but no; I couldn’t care less about the look of a modification. It’s irrelevant, because it’s not the person.

All modifications are view issues, because they’re something the person chooses to do [rather than an anatomical feature they’re born with]. Cosmetics are in the exact same category as alcohol for me. I’d express the same type of disgust if I found out someone drank alcohol as if they wore makeup.’

At age 21, I stated:

‘I’d dare to say that rings, necklaces, bracelets and watches are the men’s equivalent of makeup in that I rarely see them not wearing one, such that it’s become a visual annoyance, more common in older men, of course, but it’s starting to really annoy me.’

My friend replied, ‘You’d think they’d learn. You’d think it would be sometime to evolve out of, to cast away, some pointless adult practice that was imposed that didn’t apply in my brain, but apparently, the rules percolated into their heads rather than being shunned in their own world like you’d think it would be.’

I replied, ‘Exactly. That’s exactly how I saw children in childhood, expected them to be shunning the adult ways rather than immediately adopting them upon transition.’ My friend replied, ‘I just assumed anyone would be in the same boat, that they’d be wondering what the point was in the ways.’ I replied, ‘Yes, that the adults were coming out with.’

At age 21, I stated, ‘Seen at least 5 tech reviewers in a row have either a fourth-finger ring, a watch or a necklace.’ I then sent a screenshot of a reviewer’s necklace, which was a plain, thin, gold one, and stated, ‘I genuinely don’t know what the point of that is, for example. Like, I don’t know what their rationale for wearing that is.’

At age 21, I stated:

‘Whilst I can generally tolerate more natural and non-trend-looking embellishments like flower crowns, I still don’t like any of those things that feel the need to force an aura of cuteness and naturalness by doing the opposite, when the most natural is to just not have those things.

I mean, think about it: a ring of flowers around the head is just silly. Imagine that in a survival situation. Imagine the purpose of that. It’s none; it’s nil. Same with flower clips. It doesn’t impress me.

They try to look cute, but they look silly. They plant a silly thing on their head for no practical reason, only an appearance reason, and that doesn’t impress me. It irritates me.’

At age 21, I sent a screenshot of a pinned YouTube comment that stated, ‘In other news, I’m thinking of shaving my head. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?’ I remarked:

‘I don’t get where this comes from. I’ve never once had the idea to have a different hairstyle all of a sudden. Also, why is he asking the comments section, like they know better, or their input is valid?’

My friend replied, ‘Yes, exactly. Imagine taking input from them on anything, knowing exactly what they are. It’s like delegating your decision to a random-number generator or a monkey pressing a random key on a keyboard.’ I replied, ‘Exactly.’

At age 21, I sent a screenshot of an article stating, ‘Children tend to have much finer hair than adults, and since hair dye and bleach can be damaging, a child’s immature hair is much more susceptible to damage.’^[2] I remarked:

‘This is ridiculous, because hair is dead and gets replaced constantly. What the fuck is wrong with them? It could only possibly be the skin being affected. Yes; it says scalp and airways later on.’

At age 21, my friend sent a screenshot of a girl stating that she had cut off her hair due to ‘dyeing it way too many times’ because ‘it was dying’, and ‘it will grow back stronger and healthier’. My friend remarked:

‘What a load of old cack. Hair is dead. How can it “die” more? Pure insanity, and that’s your fault for dyeing it.

The things they do to their hair is out of control. It’s a nonsense rubbish that requires a bypass of innate survival centres for sure. It’s so hysterical and caricature that only something as drastic as that justifies it.

How can hair be strong and healthy? What a load of old bollocks, anthropomorphisation of hair, all unnecessary. Dyeing was unnecessary; cutting it off was unnecessary. If you left it alone, nothing would have to be done to it. They’re just creating issues for themselves.‘

At age 21, in response to a photo of a physicist who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, my friend stated, ‘She should get her head out of the physics equations for one second and think about an equation assessing the practicality of wearing dangling triangles in her ears and the intuitive sense that makes, which I can assure you is absolutely fuck all.’

References

1. ^ "Body piercing". Wikipedia. 2020-10-02.
2. ^ Escobar, Sam (2018-10-15). "How Young Is Too Young to Dye Your Kid's Hair?" Good Housekeeping. (Archive version from 1 August 2020.)

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