Olivia: A recent UK study found that over half of women aged 16 to 29 are considering cosmetic enhancements. What's wilder? Research shows girls as young as thirteen are already using filters to completely change their appearance online. We're building a generation on pixelated perfection. Jackson: Whoa. Thirteen? That’s… unsettling. I knew it was a big deal, but I didn't realize the pressure was starting that young. It feels like we've crossed some kind of invisible line. Olivia: We absolutely have. And that's the central territory of the book we're diving into today: Pixel Flesh: How We Live Online by Ellen Atlanta. It’s this incredibly sharp, generation-defining exposé that has been widely acclaimed, even winning a Royal Society of Literature award before it was published. Jackson: That’s some serious recognition. What makes her the person to tell this story? Olivia: That’s the key. Ellen Atlanta is not an outsider looking in; she was a founding editor at Dazed Beauty and has consulted for huge brands like Estee Lauder and Milk Makeup. She was inside the machine that builds these ideals. Jackson: Okay, so she has the receipts. Where does this all start? Is it just about blaming Instagram for everything? Olivia: It's much deeper than that. It starts with something that sounds almost mundane, but when you break it down, it’s the perfect microcosm of the whole system.

Jackson: I’m intrigued. What’s the story? Olivia: The author describes being in a garden with her friend, Sienna, who had just gotten lip fillers from a Groupon deal. Ellen takes some photos of her, and then for the next 45 minutes, she watches Sienna edit a single picture on Facetune. Jackson: Hold on, 45 minutes? For one photo? What could she possibly be doing for that long? I snap a picture, maybe slide a filter on, and I’m done in ten seconds. Olivia: Exactly. Atlanta describes it as a kind of digital mutilation. Sienna was stretching her hips, slicing her waist, cutting her jaw, erasing every pore. She was meticulously constructing a version of herself that didn't exist in reality, all for a 24-hour Instagram story. Jackson: That’s… a lot of work for something that disappears in a day. It sounds exhausting. Olivia: It is. And Sienna even says, "I had never been insecure before, but I saw the pictures of Kylie Jenner and I just wanted to look like that." This is the gateway to what the book calls 'Instagram Face.' It's this homogenized, racially ambiguous look—big lips, small nose, cat-like eyes, sharp jawline—that’s achievable almost exclusively through filters and cosmetic procedures. Jackson: Right, the 'one face fits all' look. You see it everywhere. And Kylie Jenner is basically patient zero for that trend. Olivia: Completely. The book points out that when Kylie finally confessed to getting lip fillers, internet searches for the term shot up by over 3,000 percent. Clinics reported a 700% increase in inquiries overnight. She didn't just sell lip kits; she sold a new facial standard. Jackson: Okay, but here’s the pushback I always hear, and I think it's a point of controversy for this book too. If someone like Sienna says, "If I can afford it, why shouldn't I look like the best version of myself?"... isn't that just personal choice? A lot of people would call that empowerment. Olivia: That is the central, most seductive lie of the beauty industry. And Atlanta dismantles it brilliantly. She talks about being at a corporate retreat for a beauty tech company she worked for. They were asked to imagine the worst possible outcome of their app. Jackson: Like a Black Mirror episode for the beauty world? Olivia: Precisely. And Ellen prophesizes that their algorithm could "incite insecurities in girls en masse, leading them to spend money on treatments to conform to trends before the code changes and their features are out of fashion." And in that moment, she has this horrifying realization. Jackson: What’s that? Olivia: That her horror story wasn't a future prediction. It was already happening. The company's business model, and the entire industry's model, wasn't empowerment. It was the mass production of insecurity for profit. The 'choice' to change yourself is manufactured by a system that needs you to feel broken so it can sell you the fix. Jackson: Wow. So the feeling of 'I need to fix this' isn't coming from within, it's being beamed into our brains by the algorithm. That’s a much darker way to look at it. Olivia: It’s a system. And that system, which profits from making women feel like a collection of parts to be 'fixed,' has a cost that goes way beyond money. It bleeds into the real world in some really dangerous ways.

Jackson: How so? It feels like a big leap from Facetune to actual danger. Olivia: It’s a direct line, and the book connects the dots with this incredibly powerful story about an activist named Gina Martin. In 2017, she was at a music festival in London when a man took an 'upskirt' photo of her. Jackson: Ugh, that’s disgusting. Olivia: She confronted him, grabbed the phone, and got security. The police came, but they told her there was nothing they could do. Because she was wearing underwear, the photo wasn't considered legally obscene. The case was closed. Jackson: You’re kidding me. So it was perfectly legal to do that? Olivia: At the time, yes. So Gina, filled with this righteous rage, starts an online campaign to make upskirting a specific criminal offense. She lobbies politicians, she gets legal help, and after a grueling 18-month battle, she wins. The law is changed. Jackson: That’s amazing! A huge victory. Olivia: It was. But here's the part that connects back to 'Pixel Flesh.' The moment she became a public figure fighting for women's safety, she was hit with a tidal wave of online abuse. Vicious, relentless threats. And she has this quote that is just bone-chilling: "They put their daughters to bed, then go online and send me rape threats." Jackson: Oh man. That’s horrifying. So the very act of demanding not to be objectified was met with even more violent objectification. Olivia: Exactly. The book argues that this isn't random trolling. It's a modern-day witch hunt. It's a mechanism of control designed to silence women and keep them in their place. The entitlement to view, judge, and consume women's bodies, which is cultivated by digital beauty culture, doesn't just stay online. It fuels real-world violation. Jackson: I can see the connection now. The idea that a woman's body is just an object for public consumption, which is what the 'Instagram Face' culture promotes, directly leads to something as violating as this. Olivia: And this fight isn't new. The book draws a parallel to 1914, when the suffragette Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery in London and took a meat cleaver to a famous painting of the goddess Venus. Jackson: A meat cleaver? Why? Olivia: She said she was protesting the government's treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst, but also "the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history." She was attacking the ideal of female beauty that was designed for, and consumed by, the male gaze. Over a century ago, she was fighting the same battle against objectification, just with different tools. Jackson: It’s the same fight, different arena. One used a cleaver, the other used a petition and social media. That’s a powerful parallel. It makes you realize this isn't just a fleeting digital trend; it's a deep-seated cultural issue.

Olivia: It really is. And it creates this impossible bind for women. The book talks about how you're pressured to take pride in your appearance, to perform this aesthetic labor, but then you're blamed or shamed when you're harassed because of it. You sink and drown, or you float and die. Jackson: So we start with a 'harmless' photo edit, which is part of a massive digital architecture designed to make women feel inadequate. And that feeling of inadequacy, that objectification, creates a culture where real-world violence and abuse become normalized. It's a direct line from the pixel to the pavement. Olivia: A perfect summary. And what I love about the conclusion of Pixel Flesh is that it doesn't just leave us in despair. It argues that the solution isn't just individual 'self-love' or posting an unfiltered selfie. That can't dismantle a multi-billion dollar industry. Jackson: So what's the answer? Olivia: Collective action. The author talks about the need for sorority, for women to support each other and create spaces of ease and acceptance. But she also makes a bigger point about where our energy should go. She tells the story of a young woman named Chloe, who was brilliant at math and dreamed of being an aeroengineer. Jackson: Okay... Olivia: But she got sucked into the world of online beauty, developed a severe eating disorder, and that dream just... evaporated. The author argues that the real loss isn't that Chloe doesn't look like a model; it's that the world may have lost a brilliant engineer. The ultimate act of resistance is to redirect the immense energy women pour into aesthetics into action, into building, creating, and leading. Jackson: That’s a fantastic reframe. The most beautiful thing isn't a perfect face; it's a brilliant mind solving a complex problem. Olivia: Exactly. The book mentions that studies show just three days away from social media can significantly improve a person's body image. Maybe that's a small, practical start. Jackson: And maybe just being aware of the 'why' behind the scroll is the biggest takeaway. Understanding the architecture of it all gives you the power to see it for what it is. We'd love to hear what you think. Join the conversation on our socials and let us know your experience with 'pixel flesh'. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.