Buccal Fat Removal Surgery is the Worst Cosmetic Fad to Hit Social Media

“Glee” Star Lea Michele caused a stir earlier this month when she posted a video. selfie with thinner cheeks, and higher cheekbones. Michele is believed to have joined the growing ranks of celebrities suspected of getting buccal fat removal surgery — the worst cosmetic procedure currently trending on social media. 

Buccal fat removal surgery cuts out fat pads from the inside of a person’s cheek to enhance cheekbones and give one’s face a permanent “contoured” look. Like most cosmetic procedures, it started with celebrities and is now widely known. The Daily Mail Reports stated that Dr. Barry Weintraub (a New York City plastic surgery) had seen “twice as many inquiries for the operation this year than last.” These numbers are expected to rise in 2023. Google Trends Reporting on searches “buccal fat removal” This month, the number of views for the buccal fat reduction hashtag on TikTok has risen dramatically. 

“Most beautiful faces in the world have a sharp angularity,” claimed Weintraub in his attempt to explain the surgery’s popularity. The first problem with his assertion, though, is that buccal fat removal doesn’t make one’s face more angular. Tunc Tiryaki, a London surgeon for plastic surgery, explained the following: the Independent, “Buccal fat removal doesn’t create definition, it just creates emptiness between the cheek and the jawline.” 

The second problem is that buccal Fat Removal Surgery does not duplicate the procedure. “most beautiful faces.” While high cheekbones are considered attractive, hollow cheeks aren’t. A woman’s feminine beauty is defined by full, youthful cheeks. Face fillers are a common cosmetic surgery procedure that counters the loss of collagen and facial fat as we age. “In the long run, when we get older, we lose volume in our cheeks,” Tiryaki explained. “So patients start looking really gaunt, almost like ghosts.” In other words, buccal fat removal protrudes patients’ cheekbones at the expense of quickening the aging process.  

There are many reasons that terrible cosmetic fads like lip lining tattoos and buccal fat removal can be so easily influenced by young people. While beauty trends were once popular for many years, they are now often only around for a few months to a few weeks. Trends are more fast-paced than ever, making them less thoughtful.

Bad-taste beauty trends can also be attributed to algorithms. Social media algorithms reward the strange and unnatural in order to attract attention. Flooding users’ feeds with bad beauty trends and the knowledge that acting fast is the only way to keep up leads to terrible cosmetic fads and decisions.

Modern War on Truth and Beauty

A smart user might see the sunken faces of the people who receive buccal fat removal surgery and realize right away that it’s a bad idea and that next week everyone will want full cheeks again. Bad trends are another reason why people fall for them.

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