Sick of the Love Island aesthetic

[Raspberryclouds]

Don't know what else to call it, and don't want to name names or post pictures of people as that's unfair but it's everywhere and makes me feel inadequate.
They've all got a tan, gleaming white teeth, microbladed eyebrows, mermaid hair (they never have short hair like me!)
Plump lips, false eyelashes, freckles, perfect cheekbones and perfect figures, flawless skin. Oh and all have these perfect tiny noses whereas mine is wide.
I know a lot of it is Instagram/filters but most of them look the same in reality.

I feel like some sort of potato in comparison because it seems that this is what's considered attractive. I live in Manchester city centre and there are ten a penny slim, statuesque stunning women with long flowing hair going on a night out.
I didn't think I was awful, but just feel so basic and unremarkable.
I can't afford to get consistent beauty treatments, eyelashes are expensive, I put a fake tan on myself but can't afford constant spray tans, constant teeth whitening and so on.
I need to learn to be happier with what I've got, but just feel so dull, does anyone else feel like this.

fuck me that's snobby. I didn't realise only oxbridge counted.
most recent statistics I could find (only go up to 2017 so may have increased a tiny about) say that only 1.7% of the population has a masters degree
So not sure what other metric you would use to classify 'highly educated' if having have a higher level of education than 98% of the population isn't sufficient!

Try to work with what you’ve got and fake it till you make it.
I’m nearly 50 and can’t stand that look.

I've just Googled 'who was the winner of 2023 Love Island', and she apparently graduated from the "university" of Bedfordshire. So perhaps not the most highly educated of professionals, really.

University in quotes🤣🤣

Yeah, sorry but anyone who who has a degree knows that not all degrees are equal, nor all institutions. It's great to have a degree but I don't think Beds Uni is really much of a checkmate.

I've only ever heard crazy stories from there, it's not the most academic I don't think

The Love Island look is a westernised version of manga. And equally cartoonish.

Yeah but they generally all look the same, fake and tacky.

Calling yourself old will make you feel bad and can affect your mental health.

They are obscene robots who will explode at some point.Or merge with their avatars

The only professionals I can identify at a glance is the cardiologists in any hospital. They are the racing cyclists and runners. DH has had cardiology issues for almost 20 years. The thinnest people in any hospital are in cardiology.

Who mentioned Oxbridge, apart from you?

Say what you like - a Masters from Bedford is not indicative of a super-charged intellect. According to HESA, 18% of students (484,060 in numerical terms) were on a taught Masters course in 2021-22 (the number has increased every year since their statistics were first published in 2016-17, which is hardly surprising, as more and more young people are now going to university, more and more people are leaving with Firsts, and more and more people are unemployable without something to distinguish them from the sea of Firsts).

In fact, pretty much anyone with a II.1 or above from any university can get on a Masters course, so long as they have parents who are willing and able to pay for their maintenance (they can get a loan from SFE for a Masters, assuming they have done a three-year degree course). University departments depend on these students to some extent, as they are worth more in monetary terms than undergraduates.

I used to be a university teacher, btw.

Ok so I’m probably just a little bit too old to be into all this fakery, but what I really wonder, is what these beautiful women, because most of them are really beautiful without all the enhancements, what on Earth are they going to look like by the time they’re in their 50’s? What lasting damage are they doing to themselves with the fillers and Botox and extensions and whatever else?
I’d rather be a natural spud!

I’m offended that women who aren’t ‘highly-educated professionals’ are considered unintelligent and vacuous. And vice versa.

My exH is a highly educated professional who watches Love Island and is pretty vacuous. I have a degree but no career and I’m pretty sure I’m not vacuous.

The LI look does catch people’s attention….I can’t help staring at women with obvious botox, fillers etc. I think that can wrongly cause the women with the ‘enhancements’, and women like the op, to think that people are staring because they’re mesmerised by the beauty of the woman. I think the human eye is naturally drawn to anything unusual.

fine, ignore your snobbery around universities. Look at some of the apprentice candidates, most of whom are typical of the love island aesthetic but are well qualified. The 2013 winner for example - she looks like barbie but qualified as a doctor and then aged 23 won the apprentice and opened up her own (successful) cosmetic clinic chain.

You can't split women into 'clever but dowdy' and 'thick but highly made up' and, tbh, I can't see why any self respecting feminist would want to? Isn't that kind of thinking about 100 years out of date?

Source?

This. Pretty maybe, but basically cheap and nasty (which is ironic considering the amount of money they spend making sure they look exactly the same as every other LI-er).
You can’t change things like your height, or your features if that’s beyond what you can afford, but anything in your control that you can change just give it a go and see if it makes a difference to the way you think about yourself. Lose weight if you think you’d rather be smaller, grow your hair if you think you’d like to try longer hairstyles, experiment with make up trends/colours/tricks like contouring if you think you’d like to make your nose look different in particular - you’ll probably realise it looks better without the 3 inch thick layer of concealer! It can be hard on yourself constantly putting yourself down, so when you feel your best take a ton of selfies and post your favourites on your grid - they’ll make you feel good about yourself when you look at them, which in turn will ramp up your confidence levels, which in turn will make you exude attractiveness - displaying outward confidence is honestly one of the biggest tricks to feel beautiful, even if you don’t think you are. If you act it, you end up feeling it. Try it!

It’s a stretch to have to find a reality tv candidate from 10 years ago to prove a point.

I wanted to look like Twiggy..I was the same size, but that’s where the resemblance ended.

It sounds as you really like freckles, OP. You can buy freckle pens and have as many as you like.

People like that are very dull IME

That’s awful! I’ve always thought there must be something wrong with it. I was horrified when a family member of mine who’s a qualified doctor said he does fillers for extra money. It seems to be a common thing health professionals do on the side nowadays, especially dentists who are in fact doing it in their practice as well .

I don’t watch LI, and when channel surfing, I have changed the channel when these people (male and female) appear. There is something grotesquely fake about it all.

I would stop watching and following on IG.

I've just Googled 'who was the winner of 2023 Love Island', and she apparently graduated from the "university" of Bedfordshire. So perhaps not the most highly educated of professionals, really.

To be fair the winners of love island this year came across as quite switched on and intelligent and the woman was a natural beauty. She’s of Caribbean heritage and her skin glow and full lips is natural. Her former service users have said she was a great social worker and very professional. For some more vocational courses such as social work what university they went to plays a smaller part and the Russell Group /elite type universities may not always be the best for their career unless they want to go into academia.

Interesting subject. I'm reading a book that relates to this subject it's called -beautiful- by Danielle steel I think so far it's going well. It's best to appreciate what you've got as it could all be snatched away from you tomorrow.

I don't watch Love Island because I think it's so wrong that we see these unrealistic images and compare ourselves. Turn off the tv and Instagram and it will help you lots!

There's definitely two camps here. Those that feel inadequate compared to the highly preened peacocks. And those that couldn't think of anything worse than looking like a blow up doll. I'm in the second group.

And yes, we all stereotype people based on their appearance, it's human nature. None of my well-educated friends or work acquaintances look vaguely like that.

So while some of the trout pouters may have degrees, most of the ones on LI and The Apprentice have come across as vacuous. If you don't want to be pre-judged, you can always tone down the look. Or suck it up and prove the stereotype to be misplaced. But you can't justifiably complain about people judging you on the way you look.

But, @Raspberryclouds , do you want to attract someone who bases a relationship on what the woman looks like? I wouldn't want one of the male Love Islanders - would you? It's so fake and 10 years on, they won't look like the same person especially after a couple of kids. Men hate that fake look IMHO