With the development of social media, ecommerce and live-streaming videos, the popularity of Wang Hong (Internet celebrities) has become a special phenomenon in Chinese society.
The most necessary quality for internet celebrities seems to be a charming appearance. The combiniation of big eyes, a pointy chin, and pale skin, which is referred to as "internet celebrity face", is a frequently used shorthand to describe a women's looking in China. It is worried that these online celebrities are creating a rigid beauty standard and body image for Chinese women.
Introduction
Photo credit to Renwu magazine
Photo credit to the world of Chinese magazine
Various Voices
What's your opinion?
In terms of what is real beauty, different people hold different views. To get a glance at how people think about the mainstream Chinese beauty standard, we used photos of four celebraties, FAN, Bingbing; Angelababy; LIU, Yifei and LIU, Wen to ask people who do they think is the most beautiful girl and express their views toward plastic surgery.
You Define Your Beauty
A Story of Ming
a girl adapting herself to the mainstream beauty standards
Let's hear from Ming
November 22,2016
Ming is a girl who has undergone a double eyelid surgery to make herself fit in the mainstream Chinese beauty standard. She is now working as a Wechat Merchant selling clothes and cosmetics. Becoming Wanghong is also one of her goal, as she thinks that being famous can help stimulating her sales. She is still not satisfied with her appearance and considering taking other plastic surgeries in the future.
Opinions from a Feminist
Shannon, a 23 year-old postgraduate student, an enthusiastic feminist who has participated in a number of social movements in Guangzhou, advocating gender equality and gender diversity. a founding member of WeChat official account “Gender Courses in Sun Yat-sen University (中大性别课程)”.
Conclusion
The mainstream standards of beauty in the modern Chinese society has caused great controversy. On the one hand, everyone has the right to pursue beauty, some women believe they can become more confident and gain social approval by adopting these ideals. On the other hand, some women think they are getting hung up by the standard.
The current Chinese society has achieved a huge economic development in recent decades, but shockingly little has been done to proactively abolish antiquated beliefs on gender and physical appearances — although women don’t need to bound their foot any longer, they are still suffering from extreme dieting and painful plastic surgeries on their ways of following the trend, or being judged as “not beautiful” if they don’t embed these traits. For one way or another, we have to admit that the mainstream beauty standard in the modern Chinese society is trending away from our own natural looks.