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Fashion & Beauty: Not Again
Oct. 14th, 2024 04:05 pmAwhile back I posted about aesthetics and how I don't really identify with any.
Today I read an article saying that heroin chic is back.
Wait, wut?
I remember that from the first time around. I was a teenager then. Teen magazines praising Kate Moss for looking "ethereal". Lank, greasy hair. Eyes ringed by dark circles. Bones, bones everywhere. Skin not pale but sickly sallow.
Maybe my definition of ethereal differs from teen magazines. Then again, I expect angels to look either completely ordinary or to be so scary as to make one shit one's drawers. I always pictured ethereal as otherworldly and inhumanly beauty, not all-too-human decay and sickness.
Besides, I didn't tick most of the boxes of heroin chic. I was chubby. I didn't have dark circles. I washed my hair as often as necessary and it was full and healthy. Sure, my skin was pale - but it was rosy. And yes, I smoked cigarettes, but I was hardly a chain smoker (I went through two packs per week) and also, you know, ate food occasionally. While I still had enormous self-image issues, I was still grateful I didn't look like that.
Most importantly, I never touched heroin. Ever. I never did anything stronger than pot and didn't touch booze until I was 18. Even then I wasn't much of a drinker.
Heroin chic coming back in the wake of the opioid epidemic offends me on a deeply personal level. I'm from Appalachia. That shit is not chic. That shit destroys families and whole communities.
People die. That's not so chic when it's your friend, your neighbor, your family.
Some speculate that it's a backlash to body positivity. That people want thin to be back in.
Thin never went out, folks. Last year my brother suggested that fat-shaming wasn't such a bad thing, though in fairness that's entirely in-character for Ben - he fat-shamed me all through my adolescence. If you're fat and living your life, you're promoting unhealthiness. But looking actually sick and addicted is "chic."
Sure thing. I'm kinda glad this isn't coming back in Israel. Not that we don't have our share of body shaming, just that...well, right now, folks have more on their minds.
Today I read an article saying that heroin chic is back.
Wait, wut?
I remember that from the first time around. I was a teenager then. Teen magazines praising Kate Moss for looking "ethereal". Lank, greasy hair. Eyes ringed by dark circles. Bones, bones everywhere. Skin not pale but sickly sallow.
Maybe my definition of ethereal differs from teen magazines. Then again, I expect angels to look either completely ordinary or to be so scary as to make one shit one's drawers. I always pictured ethereal as otherworldly and inhumanly beauty, not all-too-human decay and sickness.
Besides, I didn't tick most of the boxes of heroin chic. I was chubby. I didn't have dark circles. I washed my hair as often as necessary and it was full and healthy. Sure, my skin was pale - but it was rosy. And yes, I smoked cigarettes, but I was hardly a chain smoker (I went through two packs per week) and also, you know, ate food occasionally. While I still had enormous self-image issues, I was still grateful I didn't look like that.
Most importantly, I never touched heroin. Ever. I never did anything stronger than pot and didn't touch booze until I was 18. Even then I wasn't much of a drinker.
Heroin chic coming back in the wake of the opioid epidemic offends me on a deeply personal level. I'm from Appalachia. That shit is not chic. That shit destroys families and whole communities.
People die. That's not so chic when it's your friend, your neighbor, your family.
Some speculate that it's a backlash to body positivity. That people want thin to be back in.
Thin never went out, folks. Last year my brother suggested that fat-shaming wasn't such a bad thing, though in fairness that's entirely in-character for Ben - he fat-shamed me all through my adolescence. If you're fat and living your life, you're promoting unhealthiness. But looking actually sick and addicted is "chic."
Sure thing. I'm kinda glad this isn't coming back in Israel. Not that we don't have our share of body shaming, just that...well, right now, folks have more on their minds.
