Speaker 1: There are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Speaker 2: Toad and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: So now that it's the holiday season, we know that
Speaker 2: means gift giving. And I had kind of a big
Speaker 2: shock when I was talking to the tween girl in
Speaker 2: my life, my little cousin, and I asked her what
Speaker 2: are some things that she might want for the holidays
Speaker 2: as a gift. She's rattling off all of these normal
Speaker 2: age appropriate things, and then she said one of the
Speaker 2: things that she wanted was a seventy dollars thing of
Speaker 2: drunk elephant peptide face cream. It's not just the price,
Speaker 2: although seventy dollars for a face cream for an eleven
Speaker 2: year old.
Speaker 1: Is a bit much.
Speaker 2: It's also that it's a peptide face cream. If you
Speaker 2: don't know, peptides are meant to give your skin more elasticity,
Speaker 2: but your skin loses as you age. It's not really
Speaker 2: the kind of thing an eleven year old wouldever need
Speaker 2: for their skin.
Speaker 1: They're for skin like mine.
Speaker 2: So this left me thinking, when did tweens and very
Speaker 2: young people start feeling what they needed or wanted, you know,
Speaker 2: complicated multi step skincare design to combat things like wrinkles.
Speaker 2: This is absolutely a thing now and social media is
Speaker 2: to blame, but if you ask me, maybe not on
Speaker 2: the way that you're thinking.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it. So this trend actually has a name.
Speaker 2: Young people who have been influenced by platforms like TikTok
Speaker 2: and Instagram to be obsessed with skincare are known as
Speaker 2: Sephora kids. And there are a lot of Sephora kids
Speaker 2: out there because younger folks are into skincare right now.
Speaker 1: Here are some stats.
Speaker 2: Households with tweens aged six to twelve spent almost two
Speaker 2: point five billion dollars on facial skincare last year, an
Speaker 2: annual spending increase of twenty seven percent, more than double
Speaker 2: the average. Writer Alexandra Damar wrote about this for The
Speaker 2: New York Times and a piece called Toxic Beauty Standards
Speaker 2: can be passed down. She writes about how one of
Speaker 2: her friends, who is in the fashion industry, told her
Speaker 2: that in her local mother's group chat, nearly every single
Speaker 2: mom had skincare skincare skincare as the top thing on
Speaker 2: the holiday list they were given by their fifth graders.
Speaker 1: Her ten year old.
Speaker 2: Daughter does not even have access to social media, but
Speaker 2: she says that she's exposed to the skincare obsession through
Speaker 2: friends who are copying TikTok beauty influencers and whose parents
Speaker 2: are buying these products for them, things like acids, peels,
Speaker 2: and toners, even though many of these products are just
Speaker 2: not meant for their skin. They're meant for aging skin
Speaker 2: or acne prone skin, not the kind of perfect skin
Speaker 2: that somebody who was ten or eleven probably has. There
Speaker 2: was even this entire thing a couple of months ago
Speaker 2: where adults were filming kids going into sephoras and Alta
Speaker 2: beauty stores and sort of running wild, stocking up on
Speaker 2: expensive products. I felt like that entire trend had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a darker undercurrent to this discourse. First
Speaker 2: of all, just in general, adults should not be out
Speaker 2: there filming kids on their phone, just full stop, end
Speaker 2: of sentence. But I also picked up this kind of
Speaker 2: undercurrent of I don't know, this feeling of being a
Speaker 2: bit territorial, like, hey, why are these youth muscling in
Speaker 2: on the sephora, which should be territory for grown women?
Speaker 1: But where do you think these kids.
Speaker 2: Are learning about how to obsess over skincare. You know,
Speaker 2: it's one of those things like an after school special.
Speaker 2: I learned it from watching you. Kids are coming of
Speaker 2: age on the Internet, the same Internet that we adults
Speaker 2: are using, and that is where this skincare obsession is
Speaker 2: stemming from. Now, it probably doesn't surprise you to find
Speaker 2: out that social media is part of what is fueling
Speaker 2: this youth desire for a complicated, multi step skincare routine.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to take my word for it.
Speaker 2: There is a documented link between young people obsessing over
Speaker 2: their skincare and social media use, according to Psychology Today.
Speaker 2: A twenty eighteen study by cha j found pressure to
Speaker 2: conform to beauty standards increases the likelihood of engaging in
Speaker 2: skincare routines. Influencers promote products promising clear skin, driving teams
Speaker 2: to purchase them and achieve similar results, and their use
Speaker 2: of social media to fuel these concerns about their skin
Speaker 2: and skincare does come with negative impacts. A study from
Speaker 2: Tickerman and Slater found that exposure to idealized images on
Speaker 2: social media can negatively affect body image, particularly for young
Speaker 2: women and girls. Clear glowing skin has become a symbol
Speaker 2: of beauty and confidence. But when teens don't meet those
Speaker 2: idealized standards, especially when it comes to acne, they may
Speaker 2: feel inadequate, which can lower self worth. Skincare routines often
Speaker 2: marketed as confidence boosting, can have the opposite effect when
Speaker 2: teens don't see immediate results or experience breakouts, The pressure
Speaker 2: to achieve perfect skin can actually worsen insecurities. And lastly,
Speaker 2: you know how easy it is to conflate skincare with
Speaker 2: self care more generally, where you feel like, if you
Speaker 2: spend a bunch of money on skincare products, you can
Speaker 2: actually convince yourself that you're taking good care of yourself
Speaker 2: if you're me anyway. Yeah, so that dynamic definitely got me,
Speaker 2: even at my big age and youth are not immune
Speaker 2: to it either, because a survey from twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: found that fifty eight percent of teens see skincare as
Speaker 2: an important form of s self care, and many are
Speaker 2: turning to it to manage stress or boost their mood.
Speaker 2: In the earlier days of the pandemic, many teens use
Speaker 2: skincare to feel more in control and reduce their anxiety,
Speaker 2: which now that is not inherently a bad thing, But
Speaker 2: skincare is just not the same thing as self care
Speaker 2: or control. And buying a bunch of pricey products to
Speaker 2: do a ten step skincare routine to get glowing glass
Speaker 2: skin is not really the same thing as self care.
Speaker 2: And I do think this is something that youth are
Speaker 2: really getting from us adults, like we're passing down some
Speaker 2: not great attitudes and ideas about what self care really
Speaker 2: is and what it looks like. I agree that some
Speaker 2: of this really took root in those early pandemic days
Speaker 2: when we are all just trying to do whatever to cope.
Speaker 2: The New Yorker's Gia Tolentino really breaks it down well.
Speaker 2: She writes the Sephora tweens, for their part, seem to
Speaker 2: be borrowing some of the self care language that was
Speaker 2: dominant in the adult beauty world two presidential election cycles ago.
Speaker 2: According to this line of thinking, taking care of your
Speaker 2: face is a way to luxuriate in personal pleasure and
Speaker 2: exert control over your life. But adults have largely moved
Speaker 2: on from all that. No one is fooling anyone by
Speaker 2: quoting Audrey Lord in blog posts about lip balm anymore,
Speaker 2: The earnest language of corporate approved wellness disappeared from the
Speaker 2: mainstream somewhere around twenty twenty, along with the figure of
Speaker 2: the girl boss, who often relied on that language. The
Speaker 2: mood regarding beauty and also culture, politics and whatever it
Speaker 2: is we're all doing is raw, pragmatic, aggressive. The deference
Speaker 2: to root material reality comes a lot faster these days,
Speaker 2: so I absolutely agree with this. You know, most adults
Speaker 2: are not talking about skin care as wellness or self
Speaker 2: care anymore.
Speaker 1: By now, most of us.
Speaker 2: Can pretty clearly see the ways that that was pretty
Speaker 2: obviously and quickly co opted by brands on corporations to
Speaker 2: just get us to buy more crap and keep feeling bad.
Speaker 2: So I think we kind of moved on from that
Speaker 2: around the same time that people decided to move on
Speaker 2: from the pandemic, but it still has this lasting, lingering
Speaker 2: cultural impact for youth, and I just think it's important
Speaker 2: to ask, what are the dynamics that we have been
Speaker 2: fostering in our youth and are they actually serving our
Speaker 2: youth or just setting them up for more unhealthy, toxic
Speaker 2: standards mass tess care because they deserve so much better
Speaker 2: we all do.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 2: So all these studies about youth and skincare are kind
Speaker 2: of just telling us what we already know, because all
Speaker 2: you need to do is scroll TikTok or physically go
Speaker 2: into an altar or a Sephora to see what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. But we can't talk about Sephora Kids without
Speaker 2: talking about the brand Drunk Elephant. The pricey butt worth
Speaker 2: it lux brand Drunk Elephant is one of the top
Speaker 2: brands tweens say they want. Ariana yap Tenko at Glamour
Speaker 2: Magazines at a poll around their offices and found that
Speaker 2: the staffers who had daughters, nieces and younger cousins were
Speaker 2: basically obsessed with this brand. Parents flooded Instagram with questions
Speaker 2: about the safety of ingredients like peptides, acids, and retinols
Speaker 2: on youthful skin. On TikTok, the hashtag kids at Sephora
Speaker 2: has more than five million views featuring videos of Drunk
Speaker 2: Elephant kids wreaking havoc on test you products in the stores.
Speaker 2: So social media is definitely a big part of what's
Speaker 2: going on here. But some of this isn't new, right
Speaker 2: because when I was between decades ago, I also loved skincare.
Speaker 2: I mean I almost feel like care is not the
Speaker 2: right word here. It was more like skin punishment. If
Speaker 2: you live through that era, you know exactly what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. My routine was that I would wash my
Speaker 2: face with that facial cleanser that had those little scrubbing
Speaker 2: microbeads in them, remember those, to like exfoliate your skin.
Speaker 2: Not only did it completely rip up your skin and
Speaker 2: tear it apart, I can only assume I'm still carrying
Speaker 2: those microplastic beads in my blood as we speak decades later.
Speaker 2: Then I would use sea breeze as like a stringent
Speaker 2: or a toner, which if you use sea breeze, I
Speaker 2: feel like you can probably smell how it smelled as
Speaker 2: we speak. So I would soak a cotton ball in
Speaker 2: sea breeze and just rub this burning acid all over
Speaker 2: my face. Maybe I would finish it off with one
Speaker 2: of those stride x or oxypads across my face too,
Speaker 2: just to.
Speaker 1: Make sure it was nice and dried out.
Speaker 2: You know, you really want to just like dry out
Speaker 2: your skin by putting a bunch of alcohol just right
Speaker 2: on there. For some reason, I think I also used
Speaker 2: to put toothpaste on my pimples.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I heard that.
Speaker 2: I think somebody in my school said that you were
Speaker 2: supposed to do that, so that's what I did. Anyway,
Speaker 2: what I'm saying is that it was a rough time
Speaker 2: for bridget skin.
Speaker 1: But here was the thing.
Speaker 2: I was just picking these things up at the drug
Speaker 2: store or the grocery store or my parents would take me.
Speaker 2: They were not seventy dollars a pop. And as rough
Speaker 2: as this routine was on my skin, I wasn't doing
Speaker 2: any real lasting damage. Because there is a reason why
Speaker 2: skincare that is designed for more mature skin is different
Speaker 2: than the skincare an eleven year old should be using.
Speaker 2: The kind of active chemical ingredients in skincare design for
Speaker 2: mature skin. Things like acids and retinol and glycolic acid
Speaker 2: can be very bad for the sensitive.
Speaker 1: Skin of a young person.
Speaker 2: But even beyond the fact that these products are not
Speaker 2: designed for children, an eleven year old does not have wrinkles,
Speaker 2: or crow's feet or smile lines. So when a product
Speaker 2: aimed at preventing these kinds of things is on the
Speaker 2: very top of an eleven year old's holiday gift wish list,
Speaker 2: what is really going on. So there is a ton
Speaker 2: of criticism of brands like drunk Elephant that they might
Speaker 2: be intentionally marketing their products to kids when these products
Speaker 2: are not met for kids, and they are not even
Speaker 2: really safe for kids to be using. Tiffany Masterson, the
Speaker 2: founder of drunk Elephant, has even addressed this directly. She
Speaker 2: told The New York Times, I designed drunk Elephant for
Speaker 2: all skin, including that of my own children, and the
Speaker 2: majority of our skin, hair and body products are appropriate
Speaker 2: for and combatible with skin of all ages. This is
Speaker 2: backed by clinical data. Based on the number of questions
Speaker 2: we've received on this topic, I created an Instagram post
Speaker 2: with recommendations of what is safe for prepubescent skin under thirteen.
Speaker 2: We do not recommend children under thirteen use acids like
Speaker 2: retinol or vitamin C. The detractors are referring to products
Speaker 2: that contain acids, and rightly so kids and tweens don't
Speaker 2: need acids. If you have concerns, we recommend consulting a
Speaker 2: pediatrician or pediatric dermatologist before introducing new products into your
Speaker 2: child's routine. So they also addressed criticism that they intentionally
Speaker 2: market their products to kids she says, I've been reading
Speaker 2: that I chose the colors and packaging to target children.
Speaker 2: This couldn't be further from the truth, and the truth
Speaker 2: is never quite as interesting. But I chose the colors
Speaker 2: and packaging because it happened to be my aesthetic. I
Speaker 2: actually never even considered targeting any demographic, and that's what
Speaker 2: made my brand so different from the start. So on
Speaker 2: that point, I don't know if I fully agree. I
Speaker 2: actually think, if anybody, she was trying to target millennials,
Speaker 2: because her packaging is these pastel pinks and turquoises and
Speaker 2: blues that really speak to the sort.
Speaker 1: Of millennial aesthetic.
Speaker 2: I also just don't know that she is that bent
Speaker 2: out of shape about the fact that her products are
Speaker 2: very popular with children and they're like hot pink colored, right.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it was an intentional choice, but
Speaker 2: I don't think that they're crying any tears over the
Speaker 2: fact that it's what made their brand so popular is
Speaker 2: this youth demographic. So I kind of have to push
Speaker 2: back a little bit on what she's saying here. But
Speaker 2: if she's taken at her word and these are not
Speaker 2: products that she's intentionally marketing to kids, why do kids
Speaker 2: end up with luck skincare like drunk elephant on their
Speaker 2: holiday wish list? So I actually think there's a kind
Speaker 2: of cultural collapse happening online that is responsible for this.
Speaker 2: Here's my theory on what I think is going on. So, yes,
Speaker 2: I do think this is just standard social media causing
Speaker 2: kids to want things that really are not for them,
Speaker 2: and you know, youth just generally wanting to feel older
Speaker 2: than they are, which is a totally normal young person
Speaker 2: thing that we all went through. I went through that
Speaker 2: you went through. That is a thing that young people do.
Speaker 2: But I also think something else is going on here too.
Speaker 2: I think it's the lack of digital third spaces for
Speaker 2: use online. The same TikTok that I go to when
Speaker 2: I want advice on how to use retinol without causing
Speaker 2: irritation on my skin is the exact same TikTok that
Speaker 2: my eleven year old cousin is using.
Speaker 1: So if you're an eleven year old who's into beauty.
Speaker 2: And skincare as a hobby, which there's something wrong with that,
Speaker 2: there's not really an age appropriate space for you to
Speaker 2: go to explore what skincare should look like for somebody
Speaker 2: your own age, let alone a place where you're not
Speaker 2: being constantly sold a product. When you consider how ubiquitous
Speaker 2: things like TikTok shop have become, and I think it
Speaker 2: really comes down to kids needing their own corners of
Speaker 2: the Internet for exploration, because when they don't get that,
Speaker 2: they end up being shaped by the same Internet experience
Speaker 2: as me, a grown adult woman. But the thing is,
Speaker 2: I'm an adult, so I have the ability to understand
Speaker 2: and see that like TikTok skincare influencers might be using
Speaker 2: filters or lighting to make their skin look glassy and
Speaker 2: perfect to get me to buy skincare that they then
Speaker 2: might get a finance cut off, Like, I'm old enough
Speaker 2: to understand and see all the machinations at play, even
Speaker 2: though it doesn't always save me from buying skincare i'll
Speaker 2: ever use. And for youth, it's like that insecurity is
Speaker 2: being further monetized and cashed in on. So that's what
Speaker 2: I think is actually going on here. But what happens
Speaker 2: when your kid gives you their holiday wish list and
Speaker 2: it has these expensive skincare items that they don't really
Speaker 2: need on it, Like, what are you meant to do
Speaker 2: as a parent? Well one, I think education is a
Speaker 2: huge part of it, and so for a stores now
Speaker 2: say they're doing a much bigger push around in store
Speaker 2: education of young consumers and what their skin actually needs. Now,
Speaker 2: maybe kids are not going to be swayed by this.
Speaker 2: If the cool girls at school are all using seventy
Speaker 2: dollars peptide cream for their not existent wrinkles, they're probably
Speaker 2: still going to want it. But helping them understand that
Speaker 2: at a young age, what their skin really only needs
Speaker 2: is like a gentle cleanser, a moisturizer on a sunscreen,
Speaker 2: and that anything else might actually be making their skin worse.
Speaker 2: But if your kid wants fancy skin care because they
Speaker 2: have an actual skin issue, you should be talking to
Speaker 2: a professional dermatologist or doctor. That's another thing about the
Speaker 2: skincare hobby experience on the Internet. I am on subreddits
Speaker 2: like skincare addict on Reddit, where everybody is diagnosing other
Speaker 2: people's skin.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: People will send in pictures of a skin issue and
Speaker 2: ask what they should be buying or what they should
Speaker 2: be doing to fix it. Now, generally it's pretty humdrum
Speaker 2: stuff like dry skin, but sometimes people will have a
Speaker 2: picture of like a pretty gnarly looking skin infection and
Speaker 2: the only answer should be talk to a doctor. So
Speaker 2: you have adults asking another non doctor adults to address
Speaker 2: what sometimes is like a medical issue. That's not a
Speaker 2: dynamic that is always great for adults, you know, we
Speaker 2: navigate it. However, it's certainly not a dynamic that kids
Speaker 2: should be mixed up in online. And I also think
Speaker 2: it's more of a media literacy conversation. You know, we
Speaker 2: should be talking to the youth in our lives about
Speaker 2: how influencers, maybe you are not always being honest about
Speaker 2: the impact different products have had on their skin, and
Speaker 2: how they might also be making money off of us
Speaker 2: clicking by. More generally, I think it's about having conversations
Speaker 2: about who you should trust on the Internet and the
Speaker 2: importance of independently verifying health information from the random people
Speaker 2: that they see online. This is especially true for youth
Speaker 2: because research is very clear that more and more youth
Speaker 2: see influencers as their friends, and so if they have
Speaker 2: a parasocial relationship with a skincare influencer on TikTok, they're
Speaker 2: not going to see this as somebody who gets a
Speaker 2: cut if you hit by. They're going to see this
Speaker 2: as my friend is recommended I use the skincare product.
Speaker 2: So that level of media literacy I think is very important, especially.
Speaker 1: For youth online.
Speaker 2: But beyond all that, I also think there is this
Speaker 2: need for a deeper examination of what it is we
Speaker 2: are all passing down to our youth, what attitudes, what concerns,
Speaker 2: what cultures we are passing down, because I worry that
Speaker 2: we might be passing down some toxic attitudes without even
Speaker 2: really realizing that our youth youth is being impacted by this,
Speaker 2: Like are we as adults obsessing about our skin and
Speaker 2: our wrinkles and our age in these ways that signal
Speaker 2: to youth that the normal process of aging is something
Speaker 2: to be afraid of, to be concerned about, rather than
Speaker 2: to celebrate.
Speaker 1: There was this video where I think a twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old woman posted a video of.
Speaker 2: Her face and she was like, this is my face
Speaker 2: without botox or filter or makeup, Like, this is what
Speaker 2: somebody in their late twenties look like. She looked completely
Speaker 2: normal and regular and fine, just a regular person's face,
Speaker 2: nothing weird about it. So either the comment, it was
Speaker 2: like a couple of sets of comments. One was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, so brave, so brave to like have
Speaker 2: a human face and show it on this Internet in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, which you know, definitely I think that's
Speaker 2: well meaning, but I don't like living in a world
Speaker 2: where it's just brave to exist on the Internet with
Speaker 2: a human face without a filter on it or without
Speaker 2: botox in it.
Speaker 1: So didn't love that. But also you had younger people
Speaker 1: being like, this is.
Speaker 2: Why I use retinol even though I'm fifteen, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't want to look like this. This is so said, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 2: And it just made me wonder if kids and young
Speaker 2: people have been so tricked by social media filters that
Speaker 2: they no longer know what a human person's face looks like.
Speaker 2: I do think that social media makes it harder to
Speaker 2: have a good sense of what people look like as
Speaker 2: they age, and listen, take it from me. Aging is
Speaker 2: a gift. Not everybody gets to get to the age
Speaker 2: where they get to have wrinkles and smile lines, and
Speaker 2: if you get to get there, it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's something to be celebrated.
Speaker 2: There's no shame in wanting to have smooth, clear skin,
Speaker 2: but we shouldn't be demonizing the normal process of aging
Speaker 2: in the process either, And so maybe it's not surprising
Speaker 2: that the holiday season, you know, this time of sky
Speaker 2: high expectations and unreasonable demands, it is also a time
Speaker 2: when harmful beauty ideals can really thrive and spread through
Speaker 2: the heads of young people, like the whispers of sugar plumberries.
Speaker 2: All that to say, however, the bottom bottom line is
Speaker 2: that you should not spend seventy dollars on skincare for
Speaker 2: an eleven year old. I will not be spending seventy
Speaker 2: dollars on skincare for an eleven year old. If you
Speaker 2: are my cousin listening to this, I love you dearly.
Speaker 2: You know you're my girl, but you're not getting that
Speaker 2: skincare kick another gift, got a story about an interesting
Speaker 2: thing in tech. I just want to say Hi. You
Speaker 2: can reach us at Hello at tegody dot com. You
Speaker 2: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 2: me Bridget Toad. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed.
Speaker 2: Creative Jonathan Stricklet is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is
Speaker 2: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, bridget Todd. If you want to help
Speaker 2: us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.