Wednesday, March 20, 2013

South Korean Plastic Surgery Ad is Cutesy, but Offensive


One of my best friends is currently teaching English and living in South Korea. Along with sincerely interesting cultural differences, she couldn’t help but notice the bombardment of advertisements for plastic surgery all over Soeul.

Curious, I did a little bit of research and found that South Koreans are actually the #1  plastic surgery users in the world! Estimates suggest that one in five South Korean women participate. 
This is one of the ads she saw all over Seoul. 

The emoticons with bigger breasts, skinnier bodies and bigger eyes are at best, terribly offensive to women and they know better than to model themselves after these unattainable standards (really? bigger eyes?). The more likely case is that they are driving low self-esteem, self-objection and a negative body image. Unfortunately, this will simply succeed in putting more money into the pockets of plastic surgery firms.