Something that had just been floating and hovering around in my brain waiting for me to digest it, collided with something else that entered it at full speed, as they both splintered and crashed to the bottom of my cranium, the smoke that billowed out read 'PLASTIC SURGERY????'
I hadn't paid close attention to my chums foreheads since the millennium year and the epidemic of the 'sliced blonde fringe' but now over a lamb shawarma as they utter the throw away line, 'oh yeah I've had Botox too,' I'm transfixed. Part of me is clutching my uterus screaming 'I'M TWENTY FIVE' whilst the other hand is in the creases of my crows feet ironing them out. I've only just learnt to defrost my fridge and got rid of my teenage acne, why in the name of formaldehyde, am I trying to reverse ageing already?! I haven't yet aged!
The catalyst that brought this frothy collagen liquid to the surface again was a Barbie 'game,' advertised on I-tunes for children aged 9+ years, that reads:
"This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her. In our clinic she can go through a surgery called liposuction that will make her slim and beautiful. We'll need to make small cuts on problem areas and suck out the extra fat. Will you operate her, doctor?"
Yes, 9 year old little doctor, will you? Here is your little mini scalpel and hoovery thing, go on suck it all up, relieve this girl of her 'misfortune'? The horror of making an incision creating dripping blood and gaping holes is enough, but only a fraction of the gaping holes and scars it's creating in these little girls psyches. Firstly the health implications and warped message of 'eat crap then suck it out' are hugely damaging, but moreover that fact that her 'problem areas' are making her unfortunate and must be eradicated immediately! Not only are we normalising surgery, as witnessed first hand with my friends, we are telling little girls that this is what is EXPECTED of them and even asking them to simulate doing it.
Some would argue that Photoshop and all it's shrinking, morphing and glazing over does the same thing, however in reality the two things are actually working hand in hand in a corpse bride style marriage. Photoshop dangles the carrot, and the readily available promotion of surgery allows us to easily take a crunchy bite.
I've only had 3 hours to absorb this toxic mix of surgical pressure, both in reality and in the media - these 9 year olds have another 15 years before they reach my age! To make it clear to the young'uns, if this were 'The Hunger Games' we are in danger of becoming preened, plucked, pained citizens of 'The Capitol' when we should be sticking to the low plaits and bushy eyebrows of Miss Everdeen.
Society, I'm only just enjoying the fact I now have cheekbones and my cheek fat has gone down from hamster to gerbil...please stop pressuring me into pumping and plumping them up again! My bank statement shows I'm still youthful and reckless enough! And iTunes, get it sorted eh?! I'm not against surgery, but I am against you endorsing products that give 9 year olds complexes then handing them surgical equipment to 'fix them'.
