Kylie Jenner is facing backlash on social media this morning for comments about never having had certain plastic surgery, but it seems a lack of nuance and understanding of what she was trying to say has started an unwarranted criticism circus online.
On the latest episode of The Kardashians, Kylie opened up about only having had filler on her face, no other plastic surgery, with the rest of her appearance changes all being down to makeup tricks. It comes after many fans have commented on how different her face has looked over the years.
‘One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I was like this insecure child and I got so much surgery to change my whole face, which is false,' Kylie said on the show. 'I’ve only gotten fillers, and I feel like I don’t want that to be a part of my story. I will always want everyone to just love themselves.’
Critics have immediately piped up with trolling comments and jokes about the unlikelihood of Kylie never having had plastic surgery. But, if you look more closely at what she said, it seems like people are taking what she said out of context. She was specifically denying having plastic surgery at all, just not on her face specifically – whether she’s had it elsewhere is her business, and shouldn’t be up for discussion.
And yet, of course, people do want to discuss it at length. One tweeted: ‘She sounds as ridiculous as Michael Jackson swearing up & down he only had one nose job,’ with many calling her a liar.
‘Saying you’ve only gotten fillers doesn’t mean what it used to and she knows it,’ another tweeted. ‘I think she has still done a lot of damage with the standards she set while using that to peddle her products.’
These criticisms are yet another indictment of society’s obsession with what women choose to do with their own bodies and the relentless pressure to shout it from the rooftops if they do surgically alter something. Once again people are blaming her for unreasonable beauty standards, instead of seeing that she too is a victim of the larger pressures to conform to beauty standards.
Of course, it’s a complex issue that deserves interrogation, just not relentless trolling toward one person. Due to the height of fame that the Jenners and Kardashians have reached, and the subsequent impact they’ve had on beauty standards, they do – whether they like it or not – hold an influence over many people and how they view themselves. It’s a double-edged sword though: if they’re open about plastic surgery they may have had, do they encourage followers to go under the knife themselves? And if they lie, are they being inauthentic with their fans?
We also can’t ignore the fact that the impulse to have plastic surgery to amend or allegedly improve parts of our body is a direct result of the patriarchy, a structure that Kylie Jenner is just as susceptible to as we are. The complications don’t even stop there, though, because whether she’s a reality TV star or not Kylie doesn’t owe us a justification of what she’s chosen to do when it comes to her body.
She is within her rights to do whatever she likes with it – it’s just unfortunate that fan culture, social media and the body image expectations that come with being a famous person means that her decisions stop just being hers alone.