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AI agents, the ultrawealthy and digital media have brought facelifts, body contouring and cosmetic surgery into the mainstream.
We’re living in the Kardashian era. There was a time when cosmetic surgery was done surreptitiously. People lied about it, hiding their liposuction and Botox even from closest friends. Now, it’s different. For the elite and the wealthy, plastic surgery has become the new Rolex watch or Bvlgari diamonds. To be tried, to be customized to their self-care needs, to be flaunted.
Thanks to new-age surgeries, biologics and chemicals, people, especially the rich, have started to look different after they age and they’re flaunting this rich face.
“445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! Silicone!!!”responded 28-year-old celebrity Kylie Jenner, founder of Kylie Cosmetics when a fan asked her on TikTok on what she used in her surgery to get such perfect breasts.
There’s even a political term for this hyper-polished aesthetic: The Mar-a-lago face has sculpted cheekbones, contoured bodies, puffy lips and taut faces and necks thanks to incessant face lifts. In women it’s accompanied with a sculpted body — perfect breasts, narrow waists and pumped-up hips.
Cosmetic surgeons are increasingly marketing these surgeries as an investment for a successful career and thanks to social media, people are falling for it. Injectables, serums and anti-aging facials are creeping into millions of screens worldwide pushing an idea of pursuing youthful beauty – in the name of success. The South Korean army is dealing with soldiers reporting back to duty with rhinoplasty injuries, while in Europe micro-needling and eyelid surgery queries have skyrocketed on Google Trends. “If I didn’t get my body right, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” says rapper Cardi B on Instagram.
Our Tiktok desires to look younger
According to Global Survey 2025 by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, nearly 38 million procedures were performed in 2024. There’s been a whopping 42.5% increase in cosmetic procedures over the last four years.
Globally, the top five surgical procedures are eyelid surgery, liposuction, breast augmentation, scar revision and rhinoplasty. Across the world, South Korea remains a clear leader in per capita cosmetic procedures followed by the US, Brazil and Japan. India’s not far behind: It holds the 7th position worldwide in the total volume of aesthetic procedures, performing over 1.28 million procedures annually. To be sure, on a per capital basis, India would rank down the listing.
The collective social fascination with changing looks has culminated into social subcultures like ‘looksmaxxing’, started by 20-year-old Branden Peters, known online as ‘Clavicular’. In this internet trend, young boys use hammers or fists to hit their faces and cause micro fractures to restructure the underlying bones into a more chiselled, more manly face.
Peters recommends steroids to pump up the body, meth to curb appetite and last month livestreamed his two-hour long rhinoplasty. And the sheer popularity of his advice shows how narcissism has taken a new technology-enabled twist in modern lives.
The Tiktok trend seems to be a cheaper knockoff version of the custom-created body contouring surgeries which have been catching on amongst the wealthy. Other than the regular breast augmentation and butt lift, the new thing in body contouring is the Barbie waist. A V-shaped waist where the surgeon micro fractures ribs, twisting them, so that people get that narrow waist dip along with fuller buttocks and longer legs. Like Barbie – the doll many grew up with. After the ribs are twisted, people have to wear a corset for about 2-3 months to give the ribs time to naturally reshape themselves in their aesthetically acceptable tight V.
New technologies driving plastic faces
One of the reasons the Barbie waist is popular, according to a paper published last year in Aesthetic Surgery Journal, is that the surgery has become safer to perform. Doctors in Colombia and Brazil who perform the Waistline Aesthetic Slimming by Puncture (WASP) procedure have published that only around 6% of their patients faced spinal disorders or chronic respiratory diseases, and that the rest could recover within 2-3 months. Compare this with a Brazilian butt lift (BBLs) where complications can be as high as 25-30% of cases.
What makes advanced reconstructive surgeries safer are new vessel-sealing technologies such as LigaSure developed by Medtronic based in Ireland. This technology minimizes the risk of bleeding during a surgical operation and reduces operation times. Robot-assisted microsurgery on top of 3D constructed simulations have also made these surgeries more precise. Italy-based Medical Microinstruments for example, has developed NanoWrist intruments which are the world’s smallest wristed surgical instrument that shadow a surgeon’s write on lymphatic vessels and blood vessels.
The other reason that cosmetic surgeries are getting popular is rapid weight-loss medication. GLP-1 medications have created an entirely new patient-type for surgeons to get rid of the ‘Ozempic face’ – a gaunt, sunken or prematurely aged appearance that occurs due to rapid weight loss. These patients want facelifts, but also body contouring and non-invasive surgeries to get rid of all that loose skin.
First timers to plastic surgeries are also opting for a more natural non invasive methods like biostimulation. This is an upcoming application in plastic surgery where instead of traditional fillers, doctors inject materials into the skin to encourage local tissue regeneration. Sculptra from the US has a synthetical biodegradable substance that builds collagen in the skin that last upto a couple of years. Radiesse is another synthetic dermal filler to reduce wrinkles and stimulate the body’s natural collagen.
Then there is a market proliferation of low-commitment, ultra-fast injectables like Boey. These newer neurotoxins show visible results in 8 hours but wear off in 2-3 weeks. It’s a low commitment trial run.
In the world of selfies and digital screens, a rich or unusual face has become more desirable than a designer handbag. According to Grand View Research, the global non-invasive aesthetic treatment market was $ 35.99 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to % 64.07 billion by 2033, a growth of 7.45% CAGR.
In a quest to find our best narcissistic self
A few months ago, French designer Matières Fécales put out gruesome prosthetics and dollar bill eye masks on his models at Paris Fashion Week for a theme called ‘The One Percent’. It was a dramatic satirical tale on the wealthy elite with models sporting larger-than-life eyes, gruesome prosthetics and even dollar bill eye masks.
Fécales’ satire apart, it’s an aspiration for not only the wealthy but increasingly the masses. Surrounded by AI-generated photos and artwork , people are all trying to emulate the perfect, symmetrical plastic faces that AI models sport. They want plumper lips, defined eyelids, eyebrows up or eyebrows down, defined bone structure, WASP waist, plumper breasts and hips and hair in all the right places.
In a study published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery last year in July, scientists found that 66.9% patients coming to doctors for plastic surgery had high expectations of the results thanks to simulations they’ve seen in an AI generated version of themselves. Managing expectations is increasingly becoming a problem for surgeons.
People’s enhanced desire for themselves has also led to fantastical procedures, though that’s still a niche. There’s an eye colour surgery procedure for romantasy fans called keratopigmentation which deposits pigments into the corneal stroma. Then there’s elf ears, a cosmetic modification of the ear’s cartilage to create a pointed tip.
Cosmetic surgery was always a fantastical endeavor to look a certain way, for a certain crowd. Social media enhances this human desire in all of us.
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