Ep7_edit2

The podcast hosts discuss the pressure people feel to conform to beauty standards, specifically referencing Kim Kardashian's procedures to achieve a big butt. They also discuss the popularity of a weight loss drug called Vigovi and how it is influenced by social media. The hosts mention other cosmetic procedures such as breast augmentation and liposuction, as well as the trend of skin lightening treatments and hair removal. They question whether these actions are truly for self-confidence or to avoid criticism and seek compliments. They emphasize the need to challenge societal beauty norms and redefine the concept of confidence. Close your eyes and just for a minute imagine this, you are going to move to a new country and you are given an option, before moving you can do any amount of changes to your body and your face, no strings attached, no financial constraints, no one is going to judge you either. What would you do to your body in that case? Would you get naturally thicker eyebrows, longer lashes maybe, a slimmer nose or plumpier lips or as they say a brighter complexion, longer hair which is straight or curly hair which has the most perfectly defined curls, would you take your belly fat and move it around somewhere, maybe to your butt or to the sides to get a perfect hourglass shape or do you just want to change the shape of your face maybe, want more angled cheekbones or jawline or maybe you know simply want to just get rid of all your stretch marks or any scars on your body. Open your eyes now and answer yourself truthfully, did you even for a second want to change anything about yourself and mind you, there is no judgment over here. Hello and welcome to our podcast Coffee Plus Discipline, I am your host Varnika and with me is my friend and co-host Sanjana and today we are going to talk about Kim Kardashian's big butt. I am not your good girl, I am not your babe and I will take this down with a bang. But not really. We are going to talk about the procedures she has done to herself to get to the big butt and how the big butt is not big anymore and it just might become big again in another few years but yes we are going to talk about how she basically fit herself into that infamous or famous Marilyn Monroe dress and you know it is so talked about that she lost weight so suddenly and that is one of the you know the trending things right now which is called Vigovi. Yeah the secret behind her weight loss is not some magic exercise routine but a magic drug which is gaining a lot of popularity especially in the states. Basically you know how Vigovi started was Ozempic, it was a drug catered to type 2 diabetes people and it was a very sort of important drug for them right, it is actually quite transformational but what is happening is that when the company or even the people realize that Ozempic had a side effect which is weight loss they started doing you know those off handed prescriptions of getting Ozempic prescribed to them for weight loss and when the company realized they were like oh yay let's do this you know so they did a whole FDA they did a trial right but on obese people and it showed that yeah weight loss was a you know this was happening and then they rebranded the data and now it is called Vigovi for weight loss and it is quite cheap actually I think it is like $4000 for a month or something like that quite affordable from USA standards right, quite affordable from Kim Kardashian standards yeah and the thing is people started using it a lot to a point that I think Ozempic there was a crisis yeah in the US people who actually needed Ozempic didn't have access to it because it just wasn't there in the market it was all Vigovi and that's quite sad and there were TikTok trends and reels and everything that you know people want to go for a wedding and they want to lose weight quickly oh Vigovi and didn't realize the underlying science behind it which was that it suppresses your diet right and you're not getting enough nutrients and everything and you know you're sort of losing weight and the trial was done on obese people not on healthy weight people the crux is that human beings will go to any extent to fit in with whatever is the current beauty standards yeah but who is defining these standards and to what extent are humans ready to go so for example Sanjana this is just one of the many things Kim Kardashian's big butt her sister Kylie Jenner has admitted to having breast augmentation when she was how old 19 when she was still a teenager so young yeah and obviously there's always been things like liposuction and Korea is crazy after the double eyelid surgery yeah and there's like always some trend right going on and of course nose job and getting those big pouty lips that's still a thing I think everyone keeps it's become injectable so now everyone's just getting injections and makes their lips plumper and everything and the new fad is buccal fat removal surgery where you your face looks sunken you have sunken cheeks yeah like Bella Hadid has now you know Vigovi's side effect is actually the reduces your buccal fat so you get the horrored cheek effect so that's one of the effects of Vigovi as well and all of this is hugely enhanced by social media especially Instagram today it was 1997 when Naomi Wolf who wrote the beauty myth said that young girls are being exposed to a lot of sexualization to a lot of sexualized images and kind of feeling forced to be promiscuous early they are growing up very precocious you can imagine how much more pronounced this is now how much more pressure people feel because of the social media and the Instagram effect so much so that when the whole BBL trend happened quite a lot of women from the US started traveling to Mexico to get get it done for cheap and there were a lot of botched surgeries and people actually died in trying to get a big butt and you know if we extrapolate all of this to India right because of course you know we are a low-income country comparatively and not everyone has access to these resources but now you do see a lot of estheticians and aesthetic clinics popping up and there's like so much you know treatment yeah there's so much treatment and so what's the drug that people use to lighten their skin? Glutathione yeah that and there's like so much you do so and so chemical peels and everything to make your skin look glassy and hair removal and furthermore for you know brights to be so yeah I mean talking about this about the scenario in India right over here I think what's mostly I think what's done a lot is of course skin lightening treatments, glassy skin treatments, hair removal is such a big thing in India I don't think it's such a big thing in US because I mean we have darker hair right so it's more pronounced and I think people just feel like it's their birthright to comment on people's body hair and their facial hair and everything. I have gotten commented on in college, you need to get your upper lip, upper lip be kya vuchhe removed. I was getting this comment since I was 12 since I hit puberty as if like at the age of 12 years old I should be worrying about my facial hair instead of like being in my box or playing around or doing some sort of you know what things 12 years old do and not like care about how they look and how their facial hair is growing and everything right. So basically what happens Sanjana is that like we've discussed in earlier episodes young girls and women are made to feel so conscious by the societal standards which can come from comments from media people they see around themselves that they start to believe genuinely believe that if they do all these things including makeup and going for these procedures they are doing it for themselves to feel confident. It's called self-care now. It's called self-care? Yeah going to like an aesthetician and getting like chemical peels is like oh I'm in self-care today okay great it might be I'm not judging anyone but the question over here is are you really doing it for yourself or are you doing it to protect yourself from getting comments or are you doing it just to get more compliments on some part of your body? No basically we are busting the myth of confidence. Yeah it's like for confidence where are you drawing the boundary for confidence? Yeah because for Kim Kardashian it's Vigo V. Yeah you that may not be as accessible to you so you have drawn your limit at say getting skin whitening treatments and then someone else will like Sanjana will have drawn their limit at painting her lips red. No but I did get like full body hair removal and I sometimes question why I even did it in the first place. It was expensive, it takes time, hurts also so I have to put myself through that pain. Yes beauty is pain. Yeah no it's not that's what I'm saying why did I put myself through why did I put myself through it and I think I did it because since I was a hairy person and ever since I hit puberty people have commented on my hair so much that you know oh you're wearing a skirt, your legs are not waxed, why do you have such thick eyebrows and now thick eyebrows is like a whole trend okay, earlier it was not so I would be getting this whole thing why aren't you getting your eyebrows done? I'm like oh my god so it's like you know how much am I supposed to subject my body to? Today I'm thinning my eyebrows, tomorrow I have to grow them out and now there are these you know makeup things where you draw your eyebrows and make them all bushy and everything. It's absurd. Yeah and me Sanjana, there was a time in my life when I was straightening my hair every single day and my hair was thick and I was spending 15 to 20 minutes each morning straightening my hair very nicely meticulously and they didn't look, I didn't do them that well also, they didn't look that much straight also, they just looked like they were naturally straight and I loved having those naturally looking straight hair, they were easier to manage. I convinced them that I was doing it because they were easier to manage but then I think I was just obsessed because the quality of my hair kept getting poorer and poorer and I couldn't go out looking like that so I used to straighten my hair every day and the only reason I stopped was because of the pandemic and then I felt comfortable at home not straightening them anymore. They naturally returned to their texture and I didn't chop them off but yeah so it was not so much about confidence as it was about how I was projecting myself. Yeah because you thought that if you walked in looking a certain way people will perceive you a certain way right and of course straight hair people think that oh fleek and you know so and so right but you really can't control other people's opinion of you so they will perceive you some way or the other anyhow. Yeah. Why subject yourself to all that? Why do you, like not you but in a sense why do we depend so much on external validation? Why do we depend so much on compliments? Why are we so scared? The surprising thing is Sanjana, this is now economics. It's not just aesthetics and beauty. So in 2019, Jia Tolentino wrote about something called the Instagram face where the algorithm is also favoring that very typical Instagram model face with pouty lips and high cheekbones and big eyes. And that's been known. That particular face which looks as if all of them went to the same you know plastic surgeon. You know where does the buck stop because as many supermodels have also said, a very famous supermodel in fact has admitted to actually feeling very ugly at the top of her career. So beauty is really very internal. Exactly I think we should focus more on that. I think when we talk about the pandemic right, it's not like people stopped taking care of themselves. I think that was self-care. Like I don't think, I mean if you were sitting and doing makeup in the pandemic because you wanted to you know take up as an art right, it's self-care for you then. But if you're doing it just because you know you're so scared to go out in the public and have people look at your blemishes or acne scars, then really are you doing it for yourself? Of course you can do some things. Some things you may continue to do to feel better. Some things may actually contribute to your confidence. But we really need to be intentional about where we are drawing the line or maybe by recognizing it we have to learn how to draw our line a little bit closer and let quite a lot of these expensive very outward things go. I mean maybe of course the beauty industry wouldn't let it go but as individual consumers we have to be aware. Yeah we have to make more informed choices right and I think what happens is from a very young age because we're subjected to certain ideas right especially in India whether it comes to complexion or weight or something. I think in India no, I think Indian families are just left, right and centre will comment on everyone's weight. Like I think it's just so common that people just make you feel so conscious. So also about how fair or dark you are Sanjana. Huge huge topic ever since a baby is born. Yeah. Kitna dark hai, kitna fair hai. So it makes sense that women have become conscious of it. It's not like I don't understand that where that thing comes from. Of course I have been conscious about my body. That's why I've gone and gotten you know laser hair removal. I just wish I could make more informed choices. I wish I could sort of you know be like get this confidence earlier of not pleasing so many people. Yeah. Maybe a small set. Yeah exactly and eventually come to a point where I'm just pleasing myself right and I think that sort of brings to the point that you know I just wish we were all each other. Like I mean if people just didn't comment on each other like that right. About their complexion or some or the other thing right. Or the aesthetics of someone. Yeah. But at the same time I would like to point here that we are not being those super sensitive feminists who are saying ki now you can't just comment at all on anything related to women. You will be cancelled. It's not that. It's it's that you kind of always know don't you Sanjana. When someone is doing it with a you know undertone of maliciousness or a passive aggressive. Ki Sanjana patli ho gayi ho toh. Versus when someone is genuinely complimenting you because because they love your hair. You know that na. That I think everybody does. When it's targeted at you. You know you always know where that thing is coming from. How fake nice someone is trying to be or how genuine a compliment is. What you're trying to say is not that don't give compliments. Please give compliments. Tell people when they look good. Yeah. But still Vanika this is not a compliment that you're looking fair today or. That's never a compliment. Yeah just stop commenting on people's complexion especially in India I think. I've gotten so you know conscious about it that I'm scared of getting tanned now. Like you know me I'm always running away from the sun and I'm putting my sunscreen stick like 100 times a day because I've just. And I really want to get away. Because I have realized how much time and energy I waste fretting over tanning. And money Sanjana. How much money. Beauty costs money. Beauty is pain. No it's not. None of it is true. Also one more thing I think. Our families also do this a lot. I think my mom made me feel very conscious about my stretch marks. The amount of procedures she's made me go through to get rid of them. And nothing can make a stretch mark go away. And I was never conscious about it. It's just that you know when people just keep on pointing it out to you. You somehow end up becoming very conscious about it right. So yeah I think be more cognizant of it. Don't let people make comments about you. Tell them that very nicely. This is not justified. We don't want these comments. At the same time do nice compliments. Yeah. Yeah. And bringing it to the end. In the last segment of absurd things that people say to us. Oh yes. Tell me Vandika. What's the most absurd thing you heard? The absurd comments both of us heard after coming back from a break. A holiday. Back to work. I heard. You gained weight. And Sanjana heard. You've lost weight. No no. Your face is looking thin. It's specific Vandika. It's very very specific. Your face is looking thin. I mean now I have to. I'm like staring at my face. Oh is it like thinner now? Is it thinner? And I get so affected. I really. Oh Vandika. I hate it when I get so affected by this. Yeah. That's why we are doing this episode. We are also learning and growing. Yeah. Becoming more confident in our own bodies. Yes. Although I'm sure it will be a long long journey. Yeah. But we are on it. Yes. And with that we come to the end of the episode. Rage on and smash the patriarchy. Bye.