Sunday, January 17, 2010

in which I trade in Lengthy Researched Style for PURE BLIND RAGE!

Okay, this is going to be quick and dirty but I cannot let this topic go--I just can't. I had the misfortune to flip through my roommate's teenygirlyfashionmag and I! Can! Not! LetItGo!

ANTI-AGING CREAM IS THE WORST PRODUCT IN THE WORLD.
THE WORST.
IN THE WORLD.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

What are you trying to pull! Who do you think you are fooling! This shit has been pissing me off since I was about nine.

Do you know why?

BECAUSE AGING IS A NORMAL PROCESS.
YES!
PEOPLE GET OLDER.
THAT IS HOW TIME ACTUALLY WORKS.
I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING THAT IS GOING TO MAKE ME STOP AGING, BECAUSE TO ME THAT MEANS "DEATH CREAM! GET YOUR DEATH CREAM!"

I am tired of this bullshit medicalized cosmetic theme.
Retinol-ACellMetabolismMYASS.
QUIT telling me how to "treat" aging signs. Quit acting like aging is a condition or a disease. QUIT IT. Just stop! I especially don't appreciate that most anti-aging creams are marketed to women. "Don't get older, ladies! It's bad for you! It'll make you ugly. Better to anti-age!"

No! What does that even mean! --No!

AS FOR ME, I intend to age for as long as I can.
I should hope we would encourage everyone to strive toward that same, meagre, goal.


The fuck.

5 comments:

  1. It' all just BUY MORE, BUY MORE, THERE'S MORE ABOUT YOU THAT NEEDS HELP. Because when you get older, you don't just need anti-aging cream, you need hair dye, and spidervein-removers, and 100 other products so someone can benefit from your getting older. It's pretty fucked up.

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  2. To be fair, scrabbling to halt the aging process isn't anything new; people forever have been trying to halt the aging process, look and feel younger. Women get hit harder with this process because it is socially acceptable to be a salt-and-pepper man less than it is a woman, wrinkles make a man look "dignified" and a woman "like a witch-hag," and an older man doesn't need to be stunningly attractive in order to get play whereas we have a variety of lovely terms for women trying to be sexually active past 30. HOWEVER, products and age-cures and ways to become as close to immortal as possible are common in myth, texts, and poetry, and products to reverse or hide the aging process are common for both men and women; there's the above mentioned products, but also Rogaine*, anti-wrinkle creams for men, scrotal-tuck procedures [Ref needed]. Point is, people wanting to be young once more isn't something inherently wrong with today's society; it's just that, along with everything else, it's a drive that's been commercialized and capitalized on.

    *Which is, incidentally, the attempt to halt another completely natural process, yet one which seems more reasonable to want to combat... dudes just want to have hair!

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  3. It certainly is true that idealized youthful bodies have long been literary and cultural fascinations, but I am still opposed to appropriating medical language for cosmetic frivolities, on the basis that it lends a fake "scientific authority" which then imposes a Medically Approved Alternative--looking young is normal! It's healthy! Looking old is a treatable disease. The medicalized norm seems innocent enough here, but it gets more sinister when its applied to cosmetic vaginoplasty, or intersex babies and infant gender reassignment surgeries.

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  4. "Point is, people wanting to be young once more isn't something inherently wrong with today's society; it's just that, along with everything else, it's a drive that's been commercialized and capitalized on."

    Why is this not something inherently wrong with today's society? Just because it's been going on for thousands of years doesn't justify it still hanging out here in 'Merica. I would also argue that this "drive" hits women loads harder, because everyone knows women have nothing to offer beyond their bodacious bods.

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  5. A couple of friends (both older) and I were talking about aging today. The man said that men start to go downhill after 30, whereas women are just hitting their peak at 35. Oh, yeah! Can't touch this.

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