The Golden Age of Cherubic Girls
The fall of buccal fat removal will usher in OUR golden age
I’m a cherub-cheeked girl in a buccal fat hating world. Laughing plastic. It’s been… less than fantastic, but the dawn of a new age approaches.
You might be asking, what on God’s green earth is buccal fat? It sounds like something that would pair well with red wine and pasta. If you’ve never heard of it: (1) congratulations and (2) I am genuinely sorry to be the one to inform you.
Apparently, it’s pronounced like buckle, but I like boocle more, and I have a deeply unserious relationship with phonetics anyway. Boocle fat it is.
Buccal fat is the facial compartment between your cheek and jaw bones that gives your face its shape. The size of someone’s buccal fat pads actually aren’t affected by their weight. It’s genetic, and we have a set amount on our face our entire lives.
Buccal fat removal is one of Hollywood’s classic secret celebrity plastic surgeries. Everyone’s getting it. It’s no coincidence that the procedure’s popularity dovetailed into the malnourished, alien, hot-girl look that’s now all over our feeds. Plastic surgery is the new contour. If someone’s face looks newly sculpted in a photo, it’s likely because it is newly scuplted — with a surgical knife, not a makeup brush.
The most recent star under speculation for buccal fat removal is Twitter’s #1 target, Lea Michele. A new selfie she posted (pictured above) shot buccal fat removal into the heart of the culutral lexicon like a flaming arrow. The topic of buccal fat became a trending topic overnight and the public decided it had enough.
The death of this trend — because, yes, it is simply another trend to make women hate themselves — was inevitable. Maybe it took Lea Michele, someone who has whatever the opposite of the Mitus Touch is when it comes to the internet, to send the dominoes toppling. The days of the rich and famous paying a literal pound of flesh to look like real-life Tim Burton characters are numbered. As I write this, I scrolled past a TikTok makeup tutorial for how to get the “cherub face” look that has 1.3 million views and counting. The death of the buccal fat removal era is here, baby. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Jia Tolentino has a fantastic piece in the New Yorker called the “The Age of Instagram Face” that delves into the growing popularity and accessibility of plastic surgery and the roll social media plays. The idealized “Instagram face” is an amalgam of appropriative features: fox eyes, fish lips, pinched noses, tiny chins, and concave cheeks. Just like a filter, the “Insta face” can morph on a dime when society crowns a new trend.
I think everyone has a right to do whatever they want with their bodies. I also think that Bella Hadid regretting the nose job she got at 14 years old because she wishes she kept the nose of her Palestinian ancestors is really, really sad and enraging.
Bella isn’t to blame. Her mother Yolanda? Different story. If my white mom offered me plastic surgery when I was in eigth grade, I would have likely surgically erased the parts of my face that look Filipino: my narrow, hooded eyes, my full cheeks, and my non-pointy nose. Like Bella, I now understand at 25 years old how influenced we all are by internalized racism; that beauty standards are determined by white, Eurocentric ideals; that the face I was born with represents resiliency and cultural lineage that I now take tremendous pride in.
I guess my point is that all of this is… exhausting. Scrolling past things online that try to sell you on ways to change your appearance or buy a new one entirely feels like taking your brain to a cheese grater.
All the insecure boys in middle school who made fun of the way I looked are now balding Southside cops and I’m a metropolitan twenty-something with the face and charm of a cartoon woodland creature! There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
The cartoon woodland creature in question:
Buccal Fattie Icons
The kingdom of heaven is for the cute ones. Don’t believe me? Believe history!
Cherubs — They’re featured prominently in the Reinassance, the Bible, and Angels in the Outfield (1994). (I don’t think that last one’s actually true.) They’re imortalized in museums and Walgreens Valentine’s Day sections across the globe. Ever heard of Cupid, the universal symbol of love? Buccal Fattie icon!
Gus-Gus — Beloved little mouse. Friend to Cinderelly. Founding member of the no-pants club. Lover of cheese and blonde women.
Babies — They don’t have jobs. They don’t pay taxes. These rotund freeloaders always get what they want.
Moi — I mean, just look at her. She’s still the one.
Even if you’re not a BFI (Buccal Fattie Icon), you once were. We so often forget that. Your homework tonight is to find a baby picture of yourself to look upon fondly and say “yep, that’s me” ala That’s So Raven or “they’re still the one” to the tune of Shania Twain.
XOXO,
Gab