Head Gains
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I really don't understand why some things become trends. Current society has popularized so many weird things, future anthropologists may one day label us a particularly peculiar people. From Labubu dolls to ASMR videos to posting pictures of restaurant meals, we've adopted a few things that make no sense — at least to me.
The latest head scratcher trend comes straight outta China. The “high skull” trend has young Chinese people — mostly women — undergoing extreme cosmetic procedures to change the shape of their heads. Apparently, the goal is to increase the distance between the hairline and the top of the skull because this beauty standard rates longer as better.
I hope the Kardashians don't catch wind of this trend.
Although you can't grow a taller skull, that hasn't stopped people from trying to engineer one. They use special hair clips designed to create the illusion of a taller skull, plus volumizing hairspray. And when that doesn't work, they resort to ambitious invasive procedures that require a 3 cm scalp incision and bone cement.
Basically, societal beauty standards have run out of soft tissue modifications to suggest, so now skeletal manipulation — with the same stuff used to glue joints together — is en vogue.
This story is ripe for a good Conehead joke — Beldar would be Beijing's most eligible bachelor — but when you lift the rug, there's something more serious lying underneath.
Follow me for a minute.
Fabricated Flaws
Manufactured standards have a way of feeling inherited.
Until recently, no one in China was walking around feeling their skull was too short. Then a standard was invented, and now people are getting surgical procedures to address it.
Like the Chinese women in this story, we've reshaped ourselves to meet a requirement nobody used to ask for. We just do it in domains we've stopped noticing.
A decade ago, "thought leadership" wasn't a career stage. Now staying quiet feels like falling behind.
Five years ago, you didn't need a personal brand. Now you feel deficient without one.
Two years ago AI competency wasn't a thing. Now it's something people apologize for not using.
What looks like adapting to standards is often responding to insecurities that were quietly invented.
The hard part isn't seeing this pattern in other people's lives.
It's seeing it in your own.
Question of the Week
Of the standards you're trying to live up to, which ones are yours and which ones aren’t?
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