On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you care whether Kylie Jenner's had her lips done? (One being complete and total apathy, and 10 being you lie awake at night wondering how in the world she expects people to believe that her pout's sudden fullness has been accomplished with makeup magic.) To be completely honest, I'm a pretty solid "1" when it comes to this situation. But, here I am, writing about the great Lipliner-Versus-Plastic-Surgery Debate of 2014, starring 17-year-old Ky-Jen — because the Internet seems like it's about to spontaneously combust, thanks to a recent selfie. Meanwhile, our whole team is asking: "Really?"
Visual evidence suggests that she might have gotten injections (Those before-and-after pics! #wow), but if you zoom in, you can kind of see the line where her lips end and the lipliner begins. However, if you do find yourself zooming in on her face, let's take a moment to consider the fact that you're zooming in on Kylie Jenner's face — instead of, you know, reading the news or, like, working. (In case you're curious: In preparation for writing this, I totally zoomed in on her face. And then, I felt bad about myself.)
Aside from the fact that we have her makeup artist on record describing how he uses lipliner to exaggerate her lips, the big-picture issue here is how much energy people are spending scrutinizing the girl's face — and arguing about whether she's made a personal choice that she's entitled to.
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Lindy West wrote on Jezebel a few months back: "Why do we teach women that staying young and beautiful is the most important thing, and then shame them for attempting to adhere to our mandate?" This is especially true of Jenner's world, where, as a member of the Royal Contour Family, "beautiful" means plump lips, full lashes, and bronzed everything. So, why are we so surprised that she's following their example? And, with everyone and their mom taking to Twitter to discuss the intricacies of her mouth, that pressure is also coming from the public in a less-than subtle way.
The bottom line (beyond "Who cares?") is that we need to either a) stop expecting everyone to look a certain way or b) stop punishing them for signs of effort. Yes, I'm a wishful thinker — but, it sounds nice, doesn't it?
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