Parasocial Paternalism and Embodied Advice Among TikTok Cosmetic Interventionists (2024)

Undergraduates: Hinal Patel, Addie Lewis

Faculty Advisor: Katherine Furl
Department: Sociology

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Credentials provide authority leveraged to justify inequalities, including inequalities predicated on appearance. Medical credentials’ authority connects to broader power relations, and the social contexts surrounding cosmetic procedures make such connections particularly apparent. Cosmetic surgeons, dentists, and dermatologists can reach global audiences through digital media platforms, where they compete with less prestigiously credentialed counterparts offering cosmetic interventions of their own. To understand how online content creators pedaling cosmetic interventions convey themselves, offered interventions, and conceptions of beauty to audiences, we apply iterative, thematic qualitative and categorical content analysis to 200 short-form videos on TikTok produced by 50 cosmetic interventionists. Creators possessing high-status credentials frequently engage in parasocial paternalism, positioning themselves as affable and approachable yet uniquely skillful and knowledgeable, and arbitrating cosmetic interventions’ appropriateness and desirability. Creators possessing lower-status credentials conversely emphasize alternative expertise. Lower-status credential holders and women across credential status hierarchies also frequently embody their advice, pursuing showcased interventions themselves rather than simply advertising them. Findings illustrate conflicting, interlinked empowerment and subjugation in online content showcasing cosmetic intervention