As various memes will tell you, the Zoom camera can be unforgiving. So unforgiving, in fact, that as video conferencing replaces nearly all forms of in-person interaction, many people now forced to stare at a little rectangular icon of themselves through meeting after meeting are beginning to consider plastic surgery.
New York plastic surgeons told the New York Post they’ve seen an influx in inquiries for cosmetic procedures in the weeks since video conferencing became the world’s primary form of communication, as people are suddenly spending increased amounts of time starting at their own faces and realizing how bad they are.
Back in the day, we used to be able to stare at other things to avoid paying attention during meetings, like the wall or our coworkers or out the window to where the outside world used to be. But now that we have the option of staring at ourselves, we naturally can’t tear our eyes away from every last flaw and suddenly glaring imperfection.
Thanks to our new altered universe, people “are looking at themselves more than they ever have probably in human history,” plastic surgeon Dr. Norman Rowe told the Post, adding that patients tell him “they’re always looking at that little box of themselves in the upper right-hand corner, analyzing their face.”
In short, Zoom conferencing has put us face-to-face with our own faces, and as if this global crisis weren’t already bad enough, now we all have to deal with how ugly we are. For those of us who somehow still have money to throw at our problems, that apparently means plastic surgery.
Naturally, elective surgery itself is off the table for the foreseeable future, but doctors are still catering to the increased demand via remote consultations and a digital model of desired post-op results.
In the meantime, anyone so distraught by their own appearance in Zoom calls that they’re considering putting their stimulus check toward a post-quarantine nose job can take comfort in this confirmation of what many of us have long suspected: we’re literally all just staring at ourselves the whole time, so no one else cares what you look like because we’re all too busy wondering if we’ve always been this ugly.
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