My grandmother, Kimiko, was so beautiful. I have a specific photo of her in mind—she is in her ‘50s nurse uniform which accentuates her slender features. She leans against the bathroom sink and her hand slopes over it elegantly. Her black hair is piled into a bun, with one strand youthfully swooping over her forehead. Her almond eyes gently gaze someplace out of frame and her lips form a delicate smile. 

I’ve looked at this photo for a long time. Not because I find her stunningly gorgeous (although I do), but because I love and admire her. She shaved her head as a little girl to avoid being assaulted by Russian soldiers. She worked as a nurse in the pediatric ward of a trauma hospital. She loved seeing new comedy releases in theaters (like me!). She never got to see the new millennia, or me. My grandmother was a resilient and vibrant woman, and that’s apparent even just through stories that my mother tells me. Kimiko shows me how strong humanity is. She is stunning, yes, but she was incredibly multifaceted. I would be equally awestruck looking at her photos if she were ugly.

I understand that “ugly” is such a harsh word, especially for a concept that is so subjective. It is such a prevalent idea in our minds. My female friends and acquaintances often approach me in whispers of ‘Does my hair look greasy?’ ‘Do my arms look big?’ ‘Do my knees look weird?’ Some of the questions are easier to answer than others. You can tell someone that their hair is greasy because the solution to that is very easy, but what do you say about someone’s knees—or the zillions of other intricate, invisible insecurities we’ve collected over our lives? Even if we don’t outright say it, all of these little things fit together like a strange jigsaw puzzle to form the image of “ugly.” 

When a friend asks you if they are ugly, your knee-jerk reaction is to say no. There’s nothing wrong with that, but lately I have been thinking about the impact my words can have in these interactions. I feel guilty saying “No, your arms aren’t big,” because the understanding is that big arms are a negative trait. For the same reason, I’ve also been thinking about the way I speak about myself. I am not immune to the culture. I pick apart my appearance constantly, and it’s difficult to stop doing that even after acknowledging that it’s damaging. That being said, I’d like to avoid verbalizing every small insecurity because I know that it’s ridiculous! I don’t want to legitimize or give space to silly thoughts by vocalizing them. There’s also the possibility that I would mention one of my unnoticeable flaws and someone else would begin to notice it in themselves.

This happens all of the time on TikTok. A few months back, I discovered the concept of “septum arms.” It first appeared as a clickable suggested search term on TikTok after the algorithm combined the two unrelated words. Many users clicked to find nothing, and in their confusion attempted to create a meaning for the term. Eventually, “septum arms” have evolved to refer to chunky arms. My first run-in with the term was through a video of a young woman lamenting over the fact that she “just found out” that she has septum arms. I can’t even find the video because there are hundreds of almost identical ones from other women. Although they are just sharing their vulnerability, they are unknowingly triggering other women to feel similarly. Nobody knew what septum arms were until these videos started coming out. Interestingly, it seems as if these ladies weren’t insecure about their arms until a new demeaning slang phrase rolled out. It truly shows that our bodies are neutral until we are taught otherwise. None of these TikTok users are doing anything malicious. I don’t blame them whatsoever. TikTok just happens to lend itself quite well to problems like this because of its algorithm.

Obviously, a lot of these social media posts are being made by people who are online a little too much, but the idea still stands. We place so much value on our outer appearances, and that culture is worsened in a vapid online realm. There’s been pushback against this, but it often targets the wrong issues, a very prominent example of this being the body positivity movement. 

I so frequently hear that “fat bodies are beautiful.” There’s nothing wrong with that statement, but I strongly reject the idea that a body’s aesthetic qualities are what give it value. I’d rather hear that “fat bodies are human, and that’s why they deserve respect,” or that “being overweight is not a moral failure.” Sadly, that’s not as punchy to say. The “fat people are beautiful” approach fails especially hard because a lot of fatphobia is rooted in toxic beauty standards. Altering the beauty standards to include fat people does not address any of the systemic issues at hand. It illustrates how strong of a vice grip this idea of attractiveness has on us. Even those that oppose the standards attempt to be included.

Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with saying that fat people (or any other group) are attractive. Nevertheless, your activism cannot hinge on something so subjective. I much prefer a “body-neutral” attitude, meaning a shift towards appreciating the functionality of our bodies instead of any aesthetic value. Funnily enough, this makes me see more beauty in myself than extreme positivity does—just not the beauty that we typically praise. I believe that most people are beautiful, and some people are attractive. Perhaps we need to define these concepts better in our minds. The wrinkle of an elderly person’s smile or stretch marks on a recovered anorexic are beautiful things even if they are not considered to be appealing by the masses. I am certainly not writing this article because I am against beauty. Quite the opposite. Many of us shun beauty in favor of things that are outwardly appealing. There is immense beauty in being alive, and being ugly shouldn’t change that.