"The deficient female body" : A qualitative study on how influencers normalize beauty procedures

Consumption of surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures are increasing every year and are consumed by women to a far greater extent than by men. To bear the role of an influencer has also become increasingly common. When influencers post on their social media, they reach out to a large audience with the intention of influencing their followers to consume the goods or services that they share. Since consumption of beauty procedures has increased in Sweden and continues to increase, we want to investigate whether influencers convey messages about consuming beauty procedures. The aim of the study is to analyze Swedish female influencer's opinions and arguments about the consumption of surgical and nonsurgical beauty procedures. To fulfill the aim of the study, the following questions will be answered: what opinions and arguments about the appearance and consumption of beauty procedures do influencers express? and What norms and values are visible in influencer's opinions and arguments? In total, 14 YouTube videos and 10 Swedish female influencers were examined. The women's ages range from 18 to 35 years old. The phenomenon was studied through netnography because influencers are very much active online and do sometimes share their opinions about beauty procedures online. The theories and concepts we analyze and interpret our empirical material with is Bauman’s (2008) theory of consumer society, Bordo’s (1993) view of feminism, western culture and the body and Cooley’s (1902) concept the looking-glass self. The findings showed that there were five values and norms that the influencers in our survey expressed, these were: believing the human being to be autonomous, women need to look a certain way to be accepted as beautiful, beauty procedures lead to happiness, the body should be subjected to examination, evaluation, modification and objectification, that beauty procedures should not be taken very seriously but instead accepted as an everyday practice