A viral TikTok on why Stranger Things star should have Botox backfires – fans call nurse’s suggestions to Natalia Dyer ‘weird’
- Lip filler, Botox, a brow lift, a chin filler – these are the things Natalia Dyer needs to have to ‘enhance’ her appearance, says one nurse practitioner
- The nurse took to TikTok to share her thoughts – and thousands called her out. But if stars like Dyer get these comments, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Natalia Dyer is beautiful – but one nurse practitioner had some thoughts on how the Stranger Things actress could “enhance” her appearance.
Wilson has since apologised in a new video – but not before thousands of fans called out her comments as “weird” and unwarranted.
“The fact that plastic surgeons think there’s nothing wrong with getting on the internet and pointing out all the things they’d change about the faces of [people] who have not expressed to them any interest in changing their faces is weird,” user @_truds_ tweeted.
As a board-certified facial plastic surgeon, Dr Steven Pearlman also questioned the intent of the viral video.
“If someone wants to alter their looks, their face or their image, then as a facial plastic surgeon, I’m all for it,” he says. “But it is not up to us to determine and promote our skills by demeaning the looks of anyone – celebrity or not.”
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“We can see how unattainable it is, as demonstrated by this analysis of someone who is in the entertainment industry, someone whose looks are typically elevated compared to average people,” says Elizabeth Daniels, an associate professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in the US. “And even these individuals are not meeting these expectations of perfection that seem to exist.”
If high-profile stars like Dyer are not immune to this “laser-like focus on perfection”, what are the consequences for everyday people?
The goal of cosmetic surgery should not be to make everyone look the same, according to Pearlman. Rather, it should be about embracing and enhancing the features that make us unique and beautiful.
“There’s this narrow ideal that gets rid of individuality. But beauty is individuality, and this [TikTok] video is almost trying to make [Dyer] homogeneous with this idea of perfection,” Daniels says. “Our features are individual. They’re unique. And that is beautiful. Why are we trying to wipe that away and create this standard to measure everybody against it?”
Aside from Wilson, numerous plastic surgeons, nurse practitioners and injectors have gone viral for sensationalising Botox and fillers by commenting on celebrities’ appearances – which Pearlman says is a form of “entertainment, not education”.
“Tagging and denigrating someone just because they are a celebrity is an easy way to get visibility. Unfortunately, the way physicians and nurse injectors get visibility these days is too often from sensationalism on social media,” Pearlman says.
Instead of convincing women that their appearance is something that needs constant improvement, Daniels says there needs to be less focus on dissatisfaction and more on appreciation.
“People are constantly commenting on each other’s appearance and it’s often intended to be positive. But regardless of intention, you are drawing somebody’s attention away from wherever it may have been to their body,” Daniels says. “So maybe we shift our focus to, ‘How do I cultivate or foster these feelings of body appreciation?’ That seems to be more important for psychological well-being.”
