Video summary
The podcast explores the normalization of cosmetic surgery and beauty treatments, arguing that unlike other industries driven purely by supply and demand, there exists a bottomless desire among women for enhancement fueled by rapid technological innovation. The speaker illustrates how standards have ratcheted up over time; what was once considered unusual or extreme, such as dyeing gray hair in the mid-20th century, is now standard practice while going natural has become "weird." This progression extends from makeup to invasive procedures like fillers and Botox, creating a situation where women spend significant sums on maintaining perfectly manicured nails that last for months rather than days. The speaker notes that this sector has seen incredible technological breakthroughs compared to fields like jet engines, driven by the fact that consumers do not care about minor improvements in other areas but are willing to pay premiums for beauty tech that offers longer-lasting results or more natural appearances. Central to these behaviors is a theory of intersexual competition rather than simple mate attraction. The discussion highlights how women signal their status and investment through luxury goods like YSL purses, which serve as displays directed at "girls and gays" rather than men who are often insensitive to such distinctions. A study mentioned in the transcript reveals that highly competitive women with wealthy spouses prefer gift cards to expensive department stores over specific items, allowing them to choose signals of mate investment precisely when their partners are not present. This dynamic creates an unspoken cartel where maintaining a high standard is enforced through competition; if one woman adheres only to beauty routines from forty years ago, she would appear relatively bad compared to her peer group who have adopted newer enhancements. The conversation delves into specific mechanisms of this rivalry, citing research published in *Personality and Individual Differences* regarding hairdressing experiments. The study found that women high in intersexual competitiveness are more likely to advise clients they perceive as potential mating threats to cut off significantly more hair than necessary, even when the client prefers minimal cutting or has healthy hair. Furthermore, these competitive tendencies lead women to recommend the most drastic cuts for clients of similar attractiveness levels themselves, effectively attempting to sabotage rivals' appeal since long hair signals youth and health—traits men generally find attractive. This creates a parallel state status game where women must navigate both attracting mates by looking youthful and competing with other women by signaling high status through fashion trends that often contradict male preferences. Fashion industries are heavily influenced by this dynamic, particularly the overwhelming representation of gay men in design who favor an androgynous look or specific body types like very skinny models on catwalks. The speaker points out how brands struggle to balance these competing forces; for instance, Victoria's Secret recently abandoned experiments with diverse mannequins including a trans person and a soccer captain to return exclusively to "hot chicks," while Lululemon faced financial difficulties when they restricted stock sizes up to UK 14 before shifting in 2020 to include plus-sized models after realizing skinny-only lines were unsustainable. The industry's history includes instances where brands like Abercrombie & Fitch burned unsold clothes rather than giving them away, reinforcing the idea that fashion is a game played primarily for female audiences and gay male consumers who dictate aesthetic standards regardless of what straight men might prefer in terms of baggy jeans or leggings. Ultimately, the podcast concludes that while there are two parallel games going on regarding female appearance—one focused on attracting men through youthfulness and fertility, and another on intersexual competition involving status signaling—these often come into tension with fashion trends. The speaker emphasizes that women frequently engage in these behaviors without fully realizing why they do so until later reflection, such as reading David Buss's work on evolutionary psychology. Despite the apparent absurdity of spending vast amounts on beauty products or sabotaging rivals' haircuts through salon advice, this behavior persists due to deep-seated instincts and social pressures that create a self-perpetuating cycle where the minimum bar for being "well-groomed" continues to rise indefinitely.
Read the full video transcript
what's your theory on the normalization
of cosmetic
surgery I think that unlike
other Industries which are more
obviously Supply demanded whatever I
think that there is a
completely bottomless desire from women
in particular for beauty enhancing
treatment and they will basically spend
as much money as they can right on
average and the the thing that really
drives the beauty industry is
technological innovation so like soon as
something new comes on the market and
it's typically very expensive and then
only celebrities use and it trickles
down whatever like I didn't know this
for
instance it wasn't that long ago that
actually dying your hair was considered
to be quite unusual for women who are
going
gray that was considered to be kind of
in the Realms of like quite not extreme
but like quite uh you know expensive
time whatever like it was at the edges
of what was considered normal for women
say in their 50s or 60s now everyone
dies their hair basically now going gray
is a weird statement and we've had this
like ratcheting up of the things that
you have to do in order to be considered
well
groomed and the sky is the
limit and so it's and and it and it's
just driven by what's available so now
it's not just wearing makeup it's also
fillers it's also Botox it's also weird
wonderful facials whatever like all the
all the things that you can do having
your you know having your nails down as
like a standard as a completely standard
thing
right it's really expensive to have like
perfectly manicured nails all the time
and women women who don't have much
money will send so much money on this
it's
amazing um and I mean what a wonderful
time to have invested in the beauty
industry because honestly the tech that
the tech that they do is actually
incredible what you mean what like
like okay Nails one example men won't
know this the the the bottles of nail
varage that you can get in the pharmacy
for like a pound they'll the manicure
will look really bad and it will last
you a few days
so presumably back in the 50s when we
used to do that but no one does that
now maybe 10 years ago it started to
become possible to get manicures that
would last for 10 days but they're quite
bad for your nails because they have to
like soar away at it basically when they
remove it but yeah it's not very nice
and it doesn't feel very nice so you
don't necessarily want to do that now
you can get nail varnish which lasts you
a month and it's more expensive and yada
yada but like the technological
breakthroughs Peter the is always
talking about like um technological
stagnation right like we haven't
improved on the Jet Engine and whatever
we have improved so much on beauty Tech
in that period it's amazing and I think
it's just because there's there's a
bottomless market for it people don't
actually care about flying across the
Atlantic slightly more quickly you know
that's why nail varnish that lasts for
another two weeks yeah yeah and fillers
that look more natural and never to get
get wrinkles and yada yada yada like
right so it's a race it's not only a
race to the bottom which women have an
endless desire for
how much uh enhancement they will go
for the minimum bar like the Overton
window uh the minimum base rate of that
has also been raised up and it's because
of intersexual competition it's because
now if you only did the beauty routine
of 40 years ago you would look
relatively bad compared to the other
women in your peer group this is
precisely the same but not
disincentivized instead it's just an
unspoken about cartel across the board
as why women [ __ ] in more than men it's
a price enforcement mechanism yeah but
instead of it being price enforcement
it's just competition yeah but that is
related to the female rivalry theory of
body positivity right that if you can
somehow manage to get competitors to eat
their way out of your horizontal
competition League um there's this bill
bit he's Live at Red
Rocks some the theater and he says uh if
you ladies could only support the WNBA
like you support a fat chick that keeps
on gaining weight and is no longer a
threat to you they'd be doing more
numbers than the NBA it is amazing
whenever you go on and women post
selfies for other women yeah because you
look at the comments underneath any
woman who's posted a selfie ever and it
will always be like baby look amazing
baby look amazing and and the
expectation I think is that then when
when when those women post selfies they
get the same thing back um and it's all
very kind of you know like I it's funny
like this is the nature of sort of human
instinct right you'll you'll do things
with having no idea why you're doing
them and then sometimes you'll look back
and be like oh okay like you you read
David bus or something I'm sure you've
had this experience and you're like oh
yeah I've done that there I am and
you'll keep doing it anyway well think
about why women buy luxury goods like
why is it that women are so concerned
about having a a YSL purse it's for the
girls and the gays it's not for men a
mulbury handbag so there was a really
interesting study that I looked at that
uh
showed the the gift that highly inter
sexually competitive women with wealthy
spouses wanted the most was a gift card
to an expensive department store so they
could choose it precisely correct
because they want to use the signal of
my mate is so invested oh you want to go
after my mate yes yes yes he spent five
grand on this tiny piece of leather that
I carry my phone in he spent 10 grand on
this wedding ring or whatever right it's
an intersexual inter sexually
competitive threat display of mate
investment yeah even when the mate's not
around y y and because men are
completely insensitive to they don't you
think we know the difference between a
[ __ ] mulbury handbag and something
from like primar I don't think men
notice things like manicures either I
think a lot of the beauty stuff like
some of it yes is orientated towards
looking younger you know that's like
that's always going to be sexually
attractive but I think a lot of the
looking really well- groomed is about
signaling to to girls and gays because
they're the ones who are actually
receiving the signals did you see my uh
post that study that was floating around
last week to do with um uh that
hairdressing uh experiment that had been
done this is phenomenal so this is where
I uh originally Justified using science
my rivalry theory of be female uh body
positivity support a recent study
published in personality and individual
differences found that women who are
high in intersexual competitiveness are
more likely to advise women who they
perceive as potential mating threats to
cut off more hair in an attempt to
sabotage their attractiveness the
researchers studied 450 women who are
presented with hypothetical Salon CL
participants were asked to recommend the
amount of hair to be cut cut off for
each woman women who reported high
levels of intersexual competitiveness
were more likely to recommend that
clients have more hair cut off when the
hair was in good condition and the
clients expressed a preference for
minimal cutting another Finding is that
women advise clients of similar
attractiveness as themselves to cut off
the most hair participants effectively
targeted women they perceived as being
on the same attractiveness level
potentially to try and reduce their
attractiveness longer hair is to to
Youth and health yeah men love long hair
like I don't think women realize how
much men love long hair like if you if
if you read the men are actually
incredibly easy to please right in terms
of like physical cues but the problem is
that there are two parallel State status
games going on when it comes to female
Beauty and appearance one is attracting
men which is basically just looking
youthful like fine and fertile and then
the other is is is the much more
difficult game which is the intersexual
competition game which is about making
yourself look high status in other ways
and that's where the brands come in
that's where you know like keeping up
with fashion comes in men don't care
about that but but you have those two
things going on Parallel and
occasionally they'll come into tension
occasionally there'll be some Trend
there are no Solutions on trade up which
makes you fashionable but the men don't
like yeah that's interesting yeah like
short hair would be an example of that
although it's quite a rare for that to
be really popular but as you know
like baggy clothes or something yeah I
was going to say like boyfriend jeans
and stuff exactly men aren't going to be
interested in that but that might that
might like occasionally come around guys
would be happy with girls just
permanently wearing leggings like hot
leggings like gym shark leggings or
something like just just just go out in
those with
heels yeah like it's very basic but then
again but then I mean also part of
what's driving fashion is the fact that
gay men are so overwhelmingly over
represented in fashion and they don't
care have absolutely no interest no so
that's why you have like really skinny
women on catwalks and stuff like it's
partly because the clothes kind of hang
it's easier if if everyone's a small
sample size to deal with the clothes
like fitting everyone um but I think
it's also because the more androgynous
look is just considered to be more
beautiful by gay man do you see that uh
Victoria Secrets have made the radical
decision to go back to using hot models
they tried 300 pound mannequins they
tried a trans person they tried a man
they tried the captain of the US soccer
team and radically now they're just
going to use hot chicks you know you
know the gym brand Lululemon like
expensive gym where I can't tell you how
much Lululemon I own it's disgusting
anyway um they used to have a rule that
they didn't even stock sizes over like a
UK size 12 or UK 14 like the average
woman is a 16 that's a smarter version
of what ABAC croman Fitch did where they
wouldn't give away their clothes to
homeless people they'd just burn
them yeah you don't even give them away
to un like acceptable customers let
alone on think that lul LEM and actually
the guy who founded it would say quite
so forly like I don't want fat chicks
wearing my clothes basically like they
they knew that having it being
associated with skinny women was
aspirational but then they changed that
in like 2020 is because couldn't survive
couldn't survive and now they have now
they have loads of plus-sized models and
stuff um it's a fashion though it won't
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