Why women are getting butt jobs for Instagram

‘Verity, why are young women getting butt jobs?’’

I love being the resident office young person, because it means that most of the questions about the mystifying minutiae of millennial life end up on my lap. Today’s was no exception.

It was prompted by the release of Bossbabes on TVNZ this week. A show about the lives of two Kiwi Instagram-businesswomen in their 20s (the semi-famous Iyia Liu and a generic other one) and their cosmetic surgery-studded lives.

And the highlight of this week’s premiere episode was the discussion of the impending Brazilian butt job that Iyia is getting in Sydney. (This pivotal plot point is the focus of next week’s episode too.)

It’s an excellent question. As someone who turns 25 this month, I’m old enough to remember when having a small butt was desirable and young enough to now want a big one.

The beauty rules of the early and mid 00s era were distinctly Paris Hilton – all about high-rise G strings and low-rise jeans over a distinctly flat, distinctly unobtrusive butt. But as every millennial girl remembers, there was a development in butt thought leadership in 2012. This was when Kim Kardashian joined Instagram, usurping her former boss Paris Hilton’s flatcheeked fame, and pioneering the era of ample ass.

It’s no wonder then that butt lifts are currently the surgery du jour. Although boob jobs have remained the most popular overall procedure worldwide, butt jobs are the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure globally. Figures from the US show a 134 per cent growth in Brazilian butt lift surgeries from 2012 to 2017.

It’s not a coincidence that this era coincides with the age of peak Instagram. Nor is it a coincidence this phenomenon is dubbed the Instagram butt effect. Young women are pining for peachy posteriors to the tune of thousands of dollars in procedures and products. All to look good on the ’Gram.

You got to find it fascinating.

Firstly because it’s a departure from the common interpretation behind why women get surgery. It’s largely thought that women get surgery to conform to the mainstream, maledominated ideal of female beauty.

Take the boob job, reigning queen of the plastic popularity contest. The most ingrained formula for ‘‘sexiness’’ that every young woman grows up with is that men like skinny women with a C cup. And so getting your boobs done is often seen as a sign you’re conforming to that male-defined aesthetic.

I’m partially unconvinced on whether men actually equate cup size to sexiness, but I’m absolutely convinced they have even less of an opinion on butt size and sexiness.

Having spent a lot of time talking to men in strip clubs, and dabbling in burlesque, I’ve never really heard any commentary on butt size. To be honest, I’ve never really heard men critique women’s bodies, certainly not in the forensically detailed way my girlfriends and I have. The general impression I’ve had is that men are happy to see any woman naked, and don’t think much further than that.

They may like a girl’s butt, but it’s not the key evaluation point in a person’s appeal. So I’m not convinced we can blame the male gaze for the butt job. In fact, as my Uber driver said to me on the way to the gym the other morning, ‘‘Why are you girls all gyming to get bigger butts? Your asses are fine!’’

In fact, given we’re doing it for the ’Gram, a female-dominated medium, it’s a strong suggestion we’re doing it for the approval of other women. I know I’m not doing it for the lads.

I’m doing it because it’s a fashion trend like any other, like thick eyebrows or clear plastic heels, that’s driven by other women’s approval and endorsement.

Just as women are the first ones to tell you that you’ve lost weight, we’re the first ones to compliment each other’s asses, either in real life or the comments section.

And those compliments, dispensed so generously by Instagram, form part of the most potent drug available to young women – visibility. Young women who conform to the latest beauty trends know that they have a power, for a short amount of time, to walk into a place and feel noticed. It’s a helluva drug, it’s the basis of fame, and it’s available to a lot of young women for a fleeting few years before society renders us invisible.

It also means you can’t really blame Liu’s decision to get a butt lift. She’ll know, like many young women do, that this visibility has a time stamp on it. She’s simply maxing it out, playing it for all she can get before she’s forced out into invisibility by a society obsessed by youth.

Butt jobs are the fastestgrowing cosmetic procedure globally.