Body shaming isn’t an issue that affects people in one country alone. For example, for years Japanese women (and more recently, men) have been bombarded with ads in trains that push “perfection.”
Body hair? Bad. Stained teeth? Bad. Excess fat, flat chests, no muscles? Bad, bad, bad. It seems there’s always something wrong with our bodies. Companies have been quick to take advantage of such insecurities in their advertising, though a report by Business Insider in 2019 cited a study that found more than 40% of young women were annoyed and offended by such ads.
With more people staying home due to the pandemic, women have less opportunity to see the train ads and, instead, are finding the same messages on ads attached to videos they’re watching on YouTube. They almost always come in manga form: A speedy voice-over exhorts women, for example, to remove all their body hair unless it’s growing from the top of their head. That’s followed with a subtle threat: Unless you take action, your love life will dry up and you’ll be alone forever.
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