Have you ever wanted to change how you look? Not just in terms of how you dress, but how you might alter your body? Some of us undertake cosmetic surgery in order look different: younger, slimmer, tighter, bigger, weirder, more radical, more normal, less normal, a different look, a different gender.
There are many motivations for these changes. Some want to alter their bodies to feel ‘more like the person they were always meant to be’, as an expression of individuality, authenticity, and identity. This is particularly true in the case of transgender persons, though it applies to many others. A lot of people exercise and work out to make their bodies look and feel healthier, and some argue that tattoos and piercings help people express difficult individual feelings in a uniquely public way. ‘Authenticity’ is a powerful motivator.
However, the drive for change to become an ‘authentic’ self is sometimes driven by a desire to look like someone else that we admire; a friend, a celebrity, or an influencer. Admiration is an important emotional motivation, denoting comparison, identification and appreciation of another’s qualities. However, other comparison-based emotions – anxiety and envy – are also extremely relevant. Many of us feel pressure and anxiety, not just to fit in and look ‘good enough’, but to look better than others and gain status. Gordon Clanton argues that if you find yourselves “thinking the other does not deserve their good fortune or wishing that the other would lose his or her advantage or otherwise suffer, that is a measure of your envy”. Have you ever thought that someone you know has it too easy because they are just lucky enough to just be good-looking? If you told them so, would they agree, would they tell you off for being ‘too envious,’ or would they encourage you to ‘embrace your envy,’ and work harder to look better?
Sometimes the anxious push and competition to look and act ‘better’ is not driven by status, but by the need to work. As more jobs orient towards customer service, it’s not only necessary to constantly manage feelings at work – to always smile and look happy – but to really look the part – dress up, dress down, dress different, dress sexy. Paul Thompson and colleagues describe how companies hire workers who embody the ‘right’ qualities to sell their products; looks, style, mannerisms, emotional expressions, even the right voice in the case of call centre operators. They call this ‘aesthetic labour’, or the ‘supply of embodied capacities and attributes possessed by workers at the point of entry into employment’ (p931). Companies increasingly prioritise aesthetic labour in recruitment, and value and demand its constant development and use on the job to sell products and promote the company’s brand. Employees in Thompson’s study report being subject to the ‘grooming standards committee’ and ‘uniform police’, intent on regulating appearance and speech, through disciplinary action if necessary, to meet the employer’s aesthetic standards. Such aesthetic labour demands are now intensified by the widespread use of customer satisfaction ratings, particularly to allocate (more, better-quality) work in gig-industries like Uber and Task Rabbit; a grumpy day could cost you your job!
This commercialisation of bodies and emotional labour is also part of a broader phenomenon of commodification of emotions in digital economies. Jan Padios calls this ‘emotional extraction’, which includes emotional labour, but also predicting “everything from consumer choices to criminal activity” from the capture, use and sale of any “information and data that can be mined as a result of isolating and examining people’s emotions or affect” (p207). Our emotional data – our likes, our preferences, and (yes) our customer satisfaction ratings – are now products we give away (for free) to super-profitable behemoths (Facebook, Amazon, Google etc).
Body modification and emotional comportment is anything but a simple, individualised choice. They are highly social and emotional, bringing us the joy of authenticity, but also the thrill of elevated social status (and the relief of lesser envy). They are conflated with status; are tightly wound up with media images and the body-industry; are intrinsic to the aesthetic labour of the service economy; and engender emotions that become commodities for extraction in the wider digital economy.
Perhaps it is time their value was recognised and paid for?
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