Name: Brotox.
Age: 34.
Appearance: Honestly, it’s hard to tell.
Come on, it’s 2023. Everyone knows what Botox is by now. No, you misunderstand. I didn’t say Botox. I said Brotox.
So what’s Brotox? It’s, um, Botox.
Right. But for men! When men get Botox, it’s called Brotox.
Men have always had Botox treatments. Yes, but now they’re doing it enough for it to become a pun.
What sort of quantities are we talking about? Huge amounts. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the amount of money that men spend on Botox treatments has risen 400% since 2000. In 2020 alone, it’s estimated that 265,000 men had Botox procedures.
Wow, that’s a lot. Why? Well, the longer answer is that the beauty industry seems to have reached a point of total saturation when it comes to making women feel insecure about their appearance, so has now turned its attention towards making men feel so suffocated by constant unobtainable images that they’re forced to spend money in a doomed attempt to hush their nagging sense of self-hatred.
Is there a shorter answer? Oh, sure, yes. Barbie.
Barbie? Yeah. Lots of men have gone to see the new Barbie movie, and have apparently been so alarmed that they don’t look like Ken that they’re making inquiries about cosmetic treatments to remedy that.
Ken? People want to look more like a clueless, lifeless, genital-free doll from a movie about the horrors of the patriarchy that only came out a couple of weeks ago? I know, right? So dreamy.
Are people not getting the point of Barbie? Who cares? The important thing is that men feel so bad about how they look that they’re willing to pay hundreds of pounds to get their faces injected with paralysing agents. We’ll be rich. Rich!
Hang on, do you work for the beauty industry? No. I have no financial interest in this whatsoever. Whatever gave you that idea?
Is Brotox even that bad? Not really. The injections don’t hurt and only take a second or two to administer. Yes, they’ll be left looking slightly stunned for a few weeks afterwards, but that’s hardly the end of the world.
Oh, that sounds fine. Is it worth telling you now that more men are getting buttock lifts and cheek implants too?
It’s hard not to be depressed by this, you know. Here, let me give you some Brotox. You’ll still be depressed, but minus the frown lines.
I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, so long as it makes them happy. Exactly. Just not so happy that they stop spending money on messing up their faces with injections.
Do say: “True beauty comes from within.”
Don’t say: “I’m just Ken.”
