John Werth
1 min readDec 12, 2024

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P.S. A few things:

1) You make some good points. Women are far more social, so they put a lot of pressure on each other. Men are hierarchical, but the central pressure reinforces which level you're in rather than group attacks. You can see similar behavior in apes as well, so it has a long history.

2) The "Kind of the same way someone made up 'cisgender male'--instead of just saying 'man.'" bit is asinine but also insidious and politically charged.

Using and/or creating synonyms is a constant linguistic process. Misusing existing language to make a point is a writer foul. You can complain about gender terminology, but the examples aren't comparable.

3) More interesting is to realize that these "trends" are almost entirely internet phenomena.

For example, there are roughly 43 million American women aged 15-35. The number of lip injections performed is maybe 30,000 per year. That would be 0.07%, but many are performed on older women. Only a tiny fraction of those are "pillow lips."

The upshot is this "craze" is maybe 1000 young women in a country of 350 million people. The number you've seen online is, give or take, all of them, and they're doing it for clicks, not looks. Like most of social media, squabbling is the point.

America would be a happier, healthier, smarter, and better place if people realized that almost everything on social media is bullshit and useless for drawing conclusions in real life.

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John Werth
John Werth

Written by John Werth

Musician and conductor, repairer of woodwinds, owner of dogs, band director, lapsed mathematician, and scribbler of thoughts on humor, politics or both at once.

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