Kardashian clones have taken over

Stop the press: the Kardashians have admitted to going under the knife. Replying to speculation about her plastic surgery procedures, reality TV star Khloe Kardashian listed all the work she’s had done from nose jobs to “salmon sperm facials”. Bears defecate in the woods, the Pope’s a Catholic and yes, it takes money and scalpels to look airbrushed in real life.

Why should you care about Khloe’s collagen microthreads, or her mother’s startling face lift? Because the California alien look has become the beauty standard for many young women. The Marilyn-Monroe-on-steroids look popularized by the Kardashians, with the kind of huge backsides and invisible waists that would make Betty Boop look plain, has caused all kinds of dark and interesting shifts in popular ideas of femininity.

This pin-up, hyper-feminized image of womanhood is at least in part linked to skyrocketing numbers of girls weighing up their chances of being trans because their straight-up, straight-down build won’t comply. Short of getting ribs removed, it’s also nigh on impossible for most women who don’t have the 36-24-36 natural curves to achieve the look. When I was growing up the aspiration was to be Kate Moss thin. It was a bad time for self esteem, but at least it was almost achievable, depending on how many meals you were willing to replace with bowls of Special K. The Kardashian body, on the other hand, is much more involved.

There’s nothing new about wanting smooth faces, perky noses and even perkier other bits. Cleopatra bathed in donkey milk to maintain her youthful looks, so why shouldn’t the Kardashians pay thousands of dollars for a doctor to do the same thing without smelling cheesy? In some ways, the Kardashians’ commitment to extremes when it comes to beautification is refreshing.

The same narcissistic tendencies are there with health-food fanatics, yogis and gym bunnies. I’d rather hear about someone’s liposuction than listen to a lecture on gut microbiome. At least Khloe and the girls are being honest about their self obsession.

Conformity has always been a feature of beauty standards, but there is something unnerving about the remarkable uniformity that plastic surgery can bring. Thanks to large numbers of conservative women starting to look like clones of each other, the “Mar-A-Lago Face” has become a thing – filled cheeks, stretched skin and everything a little higher than it should be. Botox has become so ubiquitous in the world of politics it must be suspicious when someone can frown in a meeting. It’s all so dull – blonde hair, taut skin and a dead-eyed face.

Is it concerning that plastic surgery is no longer a taboo? The Kardashians have certainly succeeded in shifting the Overton window. Kim Kardashian’s famous butt-champagne magazine cover won praise from feminists who called her a “pioneer”.

Plastic makes people weird. Concerns about young women trying to aspire to unreal beauty standards aren’t new, but the availability of extreme procedures from Brazilian butt lifts to lip filler is. Facelifts used to be achieved with hair gel, a tight scrunchie and a few tubs of Dream Matte Mousse – all which would thankfully come off in the shower. There is a danger in all of this that young women start to lose grip on what is real and what is fake.

In some ways it’s tempting to defend the pursuit of perfection via the knife. After all, who doesn’t want to look their best? There is something very human about the cult of youth – coming to terms with the fact that we’re dying is something none of us are very good at. I would have loved my surgeon to do a quick tidy up after my cesarean procedures.

The real problem with the Kardashian effect is that it’s boring to look at. And a bit like tattoos, gender fluidity and every other fashionable fad, plastic surgery it is no longer shocking. Pamela Anderson might be annoyingly good looking without mascara, but her refusal to interfere with father time is showing where the real rebellion lies today – in leaving yourself alone.