Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women

by Ellen Atlanta

An up-close and striking look at modern beauty culture―from Botox and Instagram filters to lip flips and editing apps―and the realities of coming of age online

We live in a new age of beauty. With advancements in cosmetic surgery, walk-in treatments, augmented-reality face filters, photo-editing apps, and exposure to more images than ever, we have the ability to craft the image we want everyone to see. We pinch, pull, squeeze, tweeze, smooth, and slice ourselves beyond recognition. But is modern beauty culture truly empowering? Are we really in control?

In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal and the pressure to present a perfect image, to live in an age of constant comparison and curated feeds. She weaves in her personal story with others’ to reconfigure our obsession with the cult of beauty and to explore the reality of living in a world of paradoxes: We know our standards are unhealthy, but following them helps us succeed. We resent social media but continue to scroll. We know digital beauty is artificial, yet we strive for it.

From Love Island to lip filler, "blackfishing" to the "beauty tax," Pixel Flesh exposes what young women face under a dominant industry. Nuanced, unflinching, and razor sharp, it unmasks the absurdities of the standards we suddenly find ourselves upholding and acts as a rallying cry and a refusal to suffer in silence.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Audiobook, Mental Health, Self Help, Gender, Womens

384 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2024

Reviews

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pixel Flesh written by Ellen Atlanta was such a powerful and inspiring debut novel. I think so many young women need to read this book because it truly is important how toxic beauty cultures harm us in everyday life. Pixel Flesh is an important read that exposes modern beauty cultures and the effects it has on so many women. This book completely left me shocked and even uncomfortable at times because of how real and raw it was. This book takes you on a journey of research, different voices of other women telling their stories, and even Ellen Atlanta's own experiences and working in the beauty industry. As I was reading this inspiring book, it felt like Ellen was right there holding my hand through the realities of womanhood. Pixel Flesh deeply resonated with me on a deeper level for many many reasons and I do believe that every woman should read this book at some point as many or all of us have felt uncomfortable in our own skin at some point in our lives because of the beauty standard. I can't recommend this book enough, as hard as it was to read for many reasons, please do yourself and grab yourself a copy of Pixel Flesh immediately.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY AND ST. MARTIN'S PRESS FOR AN ARC OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW!!!!!!!

"😭😍The more beautiful you are, the more beautiful you must become, the more the standard intensifies😭😍".

As someone who was born into the generation where Instagram is very popular, Snapchat is used daily, lip fillers are a must because many influencers have set the bar high for beautiful lips, photo editing apps hide your freckles/wrinkles, Pixel Flesh truly opened my eyes and how I was harming myself because I felt I wasn't as beautiful as other women, I always compared myself to models, high school friends, and other gorgeous women I saw on social media, because I wanted to look exactly like them. I always stand by women uplifting other women. As a woman in today's world, I feel like it's super important to hype each other up because you have no idea what someone else is going through, just a simple compliment can make someone smile for the rest of their day. Ladies, please don't ever compare yourselves to other women, because you are absolutely gorgeous in your own ways, I know it's easier said than done, and I have done it myself, but it's not healthy for your mental health. To the ladies I interact with daily on Goodreads, you are all absolutely beautiful in your own unique ways, don't ever let anyone tell you anything different, I love you all, truly, from the bottom of my heart.

I can't say this enough, you don't need that expensive eye shadow palette to look beautiful, you don't need to use snapchat filters to hide your beauty, you don't need to use Botox to make your cheeks look on point because you are only harming yourself with today's toxic beauty standards. Pixel Flesh made me laugh, cry, angry, and smile because so many of the stories were relatable in one way or another. You absolutely do not need make up to look/feel beautiful because we are all beautiful, no matter what. It breaks my heart to see so many women comparing themselves to others because they don't feel happy in their own skin, but I have been in your shoes before if you are someone who feels this way. Go get yourself a tub of ice cream and put on some music and feel beautiful. I can't stand when women degrade other women because their cheekbones aren't perfect, or they don't have a strong jawline, no one is ever the same, we are all different in our very own ways. Ladies, please support one another and lift each other up daily. Writing this review is making me so emotional and I don't need to shed more tears after reading this eye opening book.

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rise of social media, AI, and other tech have us all living through social changes and paradigm shifts, many of which we won’t even recognize until it is analyzed in hindsight. Having formerly worked in the beauty industry until she could no longer rationalize her moral beliefs with the work she was asked to do, Ellen Atlanta now speaks out about the negative social influences on young girls and women due to the industry. Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Affects Women is an erudite examination of how social media perpetuates harm and oppressive beauty standards and is an important read for anyone, not just young women. ‘Beauty is capital,’ Tavi Gevinson once wrote, ‘and grows in value based only on the exclusion of others,’ and through Atlanta’s investigations in Pixel Flesh we see how this sort of exclusionary capital is piling harm upon all those it touches. Through a blend of personal narrative, industry research, and alarming anecdotes on social media influencers and the corporations who love them, Atlanta takes a sharp look at how even as we recognize and criticize toxic beauty standards and industries who push them for profit, society still often falls in line and upholds them. It is an alarming book and although Atlanta admits these cycles of oppression are difficult to break, Pixel Flesh is ultimately as empowering as it is interesting.

‘The more beautiful you are, the more beautiful you must become, the more the standard intensifies.’

Having grown up during the boom of social media, Ellen Atlanta recalls firsthand how quickly the internet culture shifted. For people such as those of Gen Z, she examines how they were raised ‘in a social experiment on stacks of images and endless scrolls of self-comparison,’ citing a study that shows in the 2010s ‘rates of depression, anxiety, and self-injury in adolescent girls surged in line with the rise in social media.’ She describes a sort of ‘self gaslighting’ as posting on social media became ‘a space for slicing, for offering the best bits for the feed’ in a way that almost became competitive.

‘Their pursuit of beauty means lifting, shaping, dieting, dyeing, injecting, slicing, scarring, painting, curling, padding, cutting, starving, concealing and revealing. When women are already socially conditioned to compete with one another, narrowing the ideal only makes the competition more fierce. In one study, 80 percent of women interviewed said that they competed with other women over physical appearance.’

This harm to self-image is what began to really bother Atlanta. Her ‘villain origin story,’ as she likes to put it, began when she was working as a consultant in the beauty industry for ‘a company extolling empowerment and self-love whilst profiting from the ever-higher expectations of women’s bodies,’ a company that, as she explains in an interview for 10Magazine, ‘essentially allowed you to buy new facial features – new lips, a new forehead, a new nose.’ The moral issues piled up, especially noting that the past decade has seen a 70% increase in demand for cosmetic procedures.

‘I couldn’t reconcile promoting those treatments to young women with my feminism, I was fighting in my head with how I could be a part of the industry in a positive way – how I could wrestle my beliefs with my complicity and my future in the industry. Ultimately, I decided to quit my job.’

Her insight into the industry, however, gives a lot of weight and context to this book that I found as interesting as it was important. Working with Kylie Jenner, for instance, or seeing the studies around body-image associated with social media and corporations knowingly capitalizing on that, what she terms the ‘commercialization of insecurity.’ The way beauty is portrayed in the media, she argues, does a lot to set a social standard that has historically either erased or fetishized marginalized bodies and beauty products have begun to target younger and younger audiences. Particularly through tiktok. With AI, social media influencers are able to further edit their image to the extent that, as Atlanta describes, they often don’t recognize each other when meeting in person.

There is a cost to this beauty, Atlanta describes, and it puts women at a disadvantage both in terms of time and finances. As is noted by Renee Engeln in her work Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, ‘We don’t consider the gender gap in time and money spent on beauty...but time and money matter. They’re essential sources of power and influence and also major sources of freedom.’ While men also can face issues over body image and meeting standards of socially coached “attractiveness,” it is far more prevalent and costly for women. What Atlanta calls a ‘beauty tax.’ This can often have intersections with race and further affect marginalized women or women presenting individuals. Hair for instance ‘Our idea of femininity is intricately braided into our perception of hair,’ she writes, noting how hair is also a large cultural aspect of Black identities or that, because beauty tends to be centered on Western ideologies, this can further marginalize others.

‘From birth we are conditioned to understand that to be beautiful is to be loved, to be special, to be good.’

Not only can beauty standards be harmful to self-confidence but as philosopher Kate Manne describes in her Unshrinking, beauty standards are weaponized to degrade women. It is policing of women’s bodies in a way that upholds patriarchy and one one hand sexualizes women in order to objectify them while on the other shames them for being sexual. In her book My Body, Emily Ratajkowski describes firsthand how the power offered by beauty inevitably is a false power that allows me to retain cultural control:

‘In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over.’

In the chapter The Witches of Cycberspace, Atlanta looks at the way this can turn frightening very fast, with men demanding women uphold beauty standards to the point of harassment or threats of violence, while also dehumanizing women for being sexual and wishing violence on them as well. It is an issue only getting worse, especially for young girls.

‘According to the 2023 Girlguiding report, 81% of girls and young women aged eleven to twenty-one have experienced some form of threatening or upsetting behavior online, compared to 65% in 2018.’

But there are plenty other aspects that beauty standards are harmful to as well, such as the anti-aging skincare that only further makes aging held against women. Something I appreciated about this book were the ways it moved through a variety of social angles to try and paint a larger, overall portrait.

'Beauty is not good capital. It compounds the oppression of gender. It constrains those who identify as women against their will. It costs money and demands money. It colonizes. It hurts. It is painful. It can never be fully satisfied. It is not useful for human flourishing. Beauty is, like all capital, merely valuable.'
— Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays:

I’d like to give a big thank you to Sarah and her review (read it HERE) for prompting me to read this one and it was a perfect book to read for one of my library committees dealing with AI and online issues. Pixel Flesh does a good job of looking at the effects of social media-influenced beauty standards and giving a stern warning at the issues arising. While it also acknowledges these are difficult to change, it is encouraging to see so many people speaking up about them. A bleak, but fascinating read.

4.5/5

‘You do not owe anyone perfect, and you don’t owe anyone pretty. Remove the glossy filter that smooths out any negativity, resist the feminine urge to lighten the mood, or to make others comfortable [and] practice radical honesty with yourself and others.’

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This exploration of body image in the digital era skillfully blends journalism, personal narrative and feminist theory to create Gen Z’s answer to The Beauty Myth. This nuanced, intersectional exploration of the way beauty norms affect culture is a must-read for every young woman. This book engages with these themes on a much deeper level than the surface-level slogans of “girlboss” feminism. I’m also impressed by the author’s honesty and humility as she discusses her own insecurities and the ways she’s been influenced by social media and the beauty industry. Seeking beauty is not necessarily a bad thing, and there are no easy answers here, but I love the suggestions the author gives for celebrating beautiful things while deprogramming from capitalist aesthetic pressures. I majorly recommend this.

[sophia the first · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone drop everything now and RUN TO THE BOOKSTORE or Amazon or Audible or whatever you read on because this is going in my Book Hall of Fame. Just a heads up my reviews are usually about my reaction to the book, and don’t really focus a ton on the book’s content itself (why would I rewrite the back cover).

So yes, this book is about social media’s impact on young women. Which, going in I was a little mad, I knowwwww social media is bad for us, why do they keep telling me that? But the thing that makes this book different is that it’s from the POV of another young woman. It absolutely floored me, whenever I’ve heard this message before it’s been from a male psychologist’s book or my father. And all respect to middle-aged men, I know you have my best interests in mind, but there is no way for a middle-aged man to fully understand it all. And also it comes out condescending, “why don’t you just turn off your phone?”

So that’s why you should read it, now here’s what I personally got out of it. I’m a 17 year old girl right now. Growing up, I was kind of an ugly duckling, just objectively, I was kind of a bean pole and had acne and frizzy hair and all that. Also I was Asian, mixed race Asian, and let’s face it the beauty standard is racist. I got a ton of validation out of academics, and education is messed up so I was the only girl in the highest math class, and later on in engineering internships and stuff. Then when I was 16 or so I had a massive glow-up, I started paying attention to my appearance which I had completely neglected before, and puberty hit so I wasn’t a beanpole etc. Basically I got objectively hotter.

It’s no secret that math and engineering is super male dominated. The teachers are male, the bosses are male, the fellow students at the highest levels are male. Before 16, I was ignored and respected only when I was the absolute highest achiever. After 16, everyone wanted to be my friend, and teachers and bosses included me in the conversation. We already know one side of the POV, I think we all could guess that some people made sexual, inappropriate comments. I’m here to tell you the other side, that those comments felt GOOD. Finally, people respected me and actually acknowledged my existence when I walked in the room. All the boys who had previously excluded me from their friend groups suddenly wanted to talk to me. Sounds amazing, right?

Disclaimer, being arrogant is definitely a flaw of mine. But I think if you look at me objectively, I’ve always been labeled “smart.” Highest achiever at my high school, college math courses, reads a ton, good grades, high SAT, that’s my thing. And it just crushed me to realize that all my intelligence and achievements couldn’t protect me from wanting boys’ validation.

This book made me realize that my actions made perfect sense. I didn’t hypersexualize myself because I’m messed up. There were all these societal pressures that guided me towards this. And that helped me so much. My dad especially, but also my teachers and bosses, they’ve all been like “why do you make yourself beautiful, why do you talk to these guys?” It’s a messed up situation, these guys are conditioned to think it’s okay to make comments about a woman’s chest. And I am often literally the only woman in the room, and these guys are also my friends, so who else can I talk to?

This book made me realize everyone loves to blame the women, like “if you didn’t want that teacher to stare at your chest why did you wear that tight shirt?” But it’s so complicated and messed up and confusing for the young women in that place. For me it’s difficult because my sexuality/attractiveness is the only way I’ll get reliable respect.

There are a ton of other factors in my life, like how my parents are super restrictive, and I’m not on any social media because of that so I don’t deal with those issues. Even though I’m not on social media, I’m still living in the social media generation, and dealing with its effects. The issue is today’s culture, not just social media.

What really hit was realizing that no matter how smart you are as a woman, this stuff can take you down. I’ve always been fed the narrative that “she’s so dumb, why would she stay with that guy who disrespected her.” It’s not that she’s dumb, it’s that figuring this stuff out is way too much to tackle alone.

And to the guys, I’m not blaming you either. These enormous pressures affect you too. It’s a bad situation both ways, where a girl feels like she has to dress cutely to get attention, and a guy thinks it’s funny to joke about her body.

Anyways this book blew my mind, and I went in expecting to hate it. Everyone can definitely learn something from this book too, it’s a game changer, read it!!

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This just wasn’t the book for me. I believe that Ellen Atlanta has genuine intentions to improve the self-worth of women everywhere. I also applaud her willingness and dedication for tacking incredibly difficult subjects and allowing herself to be so vulnerable. It’s not an easy task by any means, this level of self-introspection, let alone at only 27 years old (she turned 28 while the book was going to press).

I believe that’s where the problem lies for me. Despite her biographical description as a “writer and brand consultant specializing in Gen Z and millennial culture”, her writing style is 100% Gen Z. Honestly, while I generally think that “content/trigger warnings” have gotten completely out of control, I feel like it’s necessary to warn women that this book is SO obsessed with beauty - and assumes all women are as well - that it can almost make you start doubting or questioning things you never gave much thought to before.

That might be very much Gen Z’s experience as the first generation to truly “grow up” under the unforgiving lenses of the social media spotlight, but it’s not quite that intense for Millennial women (at least, not for me or for the women I know).

ACTUALLY: since starting this review, I’ve seen many Gen Z women say that they couldn’t relate at all to this, either.

At times I feel like she’s preaching to me, and honestly? I don’t need her sermons. It’s like she takes the experiences of what’s around her - which is mainly beauty influencer culture- and applies this to how women of every age, race, religion, whatever, think. And it’s simply not the case.

Just to give some examples:

Atlanta makes claims that most women (but especially Gen Z and Millennial) - ”their pursuit of beauty means lifting, shaping, dieting, dyeing, injecting, slicing, scarring, painting, curling, padding, cutting, starving, concealing and revealing. When women are already socially conditioned to compete with one another, narrowing the ideal only makes the competition more fierce. In one study, 80 percent of women interviewed said that they competed with other women over physical appearance.”

What?! I find it incredibly difficult to believe that five sixths of women are engaging in the very long list of behaviors she mentions above, in a constant battle for “beauty dominance.” To make it more problematic, Atlanta simply states, “one study.” Which study? Surely it would be in the notes and references, section, right? Nope. Most chapters, ranging from 20-40 pages each, cite numerous studies and throw out tons of statistics, but strangely, only have two to four references each. That’s unacceptable for me, especially in a book such as this one.

Apparently it is so normalized for us to compete with one another and hate our bodies, that she mentions how in the movie Mean Girls, when the Plastics are in front of the mirror complaining about their supposed “faults”, that:
”I didn’t bat an eyelid at the girls’ commentary on their still-developing selves. I realize now it is meant as satire but for us this was the norm, to break ourselves down in front of our friends, to seek validation and reassurance, and then to refuse to believe any that came our way. The girls were stunning, yes, but it didn’t shock me to hear them complain. I had learnt by the time I was a teenager that there will always be something wrong - even if you’re the most beautiful girl in school.”

Atlanta continues to ponder the relevance of this movie scene in the next paragraph:
“Cady, a previously home-schooled ‘jungle freak’, transgresses the social order by stating a flaw that is a universal, short-term problem. To admit to having bad breath is not to fragment the self but to humanize the self. That is not the game. Women are simultaneously objectified fantasies, and imperfect projects under development, self-loathing beings always looking to evolve towards perfection.
For Cady to name a natural issue that’s easy to fix, one that should have already been dealt with in secret, shatters the illusions of femininity and defies the rules. You should hate something about your body that is difficult, or nigh impossible, to fix; something that requires extensive labor to work on or through. To hate what can easily be changed gets the beauty industrial complex nowhere.
You must hate your bones, your muscles, your sinew, your flesh. You must hate yourself or how you have been constructed. It’s like, the rules of feminism.”

She just goes on and on and on - and on - in a similar vein such as this throughout the book, while interspersing personal stories of extreme nature from popular beauty influencers, herself included. It’s this constantly repeated argument that we only care about the male gaze, that beauty is the only currency we have, that we’re scared to take up space, and that we ”break ourselves down in every dimension, tearing ourselves apart evermore intensely until we were left with nothing but a pile of pixels and particles on the cutting room floor.”

Aside from the extreme assumptions, she also has this tendency to literally make repetitive statements for emphasis, which gets incredibly annoying and feels increasingly forced. When she speaks of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, she mentions how women like her were left with no choices, women whose pregnancies put their lives at risk were left with no choices, and repeats this no less than six times as the grand total. It’s even worse in a later chapter on men harassing women, where she begins each sentence of one paragraph with “I once met a man” and repeats that beginning phrase thirteen times.

Her solution for all of these societal ails? Overthrow the patriarchy! Because every choice we make as women is inevitably a result of the male dominated tech industry. We must also - somewhat contradictorily - find value in our uniqueness, while putting the “sisterhood” and the collective above self-interest. This includes things like smiling at women! Hold space for other women! Recreate the sisterhood of the nightclub bathroom in every interaction you have!

I’m sorry, but her grandiloquent plans for our liberation ring hollow. They are ideas we’ve already heard many times before. Her solution just drips with patronizing rhetoric masquerading as thoughtful new ideas, and I could barely get through the conclusion because of this problem.

Maybe when she’s had another decade or so under her belt she can pen a novel more appealing to the average woman. I do think she has the ability. But the fact that she gives us a glossary to describe terms that have either nothing to do with the Internet or are not exclusive to the Internet feels patronizing as well.

The words “abject”, “parity”, racism”, and “surveillance” are all generously provided for us feeble minded individuals. Yet she uses phrases like ”Leah starts crying because her ex-boyfriend has recently soft-launched a new girl on his social accounts” and ”My Saturn return is pending and I have now lived long enough to see the most treasured parts of myself targeted and torn down…”

What does soft launch mean? Is it cheating? Seriously, I don’t have a clue. I’m assuming that “My Saturn return is pending” has something to do with astrology, but as to what exactly, can’t tell you. Yet these terms are left out of the glossary in favor of very commonplace ones.

Ah! After I employed (verb; 2. applied or used; made use of) the glossary for “soft launch”, but found no answer: nothing in between “shadowbanning” and “subjugation” (the first word I condone its inclusion, the second one, no), I turned to Google to understand what caused Atlanta’s diatribe concerning her friend Leah’s relationship problems:

In slang, a "soft launch" means subtly hinting at a new relationship on social media by posting pictures that allude to the presence of a significant other without fully revealing their identity, often by only showing parts of their body or cropped images, as opposed to a "hard launch" where the partner is openly displayed. Thank you, Google!

This book may appeal to a very narrow audience, but I wouldn’t recommend it at all. I don’t believe it will be helpful for women who aren’t hyper obsessed over their social media presence, and I feel like it could be downright harmful to people for women who are in recovery from some of these excessive habits or addictions. I was just so annoyed by time I got to the end that I almost didn’t finish the last 10-20 pages.

There’s plenty of other books out there dealing with the struggles of women that are relevant for all. Personally, I’d recommend Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, or Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates (or anything by Laura Bates, really).

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pixel Flesh is an important read if you ever have felt the pressures of social media, or you feel worn out by it. Even if you exist as a woman on the Internet in general. Or are interested in the psychology behind how the internet can have an impact mental health.

It’s easy to say certain things *need* to be changed, but as long as there is this “influencer” culture, it feels like never will. Everybody feels as though they have to look like the most perfect, polished, airbrushed, version of ourselves to be accepted and noticed. Because the ones who came before them, and rose to the top of the digital world, all do that.
From Snapchat/Instagram face filters, to apps like Facetune and FaceApp, to the Chinese editing apps/cameras like Beauty Cam and Meitu - there has never been more ways to snap the most perfect picture of yourself from your phone. And if you don’t like it, you can always tweak it, until it is perfect in your eyes. Ready to be shared to your awaiting audience.
With me, I spend a while actually taking my selfies with a ring light, and then like to edit them up with different colourings/lightings. The whole process is a chore in of itself.
On TikTok in particular, the one that scares me the most is that videos can be edited the same way as photos now. Influencers giving themselves an unrealistic body type/shape with body morphing filters. But even YouTube videos have always had a filtered lense over them to make their creators look “perfect” and “flawless” by smoothing out their skin and removing any imperfections. I personally think the video content could be more damaging because it feels more real to the human eye.
There are many different, insightful, interviews with women of all different ages and walks of life within these pages. I particularly enjoyed the interview with the online influencer/cosplayer Snitchery, as I was familiar with her. This quote really stood out to me;
”We all looked like Sims characters, she tells me when we meet. 'Even though I knew that I was editing my photos, I was still so baffled when I saw other content creators and they didn't look like their pictures. We were all editing the fuck out of our faces. You'd meet these people in real life and no one would look like themselves, it was comical.”
It is important for us to remember that the online world can be carefully curated and manipulated, it is not real life! 💖

My one critique of this book is that it can feel a little repetitive, but I guess the author is just trying to drum some points home. I found it best to read it slowly in between other reads. It’s definitely helpful, and I made many highlights.
It really makes you worry for the younger girls who are basically being brought up on the internet, in a more intense way than even a decade ago. I can’t begin to imagine what it must feel like to be a teenage girl these days.

”How do we create a beautiful future for women and girls?” - this is a question posed between each chapter. And answered by some really powerful and inspiring women. There is not one correct answer, or quick fix, but let’s make sure we are looking out for one another - both online and off. 🫶

4 Stars

[✨ jami ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is one of the most up-to-date explorations of the issue of beauty I've read - it covers a breadth of topics, with a focus on the social media landscape and how this is impacting changes to women's perceptions of themselves. I thought it was relatable, I saw myself & the people I know in the pages of this book.

I thought the research and the structure was excellent. there is a lot of interesting information here with lengthy and considerate analysis. I liked most her interviews with real women, and the sections focussed on social media, influencers, and the impact of online marketing and beauty culture on young girls. This is where this book shines because it's a genuinely detailed analysis of the cultural and social impacts of this emerging digital landscape.

my one gripe is I feel Atlanta is a little bit of a fence sitter, at times. I would have liked this to perhaps be a little bit more hard hitting and come to some more definitive conclusions. I found the conclusion itself to be extremely weak - with some of her suggestions just being bizarre and unhelpful. along these lines, in general I found the personal sections of this to be disengaging, I don't think her narrative voice is as strong as essay writing. on a more minor note, I thought including quotes by large beauty companies felt incongruent with the rest of the content presented here.

That said, I DID appreciate a lot when this book delved more deeply into choice feminism, class analysis and capitalism than many similar books I've read on this topic. this is NOT a book that says 'botox is okay because if it makes you happy :)' and I was massively relieved by that.

overall would recommend, ESPECIALLY for people new to this topic.

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most impactful debut novels I have ever read. Ellen Atlanta beautifully captures the intricacies of womanhood - from giggles in childhood bedrooms, to club bathroom conversations and hurried walks home. She masterfully outlines centuries worth issues by weaving together thought-provoking academic arguments and prose.

Despite Pixel Flesh making me sit in some uncomfortable questions, causing me to truly ponder my past experiences, it simultaneously created a safe space for me to do so. It created a community, and it gave us a voice.

I hope everyone reads this book!

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. This was a gut-churning, microscopic look into women in society and the expectations and stigmas we face, and how easily we fall victim to comparing and critiquing ourselves and each other. At times, I did feel she unnecessarily pushed her political beliefs, whether she was justifying her abortion or trash talking Trump. It felt forced and out of place among the other conversations about the tragedy of social media and the importance of uplifting each other.

[nikki | ཐི༏ཋྀ​​݁ ₊ ݁ . · Rating 5 out of 5]

blunt, illuminating, shocking, informative, bleak, revealing, hopeful.

a candid examination of social media's impact on girls' and women's beauty, self-esteem, and mental and physical health, ellen atlanta covers vast ground including eating disorders, plastic surgery, ai and cyber assault, fatphobia, racism, SW, the rise of and backlash to feminism, and more.

this will likely be triggering for many for the topics, but there is also a sense of camaraderie as atlanta speaks with women of all walks of life about their personal experiences.

a must-read nonfic for all readers imo.

"To be a woman is the most violent thing I will ever experience, and yet I wouldn't want to be anything else."

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW, this needs to be required reading for 2024, especially for anyone 35 and under who identifies as female. Ellen Atlanta hit it out of the park with this; from the beautiful interviews, to the heartbreaking truths, to the evidence backed claims. Pixel Flesh is unique in that it brings transparency to our inner monologues as they are now, rather than just providing affirmations in hopes it'll lessen our emotional burden going forward. There's a raw feeling that envelops you while simultaneously learning.

I'm a sucker for books that can completely alter the way I think about aspects of life - Ellen does that more than a few times. I'll admit there are many books similar to this; I've read a lot of them... This is the new front runner. Mark my words, this will become the Women's Nonfiction book of 2024's summer.


(Thank you to NetGalley & publisher St. Martin's Press for ARC!)

[Jessie Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important exposé of modern beauty culture and its impacts on women which is both shocking and uncomfortable, yet a beautiful rallying cry that is filled with so much hope and desire for change. I got goosebumps reading it.

The book weaves thorough research with an array of different voices and the author’s own personal anecdotes of growing up and working in the beauty industry. Ellen’s writing is brave, honest, and astute; she perfectly captures what it feels like to exist as a woman today. It resonated with me and my experiences, but also opened my eyes to the variety of experiences of different women.

At times it feels as if you are speaking to an older sister - Ellen takes your hand and guides you through the realities of womanhood; depicting the beauty, solidarity, and strength, but also the violence, fear, and injustice. It made me rage, laugh, cry, and left me feeling inspired.

Ultimately, this feels like a manifesto for women everywhere. Despite the horrifying, shocking truths she digs into, it filled me with hope that a more beautiful future for women is possible. I recommend it to everyone; your sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, daughters, sons, dads, mums, bosses, friends, enemies. You will learn so much reading this, and finish with a yearning for change.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I brought this book up in every even slightly tangentially relevant conversation I had in the few weeks I was reading it. One of the most stirring books I’ve ever read, it covers the harmful impacts that beauty industry (patriarchal! capitalist!) has wrought women and girls from the very simple to the very extreme. Props also to Ellen Atlanta for making this so inclusive and addressing intersectionality in a very front of mind way that acknowledges her own privilege in being quite close to the beauty ideal and what that means for her responsibility to help resist it and bring about change. This topic has so many nuances but it was done quite well and I loved the structure of it. Also very positive ultimate messaging as it could be quite depressing (this is a systemic and structural problem) with the call to action (women do actually hold the power here as consumers - so let’s do better as a collective to redefine / shatter the “beauty standard” as a concept).

I want to give this to everyone in my life! Will be returning to it myself for a long time. If nothing else, this led me to a lot of emotional and fascinating conversations on beauty, femininity, transgender rights, motherhood, and aging.

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One day I will reread this, as an audiobook, in a rage room.

[yam · Rating 4 out of 5]

“To be visible as a woman is to expect to be objectified and harassed. To exist as a woman is to prepare for violence.” (3.5) This book is HEAVY and even though at times it can feel anecdotal, it felt very important to read. Thinking of my childhood self and thinking of the youth of today :( hurts :(

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Pixel Flesh, UK author Ellen Atlanta (b. ~1995-1996) writes about the toxic beauty culture in which she was raised, worked in for many years, and now writes about professionally. It's clear that Pixel Flesh was both a labor of love and a painful, confrontational process for Atlanta, who still seems enmeshed in and unable to completely break free from the beauty culture she finds so toxic. Atlanta spent years researching and reporting this book, drawing heavily from her own experiences, interviews with people in her social circle who essentially make a living off of their looks through social media presence or being hired set decorations, and interviews with various people she connected with online who are full-time beauty influencers or otherwise subjugated to beauty standards (i.e., women with eating disorders, addictions to cosmetic procedures, obsessions with looking as youthful as possible, and/or have been victims of harassment and violence by virtue of being female online).

Though this topic is heavily covered on social media and increasingly in written content, as a listener of this book I felt like I was peering through a looking glass at a distorted version of reality that I don't personally feel like I live in. Obviously pretty privilege (particularly white pretty privilege in Western societies) exists, no denying that. I'm a cis female in my 30s who grew up at the dawn of social media but have never felt pressure to alter or curate my physical appearance for the pleasure or acceptance of anyone but myself; I also rarely take photos of myself, much less post them (or really, any identifiable, personal information) online. I have no idea how to use filters or Photoshop to tweak my image, and have zero interest in learning. I do sympathize with, though can't personally relate to, Atlanta and the experiences so many of the women she interviews. I'm glad this book exists, though listening to it was "a lot" for me; I felt like the book was quite repetitive and agenda-driven and could have been significantly shorter without detriment to the core messages.

Further reading: intersections between women, the beauty/fashion industry, and identity
Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital by Elise Hu - on a similar topic but from a Korean/pan-Asian perspective; also the author isn't quite as personally enmeshed in the topic as in this book
How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone by Cameron Russell
One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles by Kate Flannery

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a scathing rebuttal against the modern beauty culture in the western world. Ellen Atlanta writes this book for all women, if there's not something in any one of these chapters that doesn't resonate with you, then I'm not sure you're reading it right. Atlanta goes over all of it. Ranging from "baby botox" to eating disorders and body dysmorphia to the turbulent world of social media and the expectations/pressure that cyberspace can put on women and girls to adhere to the beauty standard in their appearances; then moving on to slumber parties where we'd fall asleep giggling with our best friends to the nightlife of being a young adult and having to be increasingly aware of anything you consume or the route you take to get back home, and finally to the way that women feel entirely discarded and overlooked once they're established in adulthood.

I thought some of the historical references Atlanta makes throughout this (especially when discussing Sarah Baartman, I knew nothing about her!) were really interesting and added some credibility to the claims she was making. I found chapters 6 and 8 the most impactful, but they related a lot to my own recovery journey the past couple years. There is something both special and heartbreaking about Atlanta having interviewed so many women for this book and the way so many of them were able to articulate things that I thought I'd never be able to figure out how to say. I loaned my copy with all my highlights and annotations to my dietician so she would be able to see some of the things that I haven't known how to say.

I'm excited something like this has been published and is available/accessible to people who need it. The ONLY reason I'm taking any stars away from this book is because some of the narrative felt like it was pushing an agenda a little too hard and I feel like that takes away from some of the credibility that it would otherwise have.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC!

[Sarah (sarahanneisreading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Eve Felstead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a little human in between starting and finishing this made me appreciate reading it all the more - women and their bodies are literally amazing and I’m really proud of mine :) (also made me appreciate how I’ll never finish a book quickly for the next 18 years x)

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this and needed to hear these stories and reminders.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paradoxically, none of us want to take responsibility for our choices even if we all claim to be empowered by them. And, if we are truly making these decisions for ourselves, as a tool of self-expression and empowerment independent from patriarchal control, why is one form of beauty (and femininity)—such as ‘Instagram Face’—so prevalent?

Best book I've read this year, best nonfiction I've read in a while.

Immensely readable, information-packed, heartfelt in its exploration of modern tech/social media and how, for all our talk about ‘empowerment,’ beauty standards & expectations for women are worse than ever.

Over the past couple years, my beliefs have been diverting from the ‘mainstream’ in a way that makes being on social media frustrating and isolating. Advertisements parrot the words of well-meaning friends and activists, revealing how our current understanding of feminism benefits people’s wallets more than their hearts and lives. This book was like finally finding someone who understood me (and was much smarter than me, willing to teach me).

It stands against the repackaging of feminism into a makeup, fitness, or ‘self-care’ product you can buy. Against exploitation & objectification being alright as long as companies are diverse when they do it. Against how many influencers are editing their photos, getting surgeries, hiding their true faces under makeup and filters, while telling you that strict, Eurocentric beauty standards are BS & we are all beautiful & patriarchy is evil but don’t forget to shave & do this skincare routine & look sexy to OWN those bad bad men!! Against every ‘empowering’ action or image that just gives the patriarchy exactly what it wants…women feeling insecure, afraid, and willing to give them money to solve their invented problems.

We all screamed ‘I’m doing it for ME!’ through our sweat-covered faces, secretly hoping that ‘me’ would swiftly evolve into a Victoria’s Secret model; else, what was the point?

This book is a great start to breaking out of the glittery, permissive, toothless realm of choice feminism. I recommend it to everyone, whether you think you’ll ultimately agree with it or not.

The quest for beauty is not translating into a more beautiful future for us all. It does not bring us into increased safety, sexual agency, nourishment, happiness, mental stability, freedom or any real financial reward.

[Gayle (OutsmartYourShelf) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To look like a human woman is to be ugly."

Just think about that sentence from the book for a second. To look how women naturally look is to be viewed as ugly in today's image-obsessed world. What a f***ed up world that is!

This book treads some familiar ground as others but is updated to take into account the additional pressures that girls & young women face from the 'digital gaze.' All I can say is that I am glad I was a teenager before smartphones, & before Instagram. I read through this incredibly well-written & interesting book, wanting to cry at times at the thought of what we as a society are doing to women & girls. The chapters explore subjects such as plastic surgery, ageism & fetishization of youth, fatphobia, how we talk up the idea of motherhood but treat actual mothers & their postpartum bodies like crap, etc.

At the end, there are lots of suggestions as to how we can make the world a more welcoming & safer place for girls & women, & I'm just.... This is in no way a reflection on the author or the book, it's a great read that all young girls & women should peruse, but it just seems like I've read this so many times before. I've read similar books from every decade from the 1970s on & it never seems to get any better for us. Every generation of girls has to grow up & reinvent the wheel so to speak & I'm just not sure how & if we can ever get through to the next generation early enough. I hope I'm wrong & I hope this book helps to get the message out.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Headline, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In reality 4.5 stars but I can't possibly rate this as anything less than 5 because it deeply resonated with me and because it's incredibly well-written. Being around the author's age, the references hit close to home. There are some things that she discusses that we are all aware of but perhaps don't devote much time being critical of, but she also makes some deeply illuminating points that I hadn't known or that hadn't occurred to me. My only minor criticisms are that the interview question at the end of each chapter didn't really work for me (but I see why it is included), and that I wish some of the statistics were from more authoritative sources but perhaps they simply aren't available that way. Nonetheless, I think this is a valuable book that surprised me in its depth and I really enjoyed the author's voice and the way she presents her ideas.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can tell that the author put so much heart and soul into this book. It was such a beautiful and heartbreaking read. The book delves into the interaction between society and women online. I’m sad to say that there were many times I connected to this book, especially as someone who grew up when the Internet was at its peak of unkindness. I will definitely be recommending this book to my friends, as it provides such insight into the impact of social media on our psyche.

[Caity Kerehoma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars (if not 5).
Really impactful book. For me it held a mirror to negative self belief and conditioned thinking I had normalised. A lot of eye opening anecdotes and statistics throughout.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readability: This was very easy to read, though I found at time the author was a little too personal and keeping track of names was a bit much.
Structure: This was just a mix of essays with decent bridges between them.
Density: 4/10

Thoughts:

Pixel Flesh was a bit of a struggle for me, I’m not going to lie. The opening chapters really focus on the the fixation many people have with things such as filler and Botox. These chapters really established that the author on this is writing from a place of privilege that made the rest of the book a little off for me. Statements like ‘No self respecting woman posts an unedited photo’ or stating that everyone in a certain age range has considered fillers/botox was very off-putting for me.

The later essays and chapters were very topical and I enjoyed those, but throughout the book small comments such as the above would appear. It felt jarring and a bit condescending at times. For those of us who don’t come from the socio-economic group she’s clearly from, these felt alienating. I feel like the goal here was to be fairly inclusive, and at the toxicity of beauty culture, instead it ended up making me feel like I was looking in at a different world for a good chunk.

Overall I did enjoy a lot of the essays, I enjoyed things she had to say! But the focus early on on expensive and what I would call ‘fancy’ treatments and treating them as common every day things was jarring and inaccurate. I would recommend for those in the industry or huge fans of the industry but casual readers looking for more on the topic might be able to find a more inclusive and friendly book elsewhere.

[Natalie Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was crazy listening to this audiobook while getting ready for work in the morning because I’m like staring at myself in the mirror thinking: “am I doing my hair and makeup rn for society or for myself???” And I think the real answer is that it’s mostly all to make my day-to-day life easier by looking more socially acceptable.

As someone who has always identified as “low maintenance” I figured I wouldn’t get much out of this book personally, but it actually highlighted all of the subtle ways I bring myself in line with norms to make my life “easier.” I also really appreciated reading something like this written from the perspective of a woman my own age.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. Something that I’m sure was quite a struggle to write given how intense the material is. I would recommend it to everyone, to re-examine your standards for your beauty and to change your perspective of beauty culture and expectations.

[janna ✭ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75/5

Hm, I'm very conflicted about this one.

You know that meme about how men get high and have realizations that women have had since they were 12? This book is the female equivalent of that–by which I mean that so much of Atlanta's writing feels like this: "Look at the awful/drastic/extreme things women have to do because of the beauty ideals placed onto them!! Can you believe it??!!" And like, girl, yes I can. Much of what she's writing about was not shocking to me (and I doubt it will be to many women) because I've been a woman on this earth for longer than a day, thus, I already know that this is what women go through.

The first half of this also really read like a student essay to me because it felt like what she was writing about wasn't new and it wasn't clear to me why it was important to tell this story from her perspective, i.e. anyone else could have written this. Additionally, parts of this were so preachy and unhelpful, which left a sour taste in my mouth to be honest because like, okay, so Atlanta would spend an entire chapter talking about the patriarchal and capitalistic pressures that force women to continuously chase beauty and then she'll end the chapter by asking the question: "How can we create a more beautiful future for women and girls?" but one of the answers provided is:"'A beautiful future for women begins when we start teaching our girls not to care what men think of them.'" Like girl what??😭 Why would I pay for this book when it provides the same insight as an Instagram post I would come across in middle school? The answers provided after every chapter came across as disingenuous, "band-aid" solutions to systemic issues, so I wish she had done away with this question as a whole. She does mention at the end of the book that the answers provided are those of some of the women she interviewed for this book and that many of them struggled to answer this question (which makes sense), but I don't think this justifies including their often condescending and basic answers in the book. It's okay not to have all the answers to the problems she brings up, but I think it's better to admit that, rather than try and placate your grown female readers with quotes they likely read on Tumblr growing up.

My biggest problem with this book is that I'm not sure who it's for. In addition to the points I've brought up, I think this book is too focused on influencer/celebrity relationships with beauty to a point that makes it unrelatable to average, non-famous women. For example, Atlanta spends so many chapters going over the procedures, rituals, and behaviours that famous women do to maintain/attain beauty and seems to be making the point that normal (by which I mean non-famous) women are also partaking in the same behaviours, but I just don't think that's true? Throughout reading this, I found myself thinking: Who has the time for this? And who even thinks about this shit? I'm not saying that I've never dealt with insecurity or felt the pressure to chase beauty, but the level she describes here is so specific (and I believe only specific) to influencers that I'm just not sure who Atlanta wrote this book for.

This was also generally a slog to get through for me and I had to listen to the audiobook while reading to finish it. Once I started doing that, the book became much more enjoyable for me and I'm not sure if it's because the writing picked up during the second half or because this is a book that lends itself well to audio.

On a more positive note, this was helpful for some research I'm doing, so there's that at least!

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read - though I am probably not really the target audience for this book. I don't give a rat's arse about the typical beauty standards, I don't use filters on social media, I'm too old, etc. But I am interested to learn about the problems young girls are facing. There are some minor issues with the book. It generalises quite a lot, and most assumptions made are really not issues for an average woman, more for average teenage girls. This is why I think for me the stories feel like far from reality - because it's far from my reality. Oh, and it's really wordy.. sometimes too wordy. Overall, OK. 3 stars.