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Pixel Flesh
- How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
- Narrated by: Ellen Atlanta
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
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Publisher's Summary
A generation-defining exposé of toxic 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 our beauty culture truly empowering? Are we really in control?
In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal, as well as 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 explore the reality of living in a world of paradoxes: we know our standards are unhealthy, but understand it’s a way to succeed. We resent social media but continue to scroll. We know digital beauty is artificial, but we still strive for it.
From Love Island to lip filler, blackfishing to the beauty tax, Pixel Flesh is a fascinating account of what young women face under a dominant industry. Nuanced, unflinching, and razor sharp, this book unmasks the absurdities of the standards we suddenly find ourselves upholding, and acts as a rallying cry and a refusal to suffer in silence, forming the definitive book about what it truly feels like to exist as a woman today.
What the critics say
"A rigorously researched and deeply personal account of the modern female experience. Pixel Flesh is a searing and lucid appraisal of internet culture's most corrosive and diminishing aspects; from predatory algorithms, celebrity, cosmetic surgery, disordered eating and the tyranny of performing a self. A must-read guidebook on the dizzying hall of mirrors that women must navigate online and the dangerous real world consequences that follow."—Nada Alic, author of Bad Thoughts
“Ellen Atlanta has written an imperative manual for surviving modern womanhood. Equal parts compassionate and fierce, personal and universal, Pixel Flesh delivers a searing account of an image culture that continually asks us to self-harm in the name of empowerment. I couldn’t put it down.” —Allie Rowbottom, author of Aesthetica and Jell-O Girls
"Atlanta is a whip-smart, full-hearted writer who gets to the core of beauty with expert grace that makes it look easy. Her vulnerability makes you feel seen as a reader and her expertise makes you feel protected as you navigate the chaos of the beauty industry from her perspective. Pixel Flesh a pleasurable read, and one I feel lucky to have on my shelf. The world is lucky to have her writing and her tenderness, too." —Arabelle Sicardi, fashion and beauty writer