Microprocessing
Reddit’s r/SkincareAddiction Community Has a Dark Side
It’s easy for a love of skin care to turn into an obsession
Reddit’s r/SkincareAddiction board is one of the largest online communities dedicated to skin care. It has 1 million members and hosts more than 1,000 new posts per day, ranging from discussions about skin care routines, requests for advice, and “shelfies,” in which users post pictures of their impressively well-stocked medicine cabinets full of skin care products.
It is, by and large, a positive, well-meaning community. Yet according to research and dermatology experts, too much time and energy spent thinking about perceived flaws on one’s body can get unhealthy quick. One recent post on the subreddit makes this tragically clear.
“After I discovered this subreddit, I got uncomfortable in the sun. I used to just walk to school with my face in the sun and it felt nice. Walking to school was a really nice relaxing time for me in the mornings,” wrote the original poster. “Another comment I saw said that they trained themselves to stop showing facial emotion at 18.”
Other commenters chimed in, describing distressing posts they’d come across on the subreddit in the past.
