Many women like having big breasts. They also like looking good. According to the American Society for Plastic Surgeons, of the 13+ million cosmetic plastic surgeries performed annually, women seek 91% of all procedures. "Breast augmentation continues to be the top cosmetic surgical procedure and has held the title since 2006." Why do they do it? (As an aside, don't think for a moment that cosmetic surgery is only for women - it's a "guy thing," too.)
Logically, if we value something, we find discomfort in the absence of the valued characteristic. And, for most, beauty is a value. In fact, there is little debate that our feelings of beauty impact our self-worth. How beautiful we think ourselves affects the actions we take. Like intelligence, health, abilities, accomplishments, etc., beauty is a component of our whole, integrated self.
Some take a more objective standards approach to aesthetics and identify beauty based on harmonious elements. Others claim that reality is unknowable and, as a result, there isn't any objective principle available for evaluating beauty. From this perspective, beauty is completely subjective based upon whether you feel pleasure or discomfort from the object's observable qualities. Regardless of which philosophy you choose, whether you think beauty is relevant to your life or irrational and superficial to even consider will impact how you act. After all, some are happy that our perceptions of reality can be distorted.
What is beauty to you? What standards do you use? Do you consider this woman more beautiful at the end of the clip than at the beginning of it, knowing full-well that it isn't real? Where are children getting these ideas? Are actresses perpetrating a fraud? Are the TV, movie, advertising, and beauty industries doing a disservice to women by making women appear unrealistic? What are the goals that women are trying to achieve with unnatural beauty enhancements, and are they worthwhile goals? Should we reject the images that we see of beautiful women in magazines and focus on natural beauty? Is it absurd to ignore beauty or value a beauty that isn't real?
Evolution is an advertising campaign launched by Unilever in 2006 as part of its Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, to promote the newly created Dove Self-Esteem Fund. The centre of the Unilever campaign is a 75-second spot produced by Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto, Canada. The piece was first displayed online on 6 October 2006, and was later broadcast as a television and cinema spot in the Netherlands and the Middle East. The ad was created from the budget left over from the earlier Daughters campaign, and was intended to be the first in a series of such online-focused spots by the company. Later pieces include Onslaught and Amy. Evolution was directed by Canadian director Yael Staav and Tim Piper, with sound design handled by the Vapor Music Group, and post-production by SoHo.
The advert was a critical, popular, and financial success. It won a number of awards in the advertising industry, including two Cannes Lions Grand Prix awards and an Epica D'Or. It has been discussed in many mainstream television programmes and print publications, and the exposure generated by the spot has been estimated to be worth over $150M. Evolution has also spawned numerous unofficial alternate versions, including a title sequence to a BBC sketch show and the short parody Slob Evolution, which has gone on to itself be nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award.
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Apr 10, 2011 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=524
We all admire beauty, but the mind ultimately must be stimulated for maximum arousal. Longevity in relationships cannot occur without a meeting of the minds. And that is what Braincrave is: a dating venue where minds meet. Learn about the thoughts of your potential match on deeper topics... topics that spawn your own insights around what you think, the choices you make, and the actions you take.
We are a community of men and women who seek beauty and stimulation through our minds. We find ideas, education, and self-improvement sexy. We think intelligence is hot. But Braincrave is more than brains and I.Q. alone. We are curious. We have common sense. We value and offer wisdom. We experiment. We have great imaginations. We devour literacy. We are intellectually honest. We support and encourage each other to be better.
You might be lonely but you aren't alone.
Sep, 2017 update: Although Braincrave resulted in two confirmed marriages, the venture didn't meet financial targets. Rather than updating our outdated code base, we've removed all previous dating profiles and retained the articles that continue to generate interest. Moving to valME.io's platform supports dating profiles (which you are welcome to post) but won't allow typical date-matching functionality (e.g., location proximity, attribute similarity).
The Braincrave.com discussion group on Second Life was a twice-daily intellectual group discussions typically held at 12:00 PM SLT (PST) and 7:00 PM SLT. The discussions took place in Second Life group chat but are no longer formally scheduled or managed. The daily articles were used to encourage the discussions.