It was a night meant to celebrate her innovation in business, Kylie Jenner winning Wall Street Journal’s annual Innovator Award at a ceremony in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art last week.
Introduced by designer Haider Ackermann, who worked with Kylie on her 2023 Met Gala look and couldn’t resist referencing her new boyfriend Timothée Chalamet when introducing her (‘very attractive lover’ were his words), Kylie thanked WSJ Magazine for the honour. ‘I’ve always loved beauty and fashion and to be recognized for the success of my brands I built and my new Khy that launched today, it’s so special to me,’ the 26-year-old said.
All smiles and pride, Kylie was photographed on the red carpet of the event and filmed for video interviews that have since gone viral. Such virality is to be expected anytime Kylie opens her mouth on camera, but discussions in the comment sections of said videos are far from related to her business honour.
@mtvuk #KylieJenner’s sharing the sweet way having a daughter has changed her at the WSJ. Magazine Innovator Awards 💗 #MTVCeleb ♬ original sound – mtvuk
‘Kylie looks so old, she looks older than Kendall, Kylie looks about 32 or 33,’ read the top comment of one video, to near 4,000 likes. ‘Kylie looks so much older than her age,’ another read.
Kylie Jenner looks about 47 years old in person.
— Cardi’s cousin 🇩🇴 (@ibeystannin) November 6, 2023
White women age in dog years. https://t.co/lC6HtHfgKn
— Cardi’s cousin 🇩🇴 (@ibeystannin) November 14, 2023
Filler is to blame, according to the trolls. Kylie opened up about getting filler in 2019 to Paper Magazine. ‘People think I fully went under the knife and completely reconstructed my face, which is completely false,’ she said. ‘I’m terrified! I would never. They don’t understand what good hair and makeup and, like, fillers, can really do. It’s fillers. I’m not denying that.’
She has since opened up about regretting her cosmetic tweakments too, saying on The Kardashians that she feels uncomfortable about the beauty standards her family have set by endorsing filler or cosmetic surgery with such huge audiences of young, influential fans. ‘I don’t want my daughter to do the things I did,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d never touched anything to begin with.’
Her honestly, and emotional development on the subject matter, has been applauded by fans – but that still hasn’t stopped trolls tearing apart her appearance at any opportunity. Nowadays, every time an unfiltered video of Kylie goes viral, the comment section is flooded with debate around how old she looks or whether filler has aged her or not.
Now, beauty experts warn that excessive use of filler can cause sagging in the face as well as migration, which means the previously fuller skin looks depleted and ‘aged’. Long-term use of filler can also result in muscle weakness in the face.
It’s true then that filler doesn’t necessarily always have the desired look of everlasting youth, but even in acknowledging this we can also note that Kylie Jenner does not deserve to be the face of this conversation.
This is a woman who grew up on television, her appearance consistently picked apart even as a child. She was routinely bullied online throughout her teens for being the less attractive Kar-Jenner sister, is it at all surprising then that she chose to seek out cosmetic treatments? It was no doubt validating for her then, being catapulted into the category of most glamorous sister with the most sought-after look, when her lip filler results setting new beauty trends for her generation. But less than a decade later (Kylie first got filler aged 17), her looks have never stopped drawing criticism – with trolls now insistent that she would’ve been better if she was more ‘natural’. Truly, she epitomises the way in which women cannot win when it comes to unrealistic beauty standards – and though many criticise her for setting such standards, she is very much a product of them too.
This story originally appeared on GRAZIA UK.