Recently, Kendall Jenner (I think it’s Kendall, all of my friends yell at me when I confuse the sacred Kardashians) posted a picture on Instagram with her sister Kylie and I noticed something just a little...off. Kylie looks as though she isn’t a real person. She looks like a doll; a plastic replica of what a “perfect” human may look like if people were born looking like robotic, smooth skinned, plump-lipped white but very tan with multiple ethnicities embedded in them, specimens.

She doesn’t look like a natural human being because human beings are not born perfect. Some people admittedly are higher up on the attractive scale (that being said, it’s all relative) but people are not born looking like they have been sculpted by Dr. Oz himself. To get what I’m saying and possibly agree with my thought process here, here is the picture she posted:

Creepy, right? This is not another article about how young girls are put up to a standard of unattainable beauty. This is not an article about how girls wear too much makeup and are therefore “tricking men.” This is an article of support. An article of hope for Kylie and any girl that may feel the need to change themselves. I’m all for makeup. I love makeup and enhancing my features. No, I don’t have gold eyelids and my cheeks do not illuminate with a peachy, sparkly tone as soon as I step out of the shower. But to think that Kylie Jenner, a 19-year-old girl (that means she was born in 1997 OMG I’M OLD), wanted to physically alter what her face and body look like entirely before she’s even stopped developing is incredibly sad to me. My heart hurts for her.

Sure, I’m certain a huge portion of that desire stems from her constant attention in the media. If cameras were on me from the time I was 6 all the way through those awful preteen/teenage years I would probably long to change what my entire face looks like too. But to think that we as a society would somehow play a part in causing a young girl to want to drastically change the way she looks, surgically, so she can feel good about herself is heartbreaking.

I remember feeling extremely uncomfortable in my own skin right when I turned 15. I was skinny and gangly and awkward and from my viewpoint, ugly. I never had felt self-conscious before that, I was alway so comfortable with myself because I thought I was “quirky” and fun and it didn’t really matter what I looked like. Once I started to actually go through puberty (only took 17 years, no big deal) and it finally got to an ending point around 19, I remember starting to finally feel like myself again. I realize, not everyone goes through puberty and feels better about themselves once they are able to develop naturally but it was the best feeling to have my confidence back and not look in the mirror and hate what I saw.

So as for Kylie, and for every girl that has changed their face or body surgically (seriously, there’s hundreds of Kylie lookalikes throughout Instagram now because it’s such a sought after “look”). Please stop. Look at yourself and realize that what you’re doing is not ideal. This is not a new idea. Women within the past 50 years have gone through plastic surgery and there are plenty of online forums exposing what the worst nose jobs and face lifts are of that era. The difference is that these are young girls who are so self-conscious in every form of social media and so stuck on the idea that a like on Instagram is a genuine form of flattery in real life that they turn to a doctor to change what they look like entirely.

Without knowing what they are going to look like in their adult years. So I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for the girls that have the money and the means to gain confidence through a needle. I feel sorry for the girls that feel better knowing their lips are 3 sizes bigger than they were. Mostly, I’m glad I wasn’t born quite yet in the generation of a little blue check next to an Instagram name having more meaning than a college degree or a PhD. Everyone likes to feel good about themselves but isn’t there a better way? I curl my hair or contour the living daylights out of my face but I would never completely alter the way I look to please an Instagram viewer. It is my hope that someone in that situation would read this and realize it isn’t worth it to change your face or your body permanently. It gets better. Your pimples will clear up. You will lose your baby fat and you will understand makeup better as you get older. Keep moving forward. Being a teenager only lasts 7 years. Plastic surgery lasts forever.