Stirred by an influencer, 32-year-old Anaya Peterson tattooed her eyeballs and currently regrets her decision as she is losing her ability to see. Worse, she now looks like a “beast.”
Inspired by ‘blue-eyed dragon’ Amber Luke, an Australian model who got her eyeballs inked blue in 2019, Anaya from Belfast, was left hospitalized by an eye alteration procedure and is facing permanent blindness after a suspected reaction to the eyeball ink.
After months of not suffering any problems or side effects, Anaya was stunned to wake up with engorged eyelids as though her face had been overblown with air thereby looking like a punching bag of Mike Tyson.
As the swelling continued to get worse, Anaya got herself admitted to the hospital after being prescribed antibiotics did nothing to diminish the extreme swelling.
Why Anaya Peterson
Anaya Peterson said: “I was just going to get one [eye tattoo] at first because I thought that if I go blind, at least I’ve got the other eye. I should have stuck with that.”
“My daughter told me that I didn’t want to do that [the tattoo] asking, ‘what if you go blind?’”
Anaya Peterson should have listened.
This is practical wisdom that seems to go unheeded by many. People change the color of their skin using too many chemicals without thinking about what these substances can do to the flesh.
They “restructure” their noses aspiring to become more attractive but when the procedure goes wrong, they end up looking like a witch.
It’s not illegal and not immoral to have small breasts, yet, women want to have their boobs enlarged to catastrophic proportions.
Women puff up their buttocks while men extend their penises. Anaya Peterson does it differently.
People spend hundreds of thousands to change the way they look, and to what end? Gain more self-esteem? Or die younger looking like a beast?
A booming business
The global cosmetic surgery market was pegged at $39.01 billion in 2021 and grew to $40.67 billion in 2022. It is expected to grow to a $48.84 billion industry in 2026.
Based on new statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), over three-quarters of cosmetic-focused plastic surgery practices have seen and continue to see more business than before the pandemic, with close to 30% reporting their business has at least doubled.
In a news release, Bob Basu, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Houston and a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said that “With Covid, we prepared for the worst. But when we were able to reopen our office, we were pleasantly surprised with the incredible surge of demand for our cosmetic services, both surgical and noninvasive.”
Pop culture and social media
Besides boosting self-confidence and wanting to defy natural aging, cosmetic and reconstruction surgery have also flourished because of pop culture and social media and the hype that social media influencers have created.
This was what happened to Anaya, her decision to tattoo her eyes was influenced by a celebrity.
Another reason why the industry soared is because of what experts call the “Zoom effect” phenomenon or the “Zoom Boom.” Pandemic restrictions shifted in-person meetings and social events to video calls, thus, people became super-critical of their facial features. Such discontent led to an increased interest in cosmetic surgery.
Celebrity endorsements
The European market held a prominent global tattoo market share and is expected to lead the global market during the projected period due to growing celebrity endorsements across the region.
Asia Pacific is anticipating substantial growth during the forecast period because of the outpouring of positive consumer response toward body art, thereby rousing the industry’s development.
The Middle East & Africa market is likewise expected to show significant growth owing to the rising trend of tattoo culture among the youth.
Tattoos
Different cultures have diverse ideas about tattooing that influence how body art is perceived. During Japan’s Edo Period, tattoos can be seen solely in prisoners and recidivists, and was deliberately intended to mark people as outsiders. The Nazis use of tattoos during World War II was also a factor that led to its stigma. And the depiction of tattooed criminals in both scientific research and media helped influenced the predominant negative attitude towards tattooing.
But times have changed. So does people’s perception of tattoos. In part, this is because they are being worn by public figures such as celebrities, athletes, and people within the fashion industry.
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But another important aspect to acknowledge is the engagement and awareness-building happening within the community of tattoo artists and those wanting to have tattoos.
Tattoos are now being recognized as a form of self-expression, and design styles have expanded from American traditional tattoos to custom Japanese sleeves, to full-body works of elaborate art that could tempt even those distrustful of the machine (or needle) into getting tattooed.
Fast-rising industry
Fortune Business Insights reported the global tattoo market size as valued at USD 1.75 billion in 2021 and USD 1.89 billion in 2022. The industry is projected to reach USD 3.55 billion by 2029. The anticipation of industry growth is due to the increasing use of tattoos in the entertainment and fashion industry.
Enhancements that destroy
Reports of botched cosmetic surgeries never go unnoticed either in print media or the internet.
Khloé Kardashian, Tara Reid, and Janice Dickinson are just a few of the many celebrities who have opened up and admitted to going overboard with cosmetic surgery procedures.
Supermodel Linda Evangelista had a five-year absence from the public eye due to getting the non-surgical cosmetic procedure called “coolsculpting” to her face, supposed to use cold temperatures to reduce fat deposits. Instead, she had a rare reaction that caused fat cells to multiply instead.
“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by… [a procedure] which did the opposite of what it promised,” Linda explained on September 23, 2021, in an Instagram post.
Worse when she added that the enhancement attempt “has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing. In the process, I have become a recluse.”
Beautifying one’s self is never a crime. But overdoing the beautification is. But how is it a crime? By enhancing a body part too much, you kill someone. And who did you kill? Yourself!
Anaya Peterson realized this too late.