Women and some men in South Korea are paying big bucks for shoulder filler injections to get so-called “perfect 90-degree shoulders” popularized by K-pop idols.
When Blackpink’s Jennie launched her song ‘Like Jennie,’ she probably didn’t mean it as an encouragement for her fans to go to any lengths to be like her, but that didn’t stop people from doing just that. According to recent media reports, the South Korean artist is one of the several K-pop idols who inspired a controversial plastic surgery trend that has people injecting fillers into their shoulders to achieve a sharply angled look. Some opt to enhance their look with another procedure called Barbie Botox or Trap Botox, which relaxes the trapezius muscles and makes the shoulder and neck lines look longer and slimmer.
Shoulder fillers recently went viral after Korean content creator Yunny visited a beauty clinic in Seoul to get the Jennie look, but a short online search reveals that the procedure has been available for years, as “Jennie shoulders” has long been an established beauty standard in the Asian country.
In her viral TikTok clip, Yunny gets fillers injected into one of her shoulders and immediately sees it lifting, which causes the content creator to let out a squeal of joy. However, not everyone was as impressed with the procedure, and many of her fans even criticized her for taking the easy route to a chiseled physique instead of putting in work at the gym.
“You will get Jennie’s shoulders for free if you only just exercise,” one person pointed out.
“At this rate, people are going to end up getting fillers all over their bodies,” someone else warned.
It’s unclear if getting shoulder fillers poses any significant health risks, but so far, people seem less worried about that and more about improving their looks.
For more bizarre beauty trends, check out the controversial “calf blocking” procedure for slimmer calf muscles and Thailand’s buffalo horn lip reshaping. Oh, and how could we forget China’s obsession with protruding elf ears?
