“Everyone hates her because she’s so beautiful.” 

Does the suffering, perfect, pretty girl exist? If she does, her sentiment is captured in this woman:

I present Miss Madison Beer. She may look like an ordinary Hollywood Hills pretty girl, but she is actually the supreme leader of the pretty girls club. This woman has built her image and career off of being naturally, flawlessly beautiful. At least, that’s how it started. In recent years she, like many other California girls, has been visiting Uncanny Valley under the knife in an effort to “preserve” her beauty. Sadly and needlessly.

When I saw Madison at House of Blues Boston in 2021, she appeared even more flawless in person. There were no unflattering angles on her. Her performance was good (Madison is a singer) but it was hard to focus on the music when her shockingly real beauty stole the spotlight.

Madison is an outlier in the pretty girl world because many girls who are known to look pretty in pictures are just plain in person. Retouches and filters turn ordinary girls into flawless insta-girls. But there is little truth to the photos. Madison, however, is a pretty girl from any angle under any lighting. She is untouchable as far as being called out for “flaws” or humanity. Even her predecessor as supreme Hollywood beauty, Megan Fox, was seen as a human, makeup-less, normal girl sometimes. But Madison Beer? Never. In her music videos she is known for never expressing any emotions other than subtle sadness or betrayal. Is it the botox that stops her, or her fear of being seen as less than perfect?

And as for the “suffering” label, both Madison and Megan have said publicly that they were pigeonholed early in life/careers because of their beauty. They were not allowed to be more than a pretty thing. They are not allowed to have ugly moments. I would argue Megan, perhaps because of her age, has had some “ugly” or at least imperfect moments despite maintaining her beautiful girl reputation. But Madison has no imperfect moments, and if she did they’ve been scrubbed from the internet. Further, most of Madison’s discography has a central theme of rejection, betrayal, and abandonment by men. This leads the women listening to her to say, if she gets cheated on, are any of us safe?

Before Megan, the mainstream beauty was Monica Bellucci–an actress whose roles were often a woman heavily over-sexualized and suffering because of her natural beauty (Malena, La Riffa). And before her was Pam Anderson, and before her was Marilyn Monroe. It seems that most of the “suffering” experienced by these women is that they become over-sexualized by society and seen as less than human. In large part they profited off of this–they willingly took off their clothes for a check, and then were dismayed when men wanted them to keep taking off their clothes. They weren’t victims; they were in control and they chose the sex-kitten avenue. Unlike her predecessors, Madison seems to avoid the trap of appearing overly sexual, keeping a large portion of her audience women, who simply want to be as beautiful as she is.

All of this came to mind because of a string of TikTok videos by women claiming that the reason other women don’t like them is because they are pretty. Thus, spreading a narrative that pretty girls are hated, and that the price of beauty is pain. The claims: pretty girls don’t have many friends. Because everyone is jealous of them. And they experience more privilege in society.

But for this narrative to hold up, it would also need to be true that non-pretty girls (average or ugly girls) are all jealous and hateful towards pretty girls. And that simply isn’t true. Could it be more true that some pretty girls hate themselves, perhaps because their mothers envied their beauty, or maybe because one person envied them? Could it be more true that your beauty has little to do with how others treat you, and that self image (yours and theirs) matters more?

Millions of girls adore Madison and Megan, as do many men. Maybe some girls envy or hate them. But certainly not all, otherwise they would lack a platform. Most of the girls making the claim that “no one likes me because I’m too pretty” are what I’d call average-pretty. They’re pretty, but you wouldn’t necessarily stop and stare as you might with a truly stunning woman. This makes me think that ego might be involved, rather than the objective observation that they are perceived as more beautiful than everyone around them.

Why do average-pretty pretty girls want to be victims? Perhaps they just want to feel validated for their insecurities, since people assume those with beauty have better lives and less problems. Maybe they are uncomfortable with their own sense of self, or the pressure they feel to “maintain” their “beauty.” Most of the truly beautiful women in the world aren’t on the internet saying that the reason no one likes them is because they are so beautiful and therefore intimidating. Maybe you’re just insufferable? Maybe people don’t like you because you give off a vibe that you’re expecting everyone to hate you? Because you think you’re more beautiful than everyone else around you? It could be any number of reasons. People don’t hate you because you’re beautiful. If they do hate you it’s for their own reasons, not yours.

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