On the nurtured culture of self-loathing

Use this or use a soft camera filter over the eyes of everyone who sees you (because that's what they had to use on Olivia Wilde, too). Age used to about mature grace. Now it's a bad word.

Seriously, the way consumerism is driving self-loathing, it's not hard to see why we are so disconnected from each other, why there is so much strife, why so many of us are fake (fake enough to make Barbie jealous), and why (ironic in reference to where I am airing this) the internet is our escape.

Up to you to mute the ads, ignore the hype, trust your grandma's advice on beauty (or how to be great despite aging naturally).

If you can't believe there's much, much more to you than your skin, you shall reap a harvest of hate - and it will surely and sorely spread beyond you.

I know it sounds alarmist and overstated. But so is the ad in a deeply insidious way.

Places you at the bottom of the beauty hierarchy so that you need products to use as rungs to climb an imaginary ladder that actually goes nowhere.

Perhaps, you need a better beholder for your beauty. But first, let it be you.