The Mesmerizing Pull of Plastic Surgery Videos

Procedures used to be done in secret, but in the post-Kardashian world, transparency is just part of the process.

When Dr. Herluf Lund, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Chesterfield, Mo., started performing aesthetic enhancements 30 years ago, the vast majority of his patients wanted their surgeries kept a secret. Particularly when it came to breast implants, Dr. Lund’s clients were worried that they would be perceived as having “some kind of devious motivation,” he said. Back then, his patients wanted discretion and confidentiality above all. “It’s been a rather 180-degree transformation from when I started my career,” said Dr. Lund, 65, who just ended his term as the president of The Aesthetic Society. Now, his patients “expect we’re going to take pictures, and they want to post them,” he said. Americans spent $9.3 billion on all aesthetic procedures in 2020, up from $8.2 billion in 2019, according to The Aesthetic Society. On TikTok, #plasticsurgery has over 6.8 billion views and popular social pages, like @celebplastic, @celebrityplastics and @celebbeforeafter on Instagram, are devoted solely to before-and-after images of celebrities (though they don’t tend to have proof that these celebrities have had aesthetic work, they run on speculation).