The Clone Crisis: Why Every Face Looks The Same (And The System That Created It)

Kava Haven: All the Buzz, None of the Booze — get 15% off your first order at http://kavahaven.com/ljaglow The Clone Crisis: Why Every Face Looks The Same (And The System That Created It) Perfect skin. Brushed-up brows. Neutral lips. That soft, glowing look that feels polished, expensive… and strangely empty. In this video essay, we explore the rise of what I call the “soulless glow”—a modern beauty ideal shaped not by individuality or culture, but by algorithms, trends, and performance. We’ll look at how social media has transformed beauty from personal expression into something optimized and repeatable, why today’s aesthetics feel so homogenized, and what’s been lost in the process. Then, we’ll travel through the 20th century—from flapper rebellion to postwar glamour, mod youth culture, and pop-era reinvention—to see how beauty once carried meaning, context, and identity. This isn’t a rejection of beauty or glowing skin. It’s a reflection on how beauty became flattened, filtered, and emotionally disconnected—and how we might reclaim it as a form of personal language again. In this video: Why modern beauty trends make everyone look the same How algorithms reward sameness and punish deviation The difference between beauty trends and beauty movements What 20th-century beauty can teach us about individuality How to reconnect beauty with intention, mood, and self-expression. So I’ll leave you with this question: When was the last time your beauty choices felt like self-expression instead of self-correction?