Facebook users in India turn to plastic surgery for perfect profile

How much would you pay for the perfect profile picture?

In India, young Facebook users are reportedly paying thousands of dollars for plastic surgeries solely for the purpose of improving the way they look on Facebook and other social networks.

A report by Vocativ, a news media start-up, says that India, the country that invented the nose job thousands of years ago, is now also pioneering a new trend called “Facebook facelifts.”

“We are very much accepting of looking good through so-called artificial means,” said Anip Dhir, a plastic surgeon, in the video above.

People in their 20s and 30s in India are getting minor procedures for the sake of improving their social media pictures, according to the report.

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“If you don’t look good on Facebook, then how will you make contacts?” says one woman interviewed in the video.

Among men, for example, the report says most get chin augmentations, which cost more than $2,000. They get those procedures because during video chat sessions, it’s easy to notice someone’s chin.

“When someone is talking on Skype or any other kind of social media network, what you see is the movement of the chin when the lips move,” Dhir said. “A weak chin or a waddle chin, they stand out most because, again, people don’t look confident when they’re talking and the definition of their face becomes less.”

So why not just lie and use Photoshop? Well many of the people interviewed for the piece say they are using Facebook and social media to find partners, so Photoshop isn’t enough.

“Sometimes you have to meet people in real life too,” one woman says. “If you don’t look the same as in your photo, then it’s sort of fake, isn’t it?”

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