It's definitely a status thing, but I think the extreme it's been taken to has more to do with an erosion and warping of reasonable beauty standards than anything. More of an act of "because I can" than anything. I think a lot of the people who you look at and think "what the fuck" actually think they are making themselves more beautiful and attractive. I don't think someone who has everything and can get whatever they want would purposely make themselves look grotesque, but I'm neither rich, nor a psychologist, so maybe I'm totally wrong...

It's kind of like how there's a gaudy stupid looking hyper-expensive version of everything, like those giant hideous watches with diamonds encrusted on every surface... Someone think's it's beautiful or shows status, but most of us probably just think it looks stupid.

The Bogdanoffification has been happening for a while...

Whatever they think they're signaling, terrible plastic surgery only makes me think they're lavishly gaudy, self-absorbed, and have a distorted view that makes them do terrible decisions for themselves.

Good plastic surgery is largely unnoticed. Bad plastic surgery is almost a style unto itself that is for some reason desired by certain groups.

The rich ladies getting square "Chad" jaws really throw me off. I don't understand the appeal, who wants a super wide chin?

Cosmetic surgery isn’t limited to the rich. You can get cosmetic surgery after an injury (ie. Burn)

Body Dysmorphia is real, and will trick a person into seeing themselves very differently than everyone else. American Dad did an episode on this once. Feel free to skip to the 4’00” mark.

You've never seen the after-effects of someone who actually got surgery to change smaller things. Those aren't obvious, but they are incredibly common. The rare few who do it so often that it makes them unrecognizable as natural just stand out from it all the more because of how successful it is for regular people.

The other part of it is that body issues often lie to you about what is good/bad about yourself, and they don't always stop doing that just because you changed it to what you thought you wanted. If you have the money for it, that can be a very vicious cycle all on its own. Don't get me wrong; I do things to alter my appearance regularly as well, you just have to be careful not to let the intrusive thoughts win where you can.

I think the rich people who make themselves that aweful looking through so many surgeries likely need help; I don't expect very many of them to be happy about the result at all.

It's not much different from these:

All are visible indicators of culture and/or status

I guess you might have a point with rich people & their....ugly, inhuman body modification. But I have a solidly middle, middle-upper class friend that spent $8K+ on hair plugs. Just because his hair was thinning. That was the discounted rate. And it looks good tbh, but now he looks just like any other schmuck with hair & he's out $8K+ for that.

(I told him to get really cool tattoos instead)

Yeah, the people who want Mar a Lago face (Google it) will get that.

But if other plastic surgery is undetectable then how would you know whether anyone has had it?

Not sure if they are making the right message with the plastic surgery... They think they either look beautiful now or signal they have money to do it and all us normal people do is think how fucking ugly they look now and despite all the money they look like fucking zombies. And I straight up don't understand some.

Most obvious recent one was the actress Erin Moriarty playing Starlight in The Boys. I thought she was so freakin cute in the first seasons. I'm not even that into blondes and she was really cute. Then came Season 3 or 4 and I was horrified to see her facelift. I was like "girl, what in the hell have you done to yourself?!". And every scene she was in all I could see were her sharp cheek bones, her weird eyes, her overblown lips. It was so bad I almost didn't want to see her in any dialogue anymore. Is that what rich people want? To look repulsive?