How far can Instagram face take you?
This was Kylie Jenner when she was 14.
This was Kylie Jenner when she was 19. This was Kylie Jenner when she was 24. And now this is Kylie Jenner at 27.
“Except it's no longer just Kylie Jenner looking like Kylie Jenner”
from a good lip liner to minor fillers to a boop job to AI. Even Kylie Jenner is being out Kylie Jenner. Oh no! Everybody is starting to look the same. I am beyond excited to introduce Kylie baby. If there was one person who won puberty and must be Kylie Jenner.
A naturally fuller lip, fuller busts. Slimmer waist, less than 12% body fat. And the release of self-made billionaire talents. You want the chef to make you a snack? I'm making it myself.
It's got a chop ups and cucumber. And now you can have the same genetics by 345cc moderate profile half under the muscle, exclamation mark. Silicone, Garth Fisher, hope this helps a little. This is so king Kylie of her to actually respond to the girlies and give them what they want.
Kylie has never got to tell us what she has done ever again if you guys keep freaking out.
Like, act fucking normal. This is not just a brand new dive on King Kylie, but on the Instagram Face and Body. I'm obsessed. And as the family father of both, it seems like King Kylie left a legacy on how to build a self-made brand.
Face card gets you 1.1 billion views. Liftsmith casually makes $130,000 a month teaching you not to be fat. Skinny Lisa. And even Meghan Trainner got rid of the base that made her $30 million.
“Except, why was the most beautiful self-made billionaire selling her house?”
Doing not just one, but three side hustles and has the whole internet counting down on her going broke. Kylie Jenner is broke. Going broke, absolutely broke. Is the Instagram Face true wealth or just bored currency?
Not really a gamer, but remember this name, travel town. I'm hooked, I'm gonna tap on the lightning and make more, let me go all these. What happens when that face goes out of style? Even worse, what happens when one face gets mass produced to the point of cheapness? That's exactly the mystery we'll uncover today.
But not only that, as you're marketing us, who graduated top 1% UCLA business economics with about growing and marketing, we're going to explore how even the hottest face and body can still fill you. And how you, yes you, no matter if you have the Instagram face or not, can build a successful brand to help you down your career.
Because by brand, I don't just mean getting the same surgeon as Kylie Jenner. Brandy is about how your future client, future boss, future boyfriend, sees you. And yes, you have one. But you don't need to copy Kylie's face. Or have her huge following to become financially free to quit the 95 year hate.
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I'm creating the series to analyze pop culture brands from a marketing perspective because I want all of us to unlock the potential to build successful personal brands and businesses. Join the free email list below for additional marketing knowledge and less breakdown of three branding downfalls of the Instagram face. Please note, your face and body are your own.
Whatever makes you happy makes you happy.
This is only a dive on building brands off of the Instagram face.
Let's go family and show time! The Instagram face is the instantly recognizable AI level flawless beauty ideal. Defined by plump lips, snatch jaw lines, arch brows, glossy skin and sculpted cheekbones. Think BBL meets face tune 2.0. It's hyper feminine, racially ambiguous, surgically enhanced yet market it as natural.
It was aspirational in 2016, became default by 2020, but by 2025, a branding crisis.
“But before the crisis, what are the three branding links of the Instagram face?”
First, algorithm optimization.
Bright skin tones, contrast heavy makeup, ultra sharp features, the face was engineered for squirrels stopping power. Beauty creators with this look saw boosting engagement, collab offers and platform white virality. Why?
Because I asked second, global scalability. The face was racially ambiguous enough to transcend markets. It's sold. In LA Dubai, so Palo, Seoul, leading to a homogenized version of Beauty, no matter which part of the world you're at.
Which makes third, monetizable, aesthetic perfection. Lipkids, contour sticks, lashes, pilates, body, airwants, movie fillers,
plastic surgery packages.
Every future of the Instagram face became a product. The face was a marketing funnel, the packaging and the proof of products. For example, Kylie's lip filler led to the lip kit led to Kylie Cosmetics led to the billion dollar exit. Except, as Kylie Jenner is getting hotter and hotter in her Instagram face 2.0, 3.0 to 11.0.
“Why is her brand Kylie Cosmetics shrinking smaller?”
As smaller, why is no one doll gave out her alcohol brand anymore? And can Kylie save our youngest self-made billionaire? The downfall of the Instagram face. Branding crisis number one, a brand of no brand. The difference between an Irma's and a no-name bag is not just in the materials or craftsmanship,
but also in the scarcity of the bags. If Birkin was readily available at every local trader Joe's, it would have been stated like the viral but short-lived trader Joe's tote bag. Once a supply exceeds the demand, there comes a surplus, leaving the originally desirable item less in demand.
Value is a really interesting social construct. Just like how a diamond does not help you sustain life, but can cost you a kidney. While water comes a relatively no cost, but try living without it for a day. scarcity creates perceived value. Which creates higher demand, hence foe mo, and those who hold scarcity sources,
hold status in society.
“Hence, Biri has always been a means to communicate wealth.”
Whatever is most unnatural becomes desirable. Just like when most of society is barely nourished, plump this was Biri. And when everyone is becoming overfat by the standard American diet, then is in. When everyone is hustling, making everything from scratch is a new wealth.
When new money is throwing logos on logos, quiet luxury became real luxury. Those who hold something rare be it skinny like Lipschmit. To make $130,000 a month, teaching people her way of being. Group had over $6,500 members, and Lipschmit was making over $130,000 a month on everyone's $20 subscription. Someone also posted like I'm graduating high school today, and they're like,
"You're going to be the skinnyest one at graduation." Skinny isn't hard, you're just making it harder. Or be in humanly hot like the Kardashians can sell anything from beauty to fashion to supplements to generate billions. It's all about selling exclusivity.
The question is, what is the next exclusive thing? I'll give my thoughts in the end. But since rarely anyone was truly born to look like an Instagram filter, the Instagram face used to hold exclusive aspirational value. The less natural, the more rare, the more valuable, until it became ubiquitous,
and more like a mass produced template. Same lips, same brows, same angles. Instead of standing out, it's exactly blending in. We're witnessing the inflation of beauty. Just like when the government prints too much money, money loses value,
and for the mass produced Instagram face, it is becoming brand new crisis number two. A cheap trend. At one point, the highly distinctive Instagram face begins to look more and more in PC, like a loud brand logo that people are embarrassed to wear. From a marketing angle, the lack of distinctness is the killer
to a unique personal brand. Just think about how valuable are the visual branding of iconic personal brands. Taylor Swift and her red Olivia Rotteri go in her purple, Charlie Xiex and her brat green, Sabrina Carbiter and her identifiable blonde and baby blue.
That contribute to multimillion to billion dollar brands.
But too many brands are now saturated with faces that blend together in a squirrel. The Instagram face became a parody of itself.
Hello, everyone has it, so no one stands out.
It is no wonder that in addition to many other branding factors, Kylie Cosmetics lost its aspirational appeal. This is due to two top factors. A, the lack of honesty burned, brand trust. I have temporary lip fillers.
Everyone thinks I use like one certain color. I use like six different colors. A magical lip liner does not give you the full size Kylie Jenner lips. B, maybe as a brand solely built on Kylie's face and body, a hit fatigue.
And was abandoned by the trend that made it worth $1.2 billion.
“Why else would you buy a $29 lip kit when you can get the same formula for?”
Six, once the unique selling point aka Kylie's face, started losing its uniqueness in the epidemic of Instagram faces. People simply stopped pouring money into Kylie Jenner's billion dollar legacy. And the ultra success went from $360 million in 2018 to $36.2 million in 2022 to $29 million in 2024. But the worst is yet to come with branding crisis 3, the AI crisis.
The irony of Kylie's Instagram face is that sometimes Kylie doesn't even look like Kylie Jenner. How could that be? Well, angle lighting filters Photoshop and most importantly, that's a beauty about being human, got for a bit of girl enters her luteu face. But Kylie, the OG Instagram face, is now competing with the monsters she helped create. And algorithm and data set of the most sculpted symmetrical, racially ambiguous faces
that became the free model for an influx of AI faces.
Except these always come with perfect lighting, zero scandal, and 24/7 postability.
We are hitting pretty inflation. What Kylie once sold, the fantasy, AI now gives away for free.
“Everyone looks hot, so hot is no longer a currency.”
Let alone our girl's girl gave away her poop job formula. OZembeck is helping America down size. And AI models look more Kylie than Kylie are free and work 24/7. Highly's USB unique selling point evaporates. It's easily replaceable and at little to no cost.
If beauty is not rare, then her visual brandy is no longer that special. And her products feel like over-priced filters, hence leading to loss of cultural authority. When beauty becomes automated, people look for meaning behind the faces. Who has taste, who has perspective, who's creating culture? Not just content.
Kylie Jenner never fully developed that second layer.
AI exposed it. Moreover, the disconnection people feel, with pretty, but easily mass produced AI faces, is almost too similar to what we're witnessing with the King Kylie Empire. As even before AI, consumers couldn't tell what's real. Is that her real skin, real body, real lighting?
And now the girl who sold us the fantasy is being replaced by the fantasy itself, but anyone with the right surgeons filters where AI can out Kylie, Kylie Jenner. And that is the ultimate branding crisis of the Instagram face.
“The only way to save this crisis is that.”
When your main brand differentiator becomes downloadable, you need to offer something else. Kylie has many potential differentiators, and needs to double down on one true to her. Instead of launching a clothing line of fragrance line and a cocktail line, all within six months. An interesting tangent here is that while humans are trying to look more perfect like AI,
the more sophisticated AI image generation is actually striving to look more human. By adding more pores, blemishes, and textures on skin, perhaps the pursuit of beauty, and even both lies in the more unattainable. And the pendulum will swing back to a craving of flawed and differentiator looks after all. Just like how mass production let you the desire for hand craftsmanship,
there are endless tech gadgets to tell time, but analog is only appreciating. So if the perfect Instagram face feels like a street of knock-off Gucci's, what is the new wealth? Here are a few predictions. The new elite don't buy beauty, they embody individuality.
First, old money skin. You don't see the wealth in contour, you see it in the texture of skin. The wealthy face is now bare, with expensive serums, laser glow, and nothing to prove. Second, an understated nose, gone are the button nose filters and snatched bridge surgeries. The rich girl nose is unedited and maybe even slightly long or bumpy.
Not algorithm-approved, but inherited. Third, privacy, a historical favorite and one expected to last. Control the access plus emotional privacy, equal, true, feminine power. The less you see, the more you assume, which also relates to the cuts of clothing. Freedom is true wealth, and that includes the ability to experience life without having the need
to use every inch of your body as marketing material. Oh, I know, whether the Instagram faces in, the clean girl faces in, or whatever faces in next. Friends, come and go. The confidence is here to stay. And if you run a brand, think of ways to provide value outside of a pretty image.
Because today's asset might be tomorrow's liability.
And launching the seventh brand won't change that. Let me know if you think this is the end of the Instagram face or it's here to stay for homework, ask yourself.
“First, is your audience following you or your face?”
Second, what value do you offer beyond your image?
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