The problem is we've created a business of trying to make people feel inadequate enough that they have to spend money on a variety of products and take measures to change their appearance to be more in line with what the media bombards us with as the target look constantly. Yet, the girls you see on magazine covers don't even really exist themselves. They're all the products of photoshop and editing software. Living up to these false idols is an impossible carrot on the stick climb to buy and kill yourself into making yourself into something you're not.
And then they market songs, films, etc, which offer a saccharine, heavily romanticised view of love, which supposedly everyone must experience at some point unless they're fucking freaks, and must be totally inadequate if they don't "achieve" this , since the reason they don't have it must be because they're ugly/weird/whatever else, hence the "incentive" to buy such shitty, superficial aesthetic products.
It's really sick psychological manipulation, exemplified by shampoo adverts. I get hit with a brief but distinct bout of depression every time I see a teenage girl with false eyelashes, stiff hair, really fucking red lipstick (oftentimes, anyway) and god knows how many layers of foundation. I feel like there's very little semblance of a human being left, like I'm staring at specter, albeit one which is emotionally vulnerable.
And excuse me for being like 12 days late.
I finished an exam today. I don't even feel like I care how shit it went. It's just out of the way. That made me feel happy, or maybe more relieved.