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There's a line in the film The Wizard Of Oz which goes "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Uh-huh." Technology isn't quite there yet but people travel abroad to have eye surgery for cosmetic reasons. The most high-profile case occurred quite recently:
Reality-TV star Tameka "Tiny" Harris "just wanted to do something different" when she traveled to Africa for a procedure that permanently changed her eye color from brown to light gray, she said.
"They are ice gray. That's the color I purchased," Harris, 39, told ABC News' Deborah Roberts in her first interview confirming the buzzed-about change.
Harris, the star of two reality shows who first gained fame as a member of the R&B group Xscape, traveled to Africa for the procedure because the operation is illegal in the United States.
People are complaining that she did to appear less Black and more Caucasian/Oriental but it appears to be a choice based on the frequency of wearing colored contact lens:
"I had been wearing colored contacts for a couple of years, and they were making my vision blurry," said Tiny. "A friend of mine mentioned that she had heard of a procedure where you could permanently change your eye color, and we looked into it. We researched it for a bit, but I was nervous because … it’s your eyes! But two years later, it came up again. I spoke to the doctors and to patients who’d had it. I learned that there was no downtime, that it only took about 15 minutes - plus it’s reversible. When I found out that you could reverse it, I was sold."
Many doctors strongly advise against the surgery which can cause permanent blindness or death.
Also in the news for looking less ethnic is Renée Zellweger. Personally, I think she looks greatly improved but her ancestry is an issue for other people:
Renee Zellweger hit the news headlines earlier this week, following some pretty drastic cosmetic surgery she had done to her face recently, and apparently, she did so to hide her Norwegian Sami/Kven heritage in order to look more "traditionally European."
That claim comes from a top professor of Finnish culture, Edward Dutton, from Oulu University in Finland, who says that Renee went under the knife to hide her ethnic roots.
According to Professor Dutton, "With a Swiss father and a mother who is part Kven and part Sami - ethnic minorities Indigenous to Norway, Finland and Sweden – Renee had a somewhat "eastern" face. I suspect Renee has had plastic surgery which makes her look less Sami, less Kven, and more stereotypically North European. She was so much more beautiful and interesting when she had the courage to be Sami and Kven."
While talking about Renee Zellweger's possible intentions for the surgery, Dutton compared her to none other than the King of Pop himself. "There seems little question that Michael Jackson underwent plastic surgery to make himself look more European, and Renee seems to have done exactly the same thing. How sad," he said.
The article has further information about ancestry and blepharoplasty to remove a style of eyelid believed to be an adaptation for cold climate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Sunday November 02 2014, @11:45AM
More recently, embedded eye-jewelry: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2510576/Woman-gets-platinum-eye-jewelry-implanted-optic-membrane.html
I feel dirty, posting Daily Fail links. Then again, these were stories about vapid people feeding their vanity and craving attention - where else was I more likely to find stories like that.
If they've got the money for it, fuck it, let them waste it on pointless things. If they catch ebolacancer from it later in life, I'll shed precisely as many tears then as I gave them "attagirls" now. Might even laugh a little. Schadenfreude's fun.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday November 02 2014, @11:58AM
Hmmm, on lips and lippy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtsiywZJTm8
Which leads me to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdEQGvQwtB8
Sorry, I'll stop now.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Sunday November 02 2014, @12:48PM
Dailymail links don't work in my house - DNS blocking at the router level. I do t care if my kids see youporn or 4chan, but the daily mail is too obscene.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @03:23PM
Cool story bro!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday November 02 2014, @05:30PM
However, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and here I am, almost entirely DM-proof.
I say almost entirely, as every time I follow a link there I feel compelled to look down the side column of other "stories" in order to count how many of them *aren't* "some female wears some clothes, perhaps not enough to cover herself well", or "some female looks good after a diet/spa/cosmetic treatment", or "some female now going out with some male", or "some hunky male is hunky", or ... . Of course, the total from my counting is always 0. I shout "BUT THIS ISN'T NEWS!!!!" inside my own head repeatedly whilst so doing. And then I feel annoyed at myself for wasting my own time effectively counting the number of floating poops in the cess-pit.
I'm anti-censorship, but even I support purging the world of the Daily Mail, good on ya'!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday November 03 2014, @12:57AM
Ahh this sidebar I heard so much about.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RealityMail [twitter.com]
No longer going, but I assume the headlines are still the same.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday November 03 2014, @01:00AM
Hey! That's where I get my fashion tips!
Anyone who has gone clothes shopping for five hours and come back with nothing will assure you that it is highly informative.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday November 06 2014, @03:45AM
According to the Daily Mail, it is now possible to get temporary tattoos for horses [dailymail.co.uk]. It'll only be a matter of time before people stick weird things in the eyes of horses.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday November 07 2014, @11:44PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @11:56AM
There seems little question that Michael Jackson underwent plastic surgery to make himself look more European
That's just ignorance talking. Jackson had vitiligo - an auto-immune disease where the body kills its own pigmentation-producing cells. [examiner.com] The whole reason he started wearing the glove is that the white/pink splotches were visible on that hand. Vitiligo can be psychologically devastating. It is really easy for a white person to dismiss just how bad it can be because when white people get vit nobody notices unless they get a tan. I know this because of personal experience having married a girl who has vit, her vit is at least as bad Jackson's and she did the same thing - bought benoquin cream to go the full depigmentation route because after 80% natural depigmentation there was no going back to her original brown.
This is what vitiligo looks like if you don't try to cover it up or depigment fully. [eonline.com] It is tough on a normal person much less a performer.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Sunday November 02 2014, @02:09PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @03:20PM
Why does any celebrity to get a nose job? Excessive cosmetic surgery on its own is typically a manifestation of body dysmorphia - something not uncommon among celebrities and vit could easily magnify it because it makes you so focused on your looks. Plus that pepsi fire that burned his scalp didn't help either. Nobody would have been claiming that all of that surgery meant he was trying to look white if it weren't for the visible effects of vitiligo, they would have just been saying he was yet another nutty celebrity who ruined a good thing.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday November 02 2014, @09:17PM
Perhaps as the poster below stated, the vitiligo amplified his perceived body image. I imagine it might have went something like this: "If I am turning white I might as well look white"
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday November 02 2014, @12:13PM
People are complaining that she done it
People are complaining that Dick Van Dyke is editing for Soylent News.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by martyb on Sunday November 02 2014, @01:53PM
LOL. It done been fixed. =) thanks for the keen eyes on that one!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 02 2014, @02:22PM
HahahahH! That was goddamn funny, keep it up.
Of course, I'm stoned. MEGA-STONED.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @01:57PM
I guess she does look a little bit more attractive now but I though the risk she took was insane. I was scared shitless and still am. She actually has had some eye issues lately but those might be related to a car crash she was in a few years after the operation...
It's just amazing what people are willing to do for a minor cosmetic change.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 03 2014, @04:14PM
While it is nice to not have to worry about annoying glasses anymore, the real reason I got Lasik eye surgery is that my vision is vastly improved with it over glasses. So I would say this is not quite the same situation as there is more than just a cosmetic effect.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @04:19PM
that the pouty look is cute when you're under 30-35, but it doesn't age particularly well.
Plus, she got tired of getting unsolicited sexts from Tom Cruise.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Sunday November 02 2014, @05:56PM
Never heard of her. Googled images of her, now I think I need eye surgery.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday November 02 2014, @09:20PM
So we have arrived to the point where white people have a definition of what it is to be white? And they go out of their way to butcher themselves to look it? What does more European mean?
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday November 03 2014, @12:09AM
Ignoring the risks, the one-time cost of US$10,000 to change eye color can be viewed as an absolute bargain.
I recently watched Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair [wikipedia.org] and I was astounded. He made it for his daughters and also to show what black people are suffering unnecessarily. He interviewed a black woman who was spending US$1,500 per month on her hair. Another interviewee, the Reverend Al Sharpton [wikipedia.org], had encountered cases where black women were neglecting their children to ensure their hair was maintained. Another interviewee, a hairdresser, was offering finance plans to customers. And a black man was very candid about his preference for white women because it could be economically equivalent to a woman with one less dependent.
Having "Good Hair" is also a risk of permanent acid burn in addition to being very time consuming. (A particularly demanding style may require eight hours of labor every 30 days.) However, some people are spending US$12,000 per year or more partly because they believe it provides an economic advantage.
Now people from this demographic and other demographics are risking blindness and death to change their eye color. From the one example I've seen, I prefer the natural, complimentary color.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 03 2014, @04:46AM
The funny thing is I learnt this from a GF who was from Ghana. When I first met her I didn't think she was wearing a wig till I spent my first night with with her. She took her hair off and I was in a bit of shock. She laughed and said, "first time you seen a black woman take her hair off, huh?" She then went into a bit of detail about how difficult black hair can be in the sense that as a white person I take washing my hair once a day for granted. She explained that if she were to do the same, her hair would dry out and fall apart. And to make things worse, swimming in a pool can also damage their hair (chlorine). Washing has to be done carefully and infrequently using moisturizing shampoos and conditioners. She showered every day but wore a shower cap. So instead, many back women braid their hair into corn rows and hide it under a wig. That or go to a salon and spend many hours and dollars on elaborate hair treatments and styling using nasty chemicals. So the wig is very economical, simple and safe. She went to the salon only once a month for a wash, trim and re-braiding. A few times I even helped her re-braid he hair. One time she had her hair straitened using a hot comb but the hair care product she had to use afterward smelled funky. She tried it out for a bit and went back to wigs after a few weeks. I asked why she didn't go natural and go for one of those big fluffy hair styles (I think they look very attractive) but again it was laborious, requires leave in conditioners, oils, and can tangle easily. Up until that point I was totally ignorant to how much of a PITA African hair can be. This is why you most always see black men with very short hair.
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Monday November 03 2014, @07:55PM
Basically, corn rows and a wig are the easiest ways to keep her hair healthy, while giving her control over styling. Perms suck because of cost and the potential for chemical burns. Long braids suck because of cost in time and money. Keeping her hair natural sucks because she *still* needs to devote a ton of time to maintaining it. At least with cornrows, she can do that herself once or twice per month, and just oil them a few times a week.
(Score: 2) by hamsterdan on Monday November 03 2014, @01:25PM
"This video is not available in your location due to provider license restrictions."
That's just stupid and short-sighted (yes, there are ways to get around this, like Hola!).