Have you ever wanted to dye your hair a different color but didn’t want to leave your house or to spend any money or to put in any effort? Have you ever wanted clear skin without that pesky face wash? Have you ever wanted to look like Goku from Dragon Ball-Z?
You’ll find your solutions in YouTube subliminals!
YouTube subliminals are videos that are used to make people into the desired person the viewer wants to be in virtually any way. They insert audio that is so low you can’t hear it with the purpose of slipping the message into your subconscious. This is supposed to get your brain to actually listen to the message to make you into whatever the video says. These subliminal messages are usually like “I am now growing blonde hair” or “Genes do not control me, I control my genes”. These sorts of messages are supposed to make your brain go “huh, I guess I am growing blonde hair!” and boom, after a few listens, you’ve got beautiful blonde hair! Easy as that!
But here’s the catch: there is absolutely no way that they work.
Now, there are some just for stuff such as increased confidence and general mental well-being, which might work for some people (I don’t know, I took AP Psych two years ago and I wasn’t very good at it, so my knowledge of how the brain works is abysmal). But when it comes to trying to get clicks from people’s insecurities by promising to have a smaller waist or bigger ass or whatever, I begin to really doubt things. I looked a bunch up to see what people were promising they could do to other people through these videos. A lot of them were like “~look like sexy Instagram girl overnight~” or “I’VE NEVER MADE SOMETHING THIS POWERFUL…get tall in three days”. One really caught my eye: GET EXTREMELY TALLER IN 10 MINUTES!
To test my theory that these were pretty much nonsense, I got my roommate—definitely one of my shorter friends—to try this subliminal out. I measured her before she listened and got a total of 5”1’. After 10 minutes was up, we measured her again to find that she was still 5”1’. Unfortunately for her and her lack of height, it was just as I expected. The video description did say “Listen 3-6 times a day for better results”, but there was no way I was going to put her through that.
I noticed some strange ones that made people look like certain celebrities. I found one to make you look like The Rock (just shave your head instead), a lot to make you look like K-Pop stars, and even one to help you look like Goku from Dragon Ball-Z. I don’t even know how the Goku one would work. He doesn’t look like a real person. How could someone tell if that was working? Someone please tell me.
But the one I saw the most was Ariana Grande. Holy shit, so many people want to be Ariana Grande on this weird side of YouTube. “Look like Ariana!” “Sound like Ariana!” “Sound, look, AND act like Ariana!” Imagine if this worked. Imagine just walking down the street and every other person was just Ariana Grande. That would be insanity. Thankfully, it doesn’t work, so that’s not a world I have to live in. I just found it odd that this section of YouTube so desperately craves to just be Ariana Grande that they’ll listen to these videos as they sleep just to get her nose or something. The comments of these videos are littered with people saying that their family and friends—sometimes even strangers on the street—are telling them that they look like Ariana.
Is there something I’m missing? Like I said, I can understand positive affirmations for confidence or whatever. But listening to a video to make you look like goddamn Goku?? It makes me a little sad to know that some people lack so much self confidence that they’ll watch videos like this, but I’m also fascinated. But most of all: I’m confused.
The appeal for these videos is definitely in its target audience’s self-esteem issues, which is incredibly messed up. My sister admitted to me that she used to watch these to change her eye color (obviously, this did not work), so it makes me think more about the large amount of preteens that are having their image issues fueled by videos like these that make it seem that only a handful of features are desirable. I don’t think these videos are the most harmful things on the internet, but they aren’t entirely harmless. Like I said, making videos that make people think they can take on these beauty “norms” just makes a younger, more impressionable audience feel that that is the only way to look and feel beautiful.
That being said, I am now tempted to look like Goku. God, I wish I was Goku.
