The Brotox Boom: Why More Men Are Turning to Plastic Surgery
Brent looks like the archetypal thirtysomething tech guy. Clad in dark jeans and a button-up, the marketing director fits right in at his startup in San Jose. He landed the gig with the usual Silicon Valley pedigree, having worked at a couple of startups and Fortune 500 companies. He keeps a regimented gym schedule. He’s also spent dozens of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in the tastefully beige Palo Alto office of his plastic surgeon, David Lieberman.
In fact, Brent (a pseudonym) is 52, his youthful appearance the result of rhinoplasty and a modified lower face-lift. He took a week off from a previous job to get the surgery. “Knowing I’m going back in to fight for another two or three jobs and that I’m going to be surrounded by a bunch of thirtysomethings,” he says, “my take was: I don’t have a problem looking 10 or 15 years younger than I am.”
He’s not alone. Among men, cosmetic procedures have more than tripled over the past decade, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, and neurotoxin procedures—aka the use of injectables like Botox—more than doubled from 2010 to 2016. In particular, the tech campuses of Silicon Valley have become a boon for discreet scalpel- and syringe-wielding doctors.
“It’s acute here because the premium we place on being young is so disproportionate with the rest of the United States,” says San Francisco plastic surgeon Carolyn Chang. “These professional men are all coming in for the same reason: It’s job-related.” Seth Matarasso, a cosmetic dermatologist based in San Francisco, claims the dubious distinction of being the single largest provider of Botox in the world.
Midcareer techies are confronted by both C-suite millennials and mysteriously fresh-faced, abundantly maned tech titans. (Certain hairlines are “going the opposite direction you would expect,” quips Palo Alto plastic surgeon Sachin Parikh.) Of course, few clients cop to the pursuit of youth. “They’ll say they want to look more ‘refreshed,’ ” says Bay Area laser dermatologist Vic Narurkar.
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Rejuvenation does come at a price. Most men begin their antiaging regimen with Botox or other injectables to smooth frown lines and crow’s feet ($375 per treatment, on average). “It’s nicknamed Brotox,” Parikh says. “And it’s definitely a gateway drug.” They may graduate to eyelid surgery (a $3,200 defense against “you look tired”); neck lifts ($4,365 to abate “tech neck”); brow lifts ($3,400 to correct resting angry face, exacerbated by squinting at screens); and male breast reduction, whose popularity—at $3,800 a pop—has risen more than 180 percent over the past two decades. CoolSculpting, a nonsurgical procedure that freezes away fat cells, is on the rise. In a valley of lifehackers, male tech workers are early adopters.
Brent views his interventions as a necessary supplement to his already healthy Bay Area lifestyle. “We go to the gym, we watch what we eat,” he says. “This is just an extension of that.” (A 35-year-old friend recently asked him if he wanted to try Ambrosia, referring to the biotech startup that offers a form of parabiosis—transfusing adults with the blood of 16-to 25-year-olds.) And he would “absolutely” consider another procedure, he says. “I’m not looking to retire. I have another 20 years in me. So I’m like, yeah, this is one of my new tools.”
Read More
Real Wedding, Virtual Space •
The Pursuit of Youth •
The Digital Vision Problem •
The True Screen Addicts •
Gamers Age Out •
Rebooting Reproduction •
Silicon Valley's Brotox Boom •
The Next Steve Jobs •
Solving Health Issues at All Stages
This article appears in the April issue. Subscribe now.
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