I fucking hate thos saying. The moralizing of vanity is just another way to feel superior. The people who put a lot of work into how they look do so for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it's because they are just having fun but other times it's because they grow up being told that they are never enough. That they are simply being deficient for not trying hard enough in which case their lack of vanity becomes instead the moral failure of gluttony or sloth. There is no win state. So then you are simply reinforcing that who they are aside from their appearance is worthless because they are empty voids for caring about the one thing that might be a rare source of validation. We all experience the effects of the privilege of attractiveness or it's lack. A lot of us spend lifetimes unpacking the toxic effects of that programming. This isn't the way to go about stopping that cycle.

"Vanity makes a person ugly inside" is just another way to put someone down so the person wielding this cliche can feel big. It's moralizing someone's relationship to their physicality and preying on places where people are trained to be weak.

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't think taking care of your appearance, regardless of the reason, is vanity. When "being hot" is your entire personality, you tend to be an asshole, and that IS vanity.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

"Being Hot" is never someone's entire personality. Most of the time it's just the veneer used to keep people at a distance. There are advantages to not being hot - mainly you are not hassled by people for attention. Getting approached by people who want something from you all the time tends to make one put up walls. It's easier to be kind when so little is generally expected of you because it's not being demanded regularly.

Not everyone has the strength to be as nice and polite to the 50th person trying to score their number that week as they are to the first. We as a society spend way too much time dehumanizing people because of this shit. I am not conventionally attractive and I bless my lucky stars that I grew up never being denied affection by family or friends because I wasn't good looking. I see people at my job talk about the pretty actor folk behind their backs and it sounds just as catty and insecure as the shit people said about me for being unattractive.