Elise Hu: The Beauty Ideal

Original broadcast date: November 12, 2021. We hear calls for systemic change, but what does that look like? This hour, TED speakers share stories of taking on institutions — from schools, to medicine, to policing — so they work for everyone. Guests include economist Emily Oster, ... Show More

It's never too late to make things right—even when cracks form within our relationships with our families, our environment...or the inevitable. This hour, TED speakers offer healing solutions.<br/><br/><em>TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more id ... Show More

Online linguist Adam Aleksic explains how he goes viral decoding internet slang. Plus, why making a living online means working for “the algorithm,” in part 2 of our creator economy series.<br/><br/><em>TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas ... Show More

<p>Humans have always been captivated by beauty, and for almost as long, we've been marketed products and new technologies to help us achieve certain beauty standards. Elise Hu is a journalist and the author of "Flawless: Lessons in looks and culture from the K-beauty industry." ... Show More

This time of year, folks are being inundated with messages about how to become more beautiful. But beauty is an ever-changing goalpost that has everything do with race, class and power. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy 

“Beauty isn’t all about just niceness, loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming.” Beloved Irish poet John O’Donohue on beauty’s true grit, and finding it in the transformational edges of our daily lives. Find more at onbeing.org/becoming-wise. 

The value society places on physical appearance has never quite made sense to blind presenter Lyndall Bywater and yet she's intrigued to discover why it matters so much to those of us in the sighted world. How much of an advantage is it to be beautiful? And what is physical beaut ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss beauty and its qualities."Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."That was John Keats' emphatic finale to his Ode on a Grecian Urn. It seems to express Plato's theory of aesthetics, his idea that an a ... Show More

When NPR host Elise Hu moved to South Korea to be an international correspondent, she ended up getting a crash course on Korean beauty and the country's billion-dollar cosmetics industry. She explains the rise of the industry, its appeal, and the high standards it sets for appear ... Show More

<p>Big beauty has spent well over a century using fear-mongering to marketing its products to us. Even if today it is more sophisticated in its methods and use of media, the mainstream industry is still telling us we are not good enough or beautiful enough. In effect, it is telli ... Show More

These days, beauty is a moral imperative, an ideal to live by, and one according to which we judge ourselves and others. As a result, we increasingly shape our identities around our bodies – and not just our actual bodies with their lumps and bumps, but our imaginary future bodie ... Show More