Amazing News 2020

Your body, your self, your surgeon, his Instagram

January 24, 2021 | by Julian L. Mertz | No comments

PLUS: A high-stakes Covid experiment, and an Operation Warp Speed for climate.

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01.24.21

Breast implants. Butt lifts. Liposuction. Cosmetic surgery is out there in the public sphere—discussed, analyzed, praised. Its popularity has soared amid the pandemic. The rapper Iggy Azalea rhapsodized about her breast implants to an E! News reporter: "I love them so much I had to talk about them." Cosmetic surgeons are out there, too, slicing abdomens, removing fat, and showing off their artistic skills to thousands of followers on social media. The writer Katherine Laidlaw learned about one of these celebrity cosmetic surgeons, a Toronto doctor named Martin Jugenberg, who goes by the digital sobriquet Dr 6ix. Jugenberg livestreams surgeries on Instagram, providing information on the process and commenting on his anesthetized patients while head-bopping to music in Dr 6ix-branded scrubs.

Some of Jugenberg's patients have not been pleased with this entertainment. They felt they had been pressured to allow their bodies to be put on display. Several filed suit, saying he had used their images without their informed consent. What had felt like an empowering decision about their own bodies felt afterward like a violation. One woman who saw the video after her surgery said hearing Jugenberg critique her body made her feel like a piece of meat. "I was totally embarrassed. He had me sliced open and was sticking a cannula in my body. That wasn't enough? Why was he shaming me in front of everybody?" In her story, Laidlaw talks to these women and attempts to untangle what happens when your doctor is also an influencer.

Vera Titunik | Features Editor, WIRED

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Your Body, Your Self, Your Surgeon, His Instagram

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