Parasocial paternalism and embodied advice: How cosmetic medicine interventions are marketed on TikTok

Occupational credentials connect to broader power relations, provide authority used to justify appearance-based inequalities, and are linked to the social contexts implicated in cosmetic medical procedures and other beauty interventions. Plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentists, and other medical professionals offering cosmetic procedures advertise to global audiences on digital platforms, where they compete with less prestigiously credentialed counterparts offering beauty interventions of their own. How do content creators promoting cosmetic medicine procedures portray themselves and the procedures they offer to audiences, and how might these portrayals differ across creators’ occupational credentials and other identity characteristics? We apply thematic and categorical content analysis to TikTok videos produced by medical professionals, credentialed aestheticians, and adjacent content creators, in which creators promote consumer medicine procedures and other beauty interventions. Additionally, we analyze comments responding to these videos. We find men with higher-status occupational credentials frequently practice parasocial paternalism , portraying themselves as affable and approachable while centering themselves and other men in the beauty intervention process. Women across credential hierarchies conversely employ embodied advice , themselves pursuing showcased interventions rather than solely advertising them. Our findings illustrate interlinked empowerment and subjugation in online content showcasing cosmetic medicine procedures, and the complex ways online audiences respond to content creators’ reliance on legacy and populist symbols of expertise.