“I’ve been writing this book my whole life, documenting what it’s like to grow up on the internet,” says Ellen Atlanta over Zoom ahead of the U.S. release of Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women (St. Martin’s, Aug. 6).

Born in the U.K. in 1995, Atlanta blogged through her teens. Working in salons before transitioning to brand consulting, she was often asked what was important about, say, getting your nails done.

“We’d say, ‘Nothing. It’s about using beauty to incite conversations around bodily autonomy and feminism,’” she recalls.

Then, in the mid-2010s, a shift occurred that Atlanta attributes partly to then-teenage Kylie Jenner’s lip augmentation. “Overnight it went fromself-expression and fun—hair braiding and nail art—to young girls injecting their faces with filler and Botox to achieve a very prescriptive ideal face and body,” says Atlanta, who once spent a day with Jenner for a story she was reporting. “This idea that getting your face injected is empowering? The industry had become so divorced from what I started out in.”

So just before the pandemic, Atlanta quit her job and began writing her version of Naomi Wolf’s feminist treatise, The Beauty Myth for the Instagram age, which “felt urgent,” she says. “I think of [the book] as a time capsule of what it felt like to exist as a woman growing up in this space.”

Atlanta spoke to Kirkus about the debut that our critic, in a starred review, calls “courageous, revealing, and occasionally painful.” Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about the moment your perspective shifted.

I thought, How complicit have I been in an industry that’s maybe been more harmful than I’ve realized? I quit my job. It was peak Instagram feminism. There was a piece of merch going around: “Girls doing whatever the fuck they want.” All this messaging around “empowered.” I was talking to intelligent, talented, capable women and still hearing about food groups we couldn’t eat or how to edit your pictures before posting or to look presentable to raise business-venture funds. It created this culture in which it felt like everyone else was cured—and you were still struggling. Having to do these things secretly became more insidious.

What was your research process?

I interviewed all different types of women. The amount of shared suffering—stories that came up over and over again—was unsettling. We don’t realize how common these experiences are. Once I gave someone permission to speak about how they felt about their body, the floodgates opened.

Where do the Kardashians fit in?

They’re the faces of this hyperaugmented culture—Kylie specifically. I’ve spoken to so many women who started getting lip filler in their teens because of Kylie Jenner. So I resent the narrative of they’re not harming anyone. There’s a direct impact. They feed this idea that women are defective, that you have to be constantly improving. They also feed this narrative of natural beauty as the utmost virtue. So they’re holding this liminal space where they’re not going to admit they’ve had anything done because to do so would be to admit deceit, and yet they’re parading an aesthetic that requires artifice to maintain.

You write that as soon as women make gains, the beauty ideal tightens its grip. How are beauty standards used to keep women down?

So many ways. Think about the gender pay gap and then that women are expected to invest [money] in beauty work, which is so much more expensive for women than men. Even a haircut can be double the price, let alone the list of things you’re expected to do versus men, who just have to shower, cut their hair. Women are expected to do their lashes, eyebrows, skin, nails, hair, hair removal, very specific body composition. On top of that you’ve got Botox and filler and whether you’re going to visibly age, because that’s now a choice. We’re at an economic disadvantage and then we have to invest more to achieve some parity.

How did the internet change the trajectory?

It was gradual. The early internet wasn’t image based. Having access to a camera on your phone at all times, the advent of selfie culture, has hugely changed beauty culture. In any other historical period, you would have seen the faces of a few hundred people in your town. Today, I could easily see a thousand images, and an algorithm pushes those deemed most beautiful to the top.

Now, as a teenage girl, you might see Kylie Jenner, your friend from school, your auntie all on one feed, with no differentiation. So instead of looking at celebrities on a billboard or magazine, where you can detach from the messaging, everyone’s on the same plane. It’s flattening expectations for young women and girls. They feel like they should look like Kylie Jenner because she exists in the same realm as their friends.

I may never forget the young girl you interviewed who doesn’t go out because she doesn’t want to be seen unfiltered.

What was scary was that when she said that, all the girls around her were like, “Mm-hmm, yeah!”

What about online harassment?

The way women are attacked online is linked to beauty culture, to their images, to the way men feel entitled to dissect, dominate, and discuss women’s bodies even when it’s irrelevant to the discussion. It’s inherent in incel culture, these very specific roles and how women should show up in the world. So many women experience online abuse, and those who haven’t experienced it have witnessed it. That’s how control functions: You don’t have to have been a victim yourself; you just have to believe that you could be if you step out of line.

Does that worry you?

When I wrote the book, my parents’ concern was, Are you putting yourself on a chopping block? I talk about abortion and my experience with domestic violence—very personal things. But it felt worth it to bring women’s experiences forward. In a year’s time, I might feel different.

It’s concerning how many women are saying less and dampening their opinions, not wanting to be visible in an age where you have to be visible to be successful. We’re on this tightrope: You must be beautiful to be visible. But, also, don’t be too beautiful. And if you are too visible, we’re going to tell you you’re ugly or how we’d abuse you and violate your body.

I’ll ask you the question you’ve asked others: How can we create a more beautiful future for women and girls?

For me, the answer is “sorority is self-care.” We can make a more beautiful future by thinking and acting as a collective, making decisions with our sisters, mums, aunties, cousins, and friends in mind. Also refusing to exist in 2-D. A more beautiful future is one in which women and girls enjoy every dimension of life. Instead of thinking about what looks good to other people, [think about] what looks good to you,what tastes good for you. Eat delicious food. Speak up. Be the woman you needed when you were a kid. Combine that collective action of the ’60s and ’70s with the introspection we’ve learned, and instead of focusing on how we can fix ourselves within this eternally optimizing culture, turn that critical lens onto the culture and make decisions that are better for everyone.

Amy Reiter is a writer in Brooklyn.