Boycott InMode

Your jawline is not more important than Palestine.

InMode: The Intersection of Necropolitics, Medical Aesthetics, Capitalism, zionism/israel and Influencer Culture

I want to start off by saying boycotting InMode is not about purity. I as an influencer/content creator am refusing to participate in the beauty culture, medical aesthetics and “influencer aspiration” to launder political violence into something glamorous, consumable and apolitical.

I’ve seen more East Asian influencers push InMode treatments than anyone else. We as a community of East Asians and beauty influencer need to stop. We have a responsibility to learn where our money is going and who/what we are directing cashflow towards. That is not neutral, that is a form of power that has been misused to support individual wealth and capital.

We shape desire, we control where people aspire to spend there money.

Israel is weaved discreetly into our skincare and beauty. Technology and corporations pedal that skincare is self-care and “it’s just some tightening” but that is capitalism’s bandaid on deeper political matters. We should know who owns these companies, where these companies are based, what are the systems that we are feeding into, what politics are attached to the technologies and procedures we are normalizing and endorsing. You do not have to agree to every boycott but you should know what you are supporting and this essay will attempt and expand more on these topics.

Beauty Culture Wants to be Exempt From Politics

It wants the soft aesthetics of self-care, the language of empowerment, the fantasy of transformation, without admitting that beauty is also a lucrative industry, a supply chain, a medical market, a site of capital based on insecurities. It croons the promises of eternal youth: tighter skin, smaller pores, lifted fat, regenerated collagen, confidence, access, and renewal. But that promise does not exist outside the world that produced it in the first place.

This is why I often talk about necropolitics when it comes to desirability politics and beauty culture. Necropolitics names the power to decide who is allowed to live, who is left to die, and whose death or suffering becomes normal, profitable, or politically disposable. Beauty culture may seem far away from this kind of violence, but they are neighbors. The same global systems that sell some of us optimization, softness, and aesthetic self-improvement are the same systems that abandon, occupy, extract from, and destroy bodies deemed as ‘less important’ elsewhere. The fantasy of beauty is often built on the disavowal of marginalized communities.

This is why I say InMode cannot be treated as ‘just another treatment’, ‘just another machine’, ‘just another med spa service’ coated in the promises of sharper jawlines or tighter skin. InMode exists inside a political economy. It’s technologies circulate through clinics, med spas, influencers, beauty content, consumer desire and through the normalization of an israeli industry amid ongoing Palestinian death. To pretend that beauty is exempt from this boycott because of beauty or femininity or whatever is to deliberately misunderstand how power works.

What is InMode?

InMode is not just one “treatment”. It is a company headquartered in yoknam, israel. Often it gets marketed as if it’s just a generic beauty service, but it’s a branded medical-aesthetic technology ecosystem. InMode develops, manufactures and markets RF-based aesthetic technologies.

It is not just a jaw tightening procedure, they have many treatments including the following:

• morpheus 8

• facetite/bodytite/accutite

• quantum rf

• evolvex

• picofy

• lumecca

• vasculaze

• forma/solaria

Influencer Culture and InMode

I always wondered why the kardashians started pushing morpheus 8 so hard, now it makes sense. InMode didn’t just come into the spotlight through Tiktok, it has been pushed continuously by the celebrities we see gracing the met gala carpet. We’ve continued this sheep like promoting through before-and-afters, clinic collabs, K-beauty trips, med spa after med spa reels, and aesthetic “glow up” content. That means influencers have had an active helping hand in making InMode desirable.

I’m asking my fellow creators to stop accepting comped InMode treatments, stop tagging clinics that push it, and ask clinics what machines they use. Not every laser is sourced from israel but many are, and a clinic worth promoting will know that information and be transparent with you the creator.

You Literally Will Not Die if You Don’t Get This Treatment + How to Boycott InMode Practically

“There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.” Duh yes, correct. But “no ethical consumption” was never supposed to mean “no responsibility”, “no research”, “no care.” I’m not claiming this is about morality, it’s not about how individual consumers can fix everything alone, I’m suggesting a coordinated effort in refusing to create profit and desirability for a company supporting a genocide.

Ways to boycott:

• do not book InMode treatments

• ask clinics what devices they use before booking RF, lifting, tightening, contouring or skin treatments

• avoid influencer collaborations that promote InMode

• ask med spas to offer alternatives

• do not accept free treatments from clinics using InMode

• comment or DM clinics politely asking them to switch devices

• make a boycott lists for beauty/aesthetic clinics in you area

• support providers using non-InMode alternatives

“Is this antisemtic?”

No. Critiquing or boycotting an israeli company because of state violence, occupation, or Palestinian civil society calls for boycott is not the same as targeting Jewish people.

Beauty is an industry, and industries are not and should not be politically exempt.

Vocab/Concepts <3

Aesthetic Capitalism - an economic system where visual and emotional “feel” of a product/experience rather than its raw utility or function drives its market value and consumer demand.

Medical Aesthetics - minimally invasive, science based cosmetic treatments designed to enhance appearance and correct skin concerns.

The colonial face / The optimized face - 3 different meanings

• historical artistic - a face found in a portrait/photography or forensic facial reconstruction originating from the colonial era

• an insult - it’s an odd, hyper-specific internet insult but also refers to “face fresh face off the mayflower”, but I also relate this to like “instagram face”

• sociological concepts - in critical theory and ethnic studies the “colonial face” or “colonial gaze” refers to how colonization shaped modern beauty standards.

Pinkwashing / Wellness-washing / Beauty-washing - the practice of superficially using support for the LGBTQIA+ community/breast cancer awareness/feminism movements to promote a brand, deflect from harmful practices or improve a public image.

Consumer Complicity - the idea that buyers are indirectly responsible, or ethically “complicit” for the harmful practices of the companies they purchase from.

Boycott - an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying or dealing with a person, organization or country as a form of protest.

Aspirational Laundering - practice of individuals, brands or organizations masking their lack of progress, substance or ethical practices by surrounding themselves with the aesthetic, language or values of high-achieving or socially conscious peers.

• think like greenwashing or status washing and virtue signaling.

Supply chain ethics - the integration of social, environmental and legal responsibility into every tier of a products journey.. requires businesses to eliminate forced or child labor, ensure safe working conditions, reduce environmental impace, and prevent corruption from raw material sourcing to final delivery.

Racial Capitalism - framework proposing that the development of capitalism and the history of racism or mutually dependent.

zionist normalization - just look into this yourself ya’ll

Soft Power - a nation’s ability to influence other countries and shape global preferences through attraction and persuasion.

• think about Korea and K-pop/drama and food etc.

Self-Care as Commodity - the commercialization of wellness, where mental and physical well-being are repackaged into purchasable goods and services.

Influencer Economy - a digital platform-driven market where content creators and social media personalities monetize their online audiences.