Fake

I am half British.  I am a pale skinned person.  I am so pale, I probably glow under UV lights.  Every once in a little while, I apply some fake tan to my legs.  Yes, I am a 'tan-the-leg-only' kinda person.  And it has to be a SPECIAL occasion to warrant such effort.
I understand the appeal for tan skin.  It suggests healthyness, as opposed to sick, pale, maybe slightly red skin. 
But what I am flabbergasted by is how so many young people that I know are utterly obsessed with tan skin.  Their self-esteem depends on being brown (although sometimes they look orange...).  Someone I know didn't go to school cos they had a hole in their stockings and hadn't tanned their legs!! 
What the hell is the media doing to young people that demands them to want tanned skin?  (I have a feeling it may be Jersey Shore's fault... lol.)  How do they find the time, energy, money, patience to maintain such a tan?  I tried using the gradual every day building tan, and after about 4 days it all came off with the dead skin on the (white) towel!  So then what do you do, bust out 'le tan in a can' while you wait for the gradual tan to develop again over time?  TOO MUCH EFFORT!! 
It then leads me to my other bug bear, which extends from the need to have fake tan in to the need to have fake everything else - people go out on the town these days with fake eyelashes, fake hair extensions, fake nails, fake tan, fake boobs (in the plastic surgery form or the push up bra, chicken fillet form), fake height due to mega high heels...  The pressure to be the 'unobtainable ideal' is so prolific, more so than previous generations I am thinking.  I have no idea if I am right in assuming this, but I do not remember needing fake facial features or anything for my formal, or 18th brithday...
It's almost as if females are trying to Photoshop themselves in real life. 
And I hate to break it to you, but quite often, the amount of effort y'all go to to look completely not like your natural self, doesnt really make you look any better than you were before anyways...
I am troubled for these young people, who are growing up with unfairly distorted images of what is beautiful and what is normal, and I deeply hope that their self-esteem can be found in a healthier view of themselves.  But I actually believe that it is giong to get worse and that this bubble will never burst - as if pale skin would ever be in fashion!  And there is not much left to fake without resorting to drastic measures, unless they come up with teeth covers that look perfect without the need for braces, or plastic noses that blend right in with a little fake tan and eyelash glue.....
And my final question is, if you like to be tanned yourself, do you hate it when other people are traipsing around all pale and ghostlike?  Or do you forgive those people cos you dont really care what other people look like as long as you yourself don't look pale?  Cos if that is the case, wouldn't you assume that everyone else doesn't care what you look like, so you may as well pale it up.....?????
Give me some answers, some insight as to what makes you feel like you need to look how you  look.  I would love to know so I can understand better and be less judgemental (although I have tried to not sound judgemental, I reckon I am coming across that way so please help me to cool my jets....).  Is it the media's fault, or is it simply that you actually love putting on fake eyelashes?  Do you believe that they make you look better or do you do it cos everyone else does it, and if you don't, you look shit by comparison so even though you look super fantastic without them, you put them on to look as good as those who do have them on....
wow if you just finished reading all of that entire rant, I applaud you....
To conclude, I will finish by saying that I am not a make-up wearing person, yet I found myself wearing make-up on a recent holiday so that I would appear just as good in photographs as those I was travelling with.  If, one day, I find myself applying the eyelashes so that my eyes look as wide as someone elses in a photograph, I will eat my fake chicken fillet...