The Point, You Are Missing It

Someone asked the WaPo's Gene Weingarten about the Biden-Botox story—and referenced my post in the process, but that's only how I found it, not what interests me about it. What interests me is Weingarten's response:

Main Street: Who the hell cares whether Biden has had Botox treatments? With all the real issues The Post could be tackling, why on earth are columnists at The Post conjecturing on such a triviality? It speaks more to the Cult of Youth to which this country has fallen prey as it does of Biden.

As Melissa over at Shakespeare's Sister asks Seriously, aren't you the paper that brought down Nixon?

Gene Weingarten: You know, it's a GOSSIP column. In a very big paper filled with a lot of other stuff. Complaining that The Post is lowering itself to write stuff like this is like complaining that The Post isn't a serious publication because it carries comics.

Seriously, Gene—learn to logic. The point isn't that the Post shouldn't carry anything frivolous; the point is that gossip about someone's appearance and conjecture about how they might maintain it isn't actually "frivolous" in the first place.

Our culture's very public and unrelenting pastime of judging people's appearance is associated in large or small parts with racism, colorism, sizism, ageism, eating disorders, depression, bullying, suicide, appearance-based wage gaps, compulsive plastic surgery junkies, etc. etc. etc. Just because we treat something like No Big Deal doesn't mean that it is.

A little less conventional wisdom and a little more actual wisdom would be great.