Do All Asians Look the Same?: A Comparative Analysis of the East Asian Facial Color Desires using Instagram

Abstract: Selfies represent people's desires, and social media platforms like Instagram have been flooded with them. This study uses selfie data to examine how peoples' desires for ideal facial representations vary by region, particularly in East Asia. Through the analysis, we aim to refute the "all Asians prefer identical visuals," which is a subset of the prevalent Western belief that "all Asians look the same." Our findings, reinforced by postcolonial interpretations, dispute those assumptions. We propose a strategy for resolving the mismatch between real-world desires and the Western beauty market's views. We expect the disparity between hegemonic color schemes and the augmented skin colors shown by our results may facilitate the study of color and Asian identity.