Gold Coast’s Leonie deletes TikTok, cuts back Insta after botched cosmetic procedure

Being hyper-focused on how you look will “consume every ounce of your being”, warns a Gold Coast woman who has taken herself off TikTok after a botched cosmetic procedure.

A Gold Coast nursing student who “got botched” in a cosmetic procedure says social media “strips you of your identity” – and it’s time to reclaim hers.

Leonie Van Gool, 24, has taken herself off TikTok and cut back on Instagram, platforms she says “normalise having something to hate about yourself”.

Ms Van Gool, of Ormeau on the Gold Coast, joined Instagram at 12.

“I’ve grown up with it so I know it is fake and curated,” she says.

“You put a filter on like Facetune and it removes every imperfection, so it’s telling you that’s what you need fixed.

Artificial intelligence generates a face for you (like this image), says Gold Coast nursing student Leonie Van Gool. Picture: iStock.

“Artificial intelligence generates a face for you – the most perfect version of me – and this leads people to (get) cosmetic surgery.

“But the outcome of cosmetic surgery is very different to what you see on your phone. Every face is unique.”

Last year, Ms Van Gool went to a “reputable” clinic to get dermal fillers in her tear troughs to eliminate bags under her eyes.

“It’s false advertising, because the dark circles stay because of pigmentation in the skin, but also in my case, the person injected me with the wrong solution and my eye sockets went black like I’d been punched,” she says.

Gold Coast nursing student Leonie Van Gool, 24. Picture: Adam Head

After having the fillers removed, something even better happened.

“I really learned to love myself as I am – after getting botched, I was thankful to get my eye bags back,” she says.

“I had a new appreciation for them.”

Ms Van Gool says social media is “very glamorised, but it shouldn’t be”.

“It strips you of your identity, and after my filler removal, I wondered ‘why did I hate myself so much?’”

She says it is common for people to only post photos they “look good in”.

“But when I delete every ugly photo of me, I look at Instagram and see a version of me that I’ve curated,” she says.

“What do I actually like? I forget.”

Ms Van Gool embarked on a social media detox to thwart algorithms that “keep sending you stuff that makes you ask, ‘how does that other girl look so pretty?’”

“There is more to life than how you look,” she says.

“And being so hyper-focused on how you look is going to consume every ounce of your being.

“Seeing what’s wrong with you can inhibit your quality of life.”