Roughly 66% of TikTok’s billion-plus active monthly users are younger than 24, and 27 percent are between the ages of 13-17.
The popularity of plastic surgery on it and other social media platforms is problematic for some patients, profitable for some providers.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority went so far as to ban cosmetic surgery ads aimed at social media users under the age of 18.
In Jan., 2021, INSIDER wanted to test just how exposed to suggestions of body-altering plastic surgery the app’s younger audience might be.
The publication created an account, telling TikTok they were 14-years-old, and then started scrolling.
They hit their first plastic surgeon eight minutes later.
The video, from one of the industry’s most prominent creators, shared tips on how to prepare for plastic surgery.
Videos using the hashtag “plastic surgery” have been viewed 14.9 billion times since the app launched in September 2016.
That’s more views than have been accumulated by videos using such hashtags as fathersday (6.8B) protein, (5.9B), or stretching (4.3B) —yet far fewer views than videos using the hashtags dance (481B), makeup (314B), gym (212B), weightloss (64.5B), dentist (24.7B), and many others.
Physicians Create 51% of Plastic Surgery Content on TikTok
According to a study that analyzed 420 plastic surgery videos on TikTok, just over 51 percent of plastic surgery-related content on the platform is created by physicians, with 71 percent of the physician-created content coming from board-certified plastic surgeons.
That study, “Presence of Cosmetic and Aesthetic Surgery on TikTok,” by researchers out of Yale University’s Department of Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Section, appeared in PRS Global Open last month.
“The majority (60.2%) of the posts were self-promotional,” say the authors.
That’s compared to 83 percent of similar content on Instagram being self-promotional, the authors write.
Twenty-five percent of plastic surgeons’ posts on TikTok were classified as educational.
Most Popular Plastic Surgery Hashtags, Videos on TikTok
With a combined 7.1 billion video views, “#BBL” is the single most popular plastic surgery hashtag on TikTok. It stands for Brazilian butt lift.
“#Nosejob,” with 4.8 billion views, is the second most popular plastic surgery hashtag on TikTok.
Last year, an average of 60 BBL surgeries were done daily across the United States.
More than 16X that many nose jobs were done, for an average of 965 per day throughout 2021.
Nose job (rhinoplasty) surgery was the #1 most popular plastic surgery procedure of the year while BBL surgery ranked 17th out of the 28 procedures for which the American Society of Plastic Surgeons tracks statistics.
In addition to videos on individual plastic surgery procedures that have racked up billions of views, other hashtags related to plastic surgery appreciate views anywhere from several hundred million to more than several billion.
Videos using the hashtag “PlasticSurgery” have a combined 14.9 billion views. The hashtag CosmeticSurgery has 696 million views, Botched has 544.5 million, PlasticSurgeryCheck has 390.8 million, and PlasticSurgeryRegret has 72,000 views.
Top 20 Plastic Surgery Hashtags on TikTok
| No. | Hashtag | Views |
| 1 | BBL | 7.1B |
| 2 | Nosejob | 4.8B |
| 3 | Rhinoplasty | 3.3B |
| 4 | Lipo | 3B |
| 5 | TummyTuck | 1.9B |
| 6 | TopSurgery | 1.7B |
| 7 | GastricSleeve | 1.7B |
| 8. | HairTransplant | 1.6B |
| 9 | Liposuction | 1.3B |
| 10 | BreastReduction | 1.1B |
| 11 | Facelift | 1.2B |
| 12 | BreastAugmentation | 819M |
| 13 | BreastImplants | 727.7M |
| 14 | BodyContouring | 554.9M |
| 15 | Otoplasty | 521M |
| 16 | MommyMakeover | 504.6M |
| 17 | Abdominoplasty | 493.2M |
| 18 | BreastLift | 361.8M |
| 19 | BII | 269M |
| 20 | Blepharoplasty | 247.4M |