Not With The Band: When Uber Fans Go Under The Knife

Thom Yorke’s drooping eyelid

Almost everyone who has been a fan of a rockstar, has been victim of mimicry: you admire so much the man or the woman that you want to look like him or her. But most of the time, you limit yourself at wearing the same teeshirt, wearing the same boots, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Every time I go to a concert, there are clones of the star in the room, wearing the same outfit and having the same haircut. Rockstars are trend setting and if it doesn’t come an obsession, it is fun! But some fans push it further, much further, and it’s no fun anymore, it’s simply scary! I don’t know if you remember about that young guy who had spent $100,000 in 5 years to look like idiot Justin Bieber… The guy was not a baby anymore, but a 33-year-old fan, who had apparently a lot of money to waste. The result was not so convincing, he just looked like a 13-year-old chubby Bieber, which is very embarrassing for a 30 something grown man. I wonder whether he has had any regret since, now that Bieber has turned hooligan. However, this guy is not alone, not at all!

Denver’s Westword reports that the waiting room of Dr. Cynthia Mason (a plastic surgeon in Denver, Colorado) has been filled with people eager to have an eye surgery that make them look more like Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke: ‘The treatment, which Dr. Mason perfected by slicing a small section of the eyelid, has been dubbed by local fanatics as the “Yorke cut.” In the simplest terms, the $600 surgery gives fans a chance to re-create on their own person the trademark Thom Yorke amblyopic left eye.’

What? And they are not kidding! First of all I read that Yorke doesn’t have amblyopia but just a drooping of his left upper eyelid called ptosis, but this is beyond the point… a lazy upper eyelid is not something anyone would be eager to have, but what about paying to get one??

‘It’s sort of out of the ordinary for a surgery, but I picture it to be like tattoos or piercings and perhaps one day be accepted by mass culture,’ said one of the guys interviewed by the paper and waiting for the surgery. Am I out of hand by saying that this guy needs to have his brain examined? Does he need therapy? I would say very probably.

But again, he is not alone, as Dr. Mason told the paper: ‘I’ve been getting calls and setting appointments with people from around the world. The original idea was to create a symmetric balance between the two eyes. Eventually they’d correct themselves, while allowing for young kids to look as normal as possible.’ She first developed the surgery to battle amblyopia, and I bet she didn’t see this Thom Yorke copycat coming, but why is she accepting to do the surgery to these crazy hipsters?

Another patient, the first one to have undergone the surgery, sees himself like a ‘trendsetter’: ‘I’ve set the stage for what we, as fans and devoted listeners, can really do to show our appreciation for the greatest rock band the world has ever seen.’

Are they right, is it the same thing that having a tattoo of your favorite band on the arm? I am not that sure… And what would Thom Yorke think of all this? I bet he would be very embarrassed and feel sorry for these obsessed fans.

This is not an isolated case, people have been under the knife to look like their favorite pop-rockstar. There are actually two Brazilian women (may be more) who got buttock fillers, breast implants and liposuction to look like Jennifer Lopez, and an English woman who spent £ 60,000 to look like Lady Gaga… something tells me she is not the only one, but these people must have a hard time to keep up with the ever-changing original. And there are, of course, some Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley look alines.

Is there gonna be an end to this kind of stuff? I guess no! As long as doctors are gonna accept to do it… Some make a living out of it, other ones see it as a homage, like the guys with the Thom York lazy eyelid, but plastic surgery is often associated with body dysmorphic disorder and tied with mental illness. To me it’s much more serious than a homage or a tattoo, it’s a permanent change in your body, face… it’s easy to say but next time, they should just try to buy a band shirt.