Growing up, Skylar Geiger said that other kids called her “SpongeBob” because of the gaps between her teeth.
“In real life and in social media I have been told that I was gorgeous until I smiled,” Geiger, who has 28,500 followers, said. She “hated” her smile because she frequently compared it to what she saw online.
Although her teeth have always been “very healthy,” they didn’t look like the perfectly aligned pearly whites that she desperately wanted. Since she didn’t have dental insurance and couldn’t afford the out-of-pocket expense, she turned to YouTube to change her teeth. Ahead of her 19th birthday in 2020, she bought dental cement, which is typically used for filling cavities, and applied the material to her teeth using the back of an earring. She documented the process on TikTok, joining hundreds of other viral dental “hacks” on the platform. Her video has over 2 million views.
Geiger’s DIY attempt is not uncommon — although she said she didn’t permanently damage her teeth, others haven’t been so lucky. Dental DIY content has become so pervasive on TikTok in recent years that it has begotten a generation of dentist-influencers who built followings by reacting to botched dental care. The tag #DIYdentist has over 3 million views on the app.
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The polished nature of social media can amplify viewers’ insecurities, especially if they don’t have access to affordable dental care. TikTok and YouTube are brimming with tutorials that promise the perfect smile, without the exorbitant cost of visiting a dentist without insurance. Many licensed dentists, orthodontists and oral surgeons, however, have expressed concern over the popularity of dental DIY content. Tutorials for unsafe bodily alterations abound online, and those involving teeth can result in permanent damage. Dental enamel doesn’t regenerate, so attempts to meet an already unattainable beauty standard can have lifelong consequences.
