Surgery transformation videos are a genre unto themselves on TikTok. Nearly always set to a mashup called “Celebrate the Good Times,” the videos count down to the big day, switching frames every few beats as the numbers tick away until the big reveal when the beat drops. Dance music crescendos and the creator, usually a teenage girl, smiles through bandages.
Sometimes the surgery is gender-affirming, such as facial feminization surgery. Sometimes the videos are about breast reductions for women who rejoice about the end of back pain and expensive bras or, in the case of one TikToker [the author follows], the triumphant removal of her halo neck brace months after a traumatic car accident. But most often, they’re nose jobs.