The Invisible Scars of AI-Driven Beauty Standards

A Conversation with Melissa Johnson

What happens when artificial intelligence begins to decide what beauty looks like — and who gets to be seen as beautiful?

I recently sat down with Melissa Johnson, a marriage and family therapist, certified spiritual director, and author of Soul-Deep Beauty: Fighting for Our True Worth in a World Demanding Flawless. For years, Melissa taught a course on soul wellbeing at Bethel University, and her work now focuses on helping us expand our understanding of beauty itself.

Melissa believes the American brand of beauty is far too small — that it shames, divides, and exhausts us. Instead, she invites us to rediscover beauty as the life of God being played out all around us and within us.

As an artist who uses technology and search algorithms as my medium, I’ve seen how AI-driven ideals of perfection create new, invisible pressures — not only shaping how we see beauty, but how we see ourselves. My current series, Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty, now at The Whitney Museum of American Art, explores this digital distortion and the longing underneath it: the desire to be seen, known, and loved in our full humanity.

Together, Melissa and I explore what I call the invisible scars of AI-driven beauty standards — the subtle ways technology trains us to edit ourselves, to conform, to strive for flawlessness. We talk about how true, soul-deep beauty cannot be engineered or filtered. It must be reclaimed.

Melissa’s story is deeply personal. Her journey through an eating disorder revealed how chasing “broken beauty” breaks us. Yet she also discovered that real beauty — the kind that heals — is abundant and available. Her work now helps others:

• Uncover the hidden damage of cultural beauty lies

• Reconnect with the divine image within

• Walk away from shame and striving

• Love themselves and others unconditionally

In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms and artificial ideals, this conversation is a reminder: True beauty is not artificial. It’s alive.

Note: This episode includes some mature themes. Please be mindful of when and where you choose to listen.

Listen!