In morning routine videos across the internet, young women awake looking like hostage victims. Their mouths are taped shut, their jaws are wrapped in bandage-like tape, and their hair is tangled up in a mess of rollers. These «morning shed routines,» a type of hyper-optimized beauty regimen, crop up everywhere. Some screenshots have even made it to Twitter, where commenters are quick to criticize. One wrote, «We’re never getting out of the patriarchy.» But while these extreme beauty routines are indeed indicative of the insane expectations we place on appearance, especially for women, they’re more symbolic than they are real.