EBN- Devyn Aiken didn’t think she was unattractive before this past November. That’s a common misconception among her 61,500 followers on TikTok, but in reality, she didn’t need to undergo surgery to gain confidence. It’s a lot simpler than that.
“I thought I was a pretty girl. I didn’t think I was ugly … You could ask anyone. They would think that I am very confident, very secure with who I was,” she tells PEOPLE just nine weeks after going under the knife. “I just thought I had a huge nose that I hated.”
Since her nose job, Aiken, 30, has filled her TikTok page with videos discussing the procedure, documenting her recovery, and comparing her face on either side of the operation. She’s steadily established herself as a plastic surgery influencer, so to speak. Her comments sections are filled with encouraging comments, questions from potential rhinoplasty candidates, and, of course, the expected naysayers condemning her decision.
Video Went Viral
“I documented it from day one, posting a video when I was on my bed recovering still,” Aiken explains, reflecting on her rise to viral attention. “I was just like, ‘Wait, this might help other people.’ I just want to document everything about the journey.”
Aiken posts plenty of “before” photos from the first three decades of her life before she had triple board-certified plastic surgeon and ENT Dr. Mark Ginsburg shape her nose at the end of last year. But scroll back just a few months and you’ll see plenty of Aiken’s pre-surgery nose in more typical day-in-the-life content that she shared before gaining a following.
“I left all my videos up, my photos, and I’m just owning it. I got a nose job,” she notes. “I’m not going to erase who I was. And I love posting the before and after because it’s such a dramatic difference.”
The Philadelphia-based paralegal doesn’t feel any reason to hide her cosmetic surgery or feel shameful about seeking it out. This move was 29 years in the making, says Aiken. She’s hated her nose for her whole life, though she notes that it grew noticeably larger during her tween and early teen years.
“I was bullied a lot, especially in middle school, and it was just from guys,” she says. “They would call me all type of mean names like bird, Toucan Sam, so much mean stuff … I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. This is all they talk about — my nose. So if I change that, what can they talk about?'”
It took years to save up for what turned out to be an $11,000 surgery, but during the time Aiken spent stashing away funds, she was able to thoroughly educate herself and figure out exactly what she wanted.
