I rolled my eyes when I saw your comment, then I watched the video. The lips and cheeks are distinctly botox'd.

Why would you get botox at 37? Unless it's medical.

I know lots of people in their late 20s / early 30s who get botox.

I personally don't understand it either, but it's definitely a thing.

What are the reasons you've heard your friends give? I don't know anyone who's done it.

They’re very self conscious about wrinkles, in a nutshell, and they think wrinkles make them look old. These are single / actively dating people in a city, too, FWIW.

Self-esteem issues

There's supposedly an increasingly common practice of starting early, so the wrinkles in those areas don't ever develop in the first place...

I imagine it also prevents a more abrupt change later on if you're intending to do it. Going from an expressive wrinkled face to a paralyzed one in your 50s would be much more jarring for your peers, than just lacking expressiveness much of your adult life.

It's all a rather weird form of vanity to me.

Perhaps he's beginning his transformation into the Third Bogdanoff

Looks like he had his nose done, has definitely had Botox - I don’t think he’s had fillers, looks like steroid puffiness. Probably adjusting to something hormonal, might be getting over COVID or similar with some help.

Looks like botox and fillers to me

Yeah he's almost unrecognisable from his Hacker News interviews.