{"id":50289,"date":"2026-05-11T13:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-became-a-journalist-because-i-love-storytelling-i-didnt-think-id-end-up-spending-over-6000-on-my-appearance\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:01:10","slug":"i-became-a-journalist-because-i-love-storytelling-i-didnt-think-id-end-up-spending-over-6000-on-my-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-became-a-journalist-because-i-love-storytelling-i-didnt-think-id-end-up-spending-over-6000-on-my-appearance\/","title":{"rendered":"I became a journalist because I love storytelling. I didn&#8217;t think I&#8217;d end up spending over $6,000 on my appearance."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e77f773fecbb42897a21c4?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Woman smiling on bench\"\/><figcaption>I&#039;ve spent over $6,000 on my appearance for my job. It helped for a while, but I changed my perspective once I hardly recognized myself.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Van De Peer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I started my journalism career because I love storytelling. Eventually, I was doing work on camera.<\/li>\n<li>I struggled to watch myself on screen, so I started changing my appearance with filler and makeup.<\/li>\n<li>After spending thousands on &quot;tweakments&quot; and beauty products, I realized I&#039;d missed the point.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and naive teenager, I was keen to work in journalism, an industry in which the written word was valued above all else.<\/p>\n<p>I spent years refining my craft, wanting to be the best storyteller possible: I invested in workshops to sharpen my writing skills, pitched dozens of outlets, and spent countless hours building connections with editors.<\/p>\n<p>I hadn&#039;t been &quot;working on&quot; my appearance as part of my career prep\u2014 it wasn&#039;t something I thought I had to do.<\/p>\n<p>But in an age when so many people get their updates from TikTok videos or news segments, I started to feel that my work could only achieve widespread appeal if I had the looks to back it up.<\/p>\n<h2>As my job required more work on camera, I started paying for &#039;tweakments&#039; and beauty products<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e77f39367066d7c296f0e5?format=jpeg\" alt=\"woman smiling in selfie\"\/><figcaption>I spent years preparing for a career in journalism, but I hadn&#039;t thought much about changing my appearance to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Van De Peer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After publishing my first national feature at 21, I found myself among a seemingly infinite community of freelance journalists, and quickly learned the importance of building a personal brand.<\/p>\n<p>To stand out (and hopefully keep getting more work), I realized I&#039;d have to do way more than just sit at my desk and write \u2014 I&#039;d also need to be active on social media and able to hop on camera for documentaries and news segments.<\/p>\n<p>Later that year, I set foot in front of a professional camera for the first time, appearing in a short film for BBC World News.<\/p>\n<p>As I watched the footage back, I remember being able to pick out (at least) five features I disliked about myself: My face was too round, my brows were too thin, my lips disappeared when I smiled, my lashes didn&#039;t look long enough, and I had acne.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;d been comfortable in front of the camera during filming \u2014 and, deep down, I know that&#039;s what mattered \u2014 but I hated how I felt watching myself on video.<\/p>\n<p>After that, I was determined to improve how I looked on screen. I wanted to always feel camera-ready, no matter the cost.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e77f02a98bc8fdc096ce4e?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Woman smiling on phone\"\/><figcaption>Over the next few years, I spent thousands of dollars creating a new look for myself.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Van De Peer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Instead of saving or investing my hard-earned money, I splashed out on brand-new clothes, designer bags and shoes, fake tan, expensive skincare, false lashes, and brow laminations.<\/p>\n<p>I even paid for &quot;tweakments,&quot; minimally invasive cosmetic procedures meant to enhance one&#039;s natural features, like lip fillers and Botox.<\/p>\n<p>I remember looking at a photo of myself three days after my lip flip and feeling an almost embarrassing sense of euphoria: Finally, I felt I&#039;d met my own impossibly high beauty standards. <em>This<\/em> was what camera-ready felt like.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e77f023fecbb42897a21bb?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Woman smiling in selfie\"\/><figcaption>As I spent more money on my appearance, I felt boosts of confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Van De Peer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For a while, these routines and tweaks helped me stop overthinking about my appearance on-camera. I was comfortable enough in my skin to get professional headshots taken, and I felt less inhibited when speaking publicly.<\/p>\n<p>My new look gave me confidence to start presenting content on TikTok, but I still spent longer than I&#039;d care to admit adjusting camera angles, finding my best side, and analyzing my face with a hypercritical eye.<\/p>\n<h2>A few years and several thousand dollars later, I realized I&#039;d missed the point<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69e77f083fecbb42897a21bd?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Woman smiling in selfie, hand on chest\"\/><figcaption>Despite investing so much in my appearance, the pangs of low self-esteem still hit me from time to time.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Van De Peer<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In seven years, I&#039;d easily spent over $6,000 on my &quot;glow-up.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>And yet, I&#039;d started feeling guilty and hollow as I looked at pictures of myself. The girl in the photos was an absolute baddie \u2014 there&#039;s no doubt about that \u2014 but she wasn&#039;t <em>me<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite investing so much in my appearance, the pangs of low self-esteem still hit me from time to time. Ultimately, it all felt a bit pointless.<\/p>\n<p>None of the tweaks had changed the tangible qualities that actually made me good at my job. I was still the same great, articulate storyteller I&#039;d always been \u2026 just with fuller lashes and an emptier bank account.<\/p>\n<p>Honestly, I have regrets about investing so much into my appearance when I could&#039;ve spent the same amount of money on courses on court reporting, pitching masterclasses, or even pursuing a journalism degree.<\/p>\n<p>As I wrap up my 20s, I&#039;m pledging to stop spending money on &quot;tweakments&quot; and to try a little harder to embrace my natural beauty.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I&#039;ll never be 100% comfortable watching myself on screen, but I&#039;ve realized having true confidence in my career will never come from throwing money at every perceived imperfection.<\/p>\n<p>It comes from refocusing on my skills and why I became a journalist in the first place: to tell high-quality stories and take myself out of the picture.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#039;ve spent over $6,000 on my appearance for my job. It helped for a while, but I changed my perspective once I hardly recognized myself. Hannah Van De Peer I started my journalism career because I love storytelling. Eventually, I was doing work on camera. I struggled to watch myself on screen, so I started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}