TikTok Influencer Madeline Argy Warns Of Disturbing Botox Side Effect That Left Her “Trapped In A Cage”

Ah, Botox. That magical, youth-preserving neurotoxin once gatekept by celebrities has become an abundantly flowing substance, trickling down from Hollywood to suburbia. Where it was once administered discreetly in swanky Sunset Boulevard clinics, now you can pass three injection sites on your way to Target. (And while I support women’s right to choose cosmetic enhancements, I do not support getting injected at the local mall.)

The Botox Boom

Botox has changed the game for regular women. Well, women who can afford up to $600 per session every three to four months. Still, it’s become far more common, affordable, and normalized among the nepotism-less class. It’s no bargain, but in industries that prize youth and vanity? It’s liquid gold with compounding returns. Injectors know this and do everything they can to make it more accessible, offering financing plans, membership discounts, and pricing bundles that charge by area instead of by the unit.

With this ubiquity came destigmatization. Twenty years ago, if your neighbor Fran were getting cosmetic enhancements, it would’ve raised eyebrows. I mean, what’s her deal? Is she an aspiring movie star? But today, no one’s eyebrows are raising at all, thanks to the widespread adoption of Botox. Most women with a social media presence or tie to the beauty industry are getting work done. People discuss it openly, honestly, and free of shame. The perception has shifted from an indulgence only fussy, affluent women are concerned with to a minimally invasive staple in the average woman’s beauty regimen.

A "Minimally Invasive" Illusion

And as far as cosmetic enhancements go, Botox is by far the most banal. Its aesthetic properties are preventative and preservative, meaning they don’t really alter appearances, but keep you looking fresh over time. Administered young, it prevents the formation of wrinkles, specifically, dynamic wrinkles—the kind that form from repeated facial movements.

Administered once wrinkles have formed, it smoothes fine lines and creases to gently turn back the clock without anything jarringly transformative. It’s also temporary, so though it paralyzes your facial muscles where it’s administered by blocking nerve signals to the muscles, the effects wear off over months. Maintaining the same effect requires continuous upkeep through regular re-injection.

Aging in the Spotlight

I have great sympathy for women aging in the public eye or working in fields that are hyper-image sensitive. The scrutiny that comes with aging as a woman is a tale as old as time. It’s only natural, then, that we’d want to avoid that scrutiny—the anxiety that comes with each passing birthday, or, god forbid, the evidence of a life well lived. I’m not here to condescend or tell you to transcend the need for self-esteem or social approval. After all, how many of us wear makeup on a daily basis?

What I am here to tell you is that Botox has side effects a little more dystopian than its marketing would suggest, certainly more than the average concealer. Only, hardly anyone talks about them. So when 22-year-old influencer Madeline took to TikTok to confess (against her initial instincts to lie) that the inability to emote with her face is causing her genuine distress, I thought: wow. Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?

In a short TikTok video filmed from her car, Argy makes a confession against her initial instinct to lie, “I got Botox for the first time in my life and I f***ing can’t move, okay? I can’t move, and I feel so trapped. This is me frowning—this is me trying to frown.” (She attempts to emote, but her face remains frozen. If she hadn’t stated she’s trying to frown, I’d have no idea it was happening.) “I literally feel like I’m going to have a panic attack. The other day, I posted that video crying about my dog, and I looked like a psychopath. Like, bitch, are these crocodile tears? No, bitch. I’m in a cage. I’m in a cage!" (She writhes in her car seat, half-laughing, half-crying, struggling visibly to express any emotion as her eyes strain to compensate.) "That’s as much as I can do."

As darkly comedic as the delivery is, the core of it is deeply unsettling. It’s one thing to imagine that kind of dissociation from your own face. It’s another to actually live inside it. Imagine how much stronger that dissonance must feel for someone like Argy, whose face isn’t just personal, but professional. She isn’t just a TikToker with almost 10 million followers, she’s also a model who’s worked with major brands like Louis Vuitton. For content creators and models like Argy, their appearance is, in large part, their brand.

The incentive to ignore these discomforts—the unfamiliarity of your own body and the unwillingness of your face to greet you in the mirror with its genuine emotional contents—must feel like a façade that is almost unbearable yet deeply unrelatable. So perhaps it’s no surprise that so few women speak about it once they’ve sipped from the poisoned chalice. And while the product is temporary, entirely metabolized by your body over time, we know the pressure to downplay “trivialities” like discomfort in favor of cosmetic optimization is practically second nature to women. So most ignore it. They acclimate.

Your baseline emotional expressivity becomes dampened over time, and you become accustomed to this new, flatter equilibrium of not quite happy, not quite angry, not quite anything but young and beautiful. It’s that celebrity-like muted affect that hits actresses when they’re approaching old-news territory: somewhere around 40. They get the injections so that no wrinkle is found, but paradoxically, neither is a single expression. They stick around on our TV screens because they’re gentle on the eyes, but no longer have the same tools at their disposal to do their jobs: to act. To emote.

The Cost of the Perfect Mask

Their range begins to collapse. It becomes a drawn-out on-screen death: rather than fading out into irrelevance, they linger with vacant eyes and too supple skin for their 18th-century character roles. Their talents are stripped back because they can’t engage them anymore. All that’s left are the bare bones of their beauty: smiles that don’t reach the eyes, a half-hearted sob with tears that appear to stream from nowhere. It’s such a sad predicament, and one I sincerely empathize with.

There’s nothing irrational about wanting to preserve what looks like you, but when it comes at the cost of human expression, that’s at least something that young women should be aware of. The idea of not being able to take full advantage of her expressions is a nightmare for budding young actress Aimee Lou Wood, who recently said in an interview that she objects to the neurotoxin for personal use because her career depends on her ability to emote. “A lot of my career relies on these facial expressions. So, I can’t start freezing my face; it needs to move.” If only some once-revered acting talents who now stand before us like wax statues could internalize the same sentiment.

The scary part is that it goes deeper than being unable to emote. When you lose access to your emotional expression, you also begin to lose access to others’. A 2009 study led by USC psychology professor David Neal found that people who use Botox are less able to read others’ emotions, struggling to know what other people are thinking or feeling. Why? Because part of how we read others’ emotions is by mimicking their facial expressions. Have you ever caught yourself sending an emoji to a friend, only to catch yourself subconsciously wearing the same expression on your face? That’s why! “When you mimic, you get a window into their inner world,” Neal explained. When we can’t? Neal suggests, “That window gets a little darker.”

The Rise of "Preventative Botox"

And then there’s the elephant in the room. Why exactly are 22-year-olds even entertaining the idea of forfeiting such integral human experiences like self-expression when they’re just barely hatched? It seems to have a lot to do with the push for preventative botox as the secret to staying baby-faced. Preventative botox is administered at a young age, before the formation of wrinkles, to prevent them from occurring at all. This is a controversial and highly disputed topic among injectors and skin specialists. Some advocate for it, while others claim it’s inappropriately early and a bit of a scam.

Starting Botox too young can cause eventual atrophy of the facial muscles because they’ve been immobilized for so many years, which can ironically age the skin in the long run, according to skin care experts interviewed by Harper’s Bazaar. Dr. Sophie Shotter warns, “An early start and heavy-handed approach can leave a face looking frozen over time." Dr. Jennifer Owens agrees, warning that there’s a definite danger to becoming accustomed to a face that moves less and less.

Dr. Owens is also concerned about the lack of research around long-term use of such injections. It’s only been on the market with FDA approval since 2002, so we don’t actually know what long-term use over decades does. Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Shereene Idriss argues that preventative botox is a joke and women shouldn’t even consider getting injected until they have built-in lines that do not disappear at rest.

A Choice Worth Questioning

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the number of people getting Botox aged 20 to 29 increased by nearly 40% in just eight years, between 2010 and 2018. And it hasn’t slowed down. Between 2019 and 2022, the use of Botox (or an alternative brand of neuromodulator injections) among 20-somethings increased by 71% and by 75% among women 19 and younger.

How many of these women are warned of the disconcerting side effects of disconnection, communication barriers, reduced capacity for empathy, and, worst of all, a reduced capacity to express their own inner world? The decision to get Botox is a personal one, but I worry we’re misleading young women into thinking it’s a harmless, low-stakes injection that will have negligible effects on their lives. But what could be higher stakes than compromised interpersonal communication and self-expression?

Neuromodulators like Botox aren’t inherently bad (though I think there are perfectly legitimate reasons to oppose brands that are tested on animals). Going to a properly trained, expert injector who uses it sparingly and intentionally, targeting specific problem areas while preserving natural movement, is the ideal if you take the cosmetic enhancement plunge. But for many young women, that level of restraint and expertise isn’t what’s being marketed. What’s being sold is a fantasy of agelessness stripped of consequences, not informed choice.