Like most pop culture sponges, I was equally fascinated, outraged and scathing when I saw the relentlessly emerging pictures of Kylie Jenner's morphing lips. 

Transitioning from a very normal, functional mouth into an undulating, ruby red pout three times its previous size, her gob has been the source of much speculation and scorn.

For anyone wondering 'what is a Kylie Jenner?,' she's the youngest of the Kardashian/Jenner clan, a family where bond and brand are of equal importance. A family where your mum is filmed for international TV having a facelift and boob job in consecutive series of your never-ending reality show. A family where your sister tries to 'break the internet' by releasing naked, heavily edited photographs from an upcoming magazine cover (after previously expressing horror at leaked sex tapes and stolen nude selfies, as well as unhappiness with other naked editorial work, swearing never to pose naked again). A family that's kept itself centre stage with its 'perfection' and the 'has she/hasn't she' discussion about the work required to create and maintain this visual supremacy.

A favoured method in reporting on Kylie's ever-increasing pout (and other celebrity faces and bodies) is to get an 'expert opinion'. Asking aesthetic practitioners and plastic surgeons to look at a couple of pictures and comment if they think the celeb's had anything done. If it was that easy we'd be able to send mechanics pictures of our cars instead of getting MOTs done, and avoid the crude flirting which inevitably accompanies it. From one recent article I was particularly chagrined by one plastic surgeon stating 'as we age, our lips thin so many women opt to get their lips plumped.' She's 17 by the way.

Another common flaw in the cultural furore surrounding a teenager's face is contrasting pictures of her before she wore make-up (and by make-up, I mean the sorcery and artistry that the Kardashian klan employ) and smiling (which pulls the lips taught and thins them) with her new pouting selfies - an unfair comparison.

I've waxed lyrical about the damage selfies are causing (if you missed it, check it out here), but one advantage they have over paparazzi pictures - or for us mere mortals, the deluge of tagged photos on Facebook you nervously await after a big night - is you have complete creative control of them. Subtle angle changes can disguise and emphasise facial features to an impressive extent. If you don't think looking at hundreds of marginally different pictures of your own face sounds like something that would happen in a k-hole, then I can only recommend it for perfecting your ultimate selfie angle.

Some articles that contrast a thin-lipped open-mouthed smile with a sultry pout were also keen to comment on another picture where she's clearly raising an eyebrow, and citing the shapely arch it makes as proof she's had a brow lift or botox. She's 17 by the way.

I struggled enough with my looks at 17 without grown men accusing me of resorting to the drastic measures they offer as a 'solution' to low self-esteem. If we diverted the same prominence and acceptance into counselling and treating negative self-image as we do having our noses smashed into pieces with chisels and filling our bodies with implants and chemicals the world would be a much happier place. But all of these grown men (and the rarer women) that are so forthcoming with their theories on a teen's face also profit heavily from this insecurity cycle and any change would result in their fancy practices becoming very quiet.

If you look at the 'nature/nurture' approach, Kylie Jenner was bound to dabble in aesthetic alterations. Coming from if not the most beautiful then the most famous and photographed family in the world, she's had massive scrutiny since the brood's Keeping Up With The Kardashians reality show premiered in 2007 when she was ten. Earlier that year, when she was still nine, older sister Kim's sex tape was leaked (some still say that a healthy dose of cynicism accompanies the validity of the 'leaked' tape and the whole deal was brokered by 'momager' and matriarch Kris Jenner to secure the hype desired to make the reality show a success).

Family ties are strong. Older siblings often carve a path that's easier, or desirable for younger siblings to follow. Jamie Murray probably tagged along to Andy's tennis lessons, and the Williams sisters' made a formidable combination when working in tandem. Ed and David Miliband surely found that sibling rivalry and an Oxford education were the perfect ingredients for a political careers. Were the Huxley dynasty all independently genii or a product of their circumstances? You might need to Google them - they've never been on US gossip website TMZ so we don't pay them as much attention.

I started out to write about Kylie Jenner satirically - critiquing a vain, self-obsessed teen who presumes we're all daft and haven't noticed her mutating face. Instead, I've found myself defending her, even pitying her. As we'll all pity teens growing up now in an age of edited selfies, social media and revenge porn, she's growing not just in front of a hundred or so followers, but the entire world. She's becoming an adult and trying to figure it all out, while the path her 'klan' have become multi-millionaires by is a aesthetic guessing game where other-worldly beauty comes through a heady mix of family, finance and fillers (not to mention an unhealthy obsession with alliteration).

She's watched the youngest of her Kardashian sisters, Khloe, struggle with being widely considered 'the ugly one', and when her older Jenner sister, Kendall, is stomping down catwalks for the world's most revered designers and being signed as the new face for Estee Lauder, I'm sure she's desperate to avoid Khloe's fate in any way that she can.

She's 17 by the way.