> Junk history is embodied perfectly in a recent viral meme that portrays a nineteenth-century Persian princess with facial hair alongside the claim that 13 men killed themselves over their unrequited love for her. While it fails miserably at historical accuracy, the meme succeeds at demonstrating how easily viral clickbait obscures and overshadows rich and meaningful stories from the past.

[snip]

> Unfortunately, not only does the “Princess Qajar” meme boil down this deeply-nuanced element of cultural history into junk history clickbait, it also makes it worse by adding the sensational claim that thirteen men killed themselves over their unrequited love for her. Naturally, there is no source given to support this claim, which appears to be pulled from thin air. Were it true, it would seem like worthy material to include in even the shortest legitimate biographical information about ‘Esmat, but it doesn’t appear anywhere.

You raise a good point about shifting standards of beauty. You simply picked a poor example, one made more out of clickbait and meme culture than actual history.

But, as another reply already mentioned, your source is likely nonsense. Further, even if it were true, consider that her "beauty" may very well have been tied to her status as a princess; in other words, suitors were disheartened by rejection less because she was attractive and more because she was royalty.

Moreover, I don't know how applicable a single, isolated locale's standards of beauty are to trends in other cultural segments.