If We All Looked The Same, The World Would Be A Very Boring Place
On filters, plastic surgery, and warped realities
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Filters have become an inextricable way of how we, as social media users, see our own faces. It began with a pair of dog ears on Snapchat many moons ago, and has since evolved into something unrecognisable yet commonplace. When filters first launched I remember the buzz they caused. It was charming to add iridescent flower crowns to our selfies, seemingly harmless to use our front-facing cameras and whack an array of filters on top. It was all fun and games, until the charm wore off and became an obsession.Â
With so much of our lives lived online filters have become the norm, altering and affecting our perception of beauty. There's pressure to look the same as everyone else, but should we be trying to conform to something that isn’t real in the first place?
It’s no secret that as a society we’re obsessed with how we look. We live in a world where people seem perfect, flawless even, so we try to replicate these fetishised images. With an increase in filter usage and our self-absorbed pursuit of perfection, we see more and more stories about people getting plastic surgery to look like the filters they use. Cheek fillers, lip fillers, skin smoothing botox, tear trough injections, injectable nose jobs, and brow lifts are just a few of the varying forms of plastic surgery being requested to emulate filtered selfies.Â
Instagram may have cracked down on the use of plastic surgery filters back in the day, but this has done little to dissuade other platforms from profiting off of the success these filters generate. Recently, a new plastic surgery filter went viral on TikTok mimicking the effects of botox and lip filler. Just when we thought such filters were gone off of one platform, they inescapably pop up somewhere else.
Digitally smoothing our skin and using lip-pouting enhancements may seem innocent enough at first, but these acts are part of a larger, more insidious issue. If we’re getting positive comments when we use these filters, and a lack of positive affirmations when we don’t, we become wary of people seeing our faces sans filter. Selfie dysmorphia was a term coined to describe our displeasure with how we naturally look and the increase in procedures being requested to resemble our digital selves. We generate a particular aesthetic of how we wish to be seen online, and it becomes very tricky to take the virtual mask off.
Unrealistic imagery being masked as genuine blurs the lines between what's authentic, and what's fantasy. When selfies edited to unachievable standards create impossible expectations of beauty, our satisfaction with how we really look dwindles. It’s not always easy for the untrained eye to spot the difference between an unedited photo and an edited one, particularly for younger generations that have grown up surrounded by such representation. Our realities have been warped for the worse.
Beauty filters may be making us look ‘better’, but they’re having a negative impact on our self-esteem making us feel a whole lot worse. Filters may give us the faces of our dreams, and there is instant gratification when we can quickly fix our under-eye bags with a filter, but when we become reliant on using filters to present ourselves to the outside world it's bound to take its toll sooner or later. Our insecurities are amplified, and at the same time our self-confidence is shattered.
As the pandemic forced us to communicate more online and eliminated our face-to-face interactions, how we view our appearances changed. We were forced to live with grey hairs, worn off Botox, and less than plump lips. We had no choice but to look at our own faces without our usual cosmetic enhancements, and we started to become reacquainted with what we look like for real. What we perceive as worth of beauty and praise adapted, translating into a more realistic aesthetic. The masks were finally off (theoretically), and all it took was a global pandemic for us to embrace our natural selves.Â
With the rise of filters came the death of individuality. The beauty ideals offered to us that are encouraged by the use of filters, plastic surgery filters in particular, reinforce a type of homogenised beauty that's become ingrained into society. The fact that we’re using filters to try and look like others, and live up to others standards, is dangerous when these images are far from resembling real world appearances. For real change to take place we need to have an open and frank discussion about how beauty ideals are constructed, and who gets to decide what's beautiful and what's not. If we all looked the same, the world would be a very boring place.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter to see more of what I’m up to, and I’ll see you same time same place next week!Â
Catch you soon,
J’Nae
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
- Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is a short read I finished in a day. It's a gripping and dark yet comical tale of a seemingly ordinary convenience store workers life, but this novel is far from ordinary.Â
WHAT I’VE BEEN WATCHING:
- Who hasn’t watched Seaspiracy on Netflix yet? It seems as if the whole of Instagram has seen this documentary about the fish trade and whaling, definitely one to put on your radar if you want more of an insight into where your fish comes from and the harrowing practices of the fish trade.Â
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
- Another new Doja Cat track, this time featuring Sza. The video artistry is epic.
WHAT’S CAUGHT MY EYE:
- I love this website where you can explore over 100,000 street segments and 800,000 building photos of 80’s NYC.
ON MY BLOG:
- How I'm Trying To Shop More Responsibly is now live on my blog. What are you doing to be a more conscious consumer this year?
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