From Pretty Grainy by Sophie to California by Marianna Hewitt, I too am privy to a skin-smoothing, eye-enhancing filter. But as more and more photos of highly-edited selfies continue to flood my feed (so much so I’m starting to not even recognise my friends – or, indeed, myself) it might be time to draw the line on Instagram filters.
It started innocently enough. A few fun filters on Snapchat (remember the dog-licking one?) that blurred out imperfections on your skin and made your eyes sparkle just that little bit more. Then, in 2017, Instagram, following in the footsteps of Snap, launched face filters to their 1.3 billion users, and we soon slipped into more invasive territory of chiseled cheekbones, slimmed-down noses, and completely distorted faces.
The scary thing? Most of the time you can’t even notice what the edits are. The plumping of the lips and accentuation of a jawline is now created in such a meticulous and precise way, they are not as much filters as they are our digital avatars. No glam squad or soft glowing LEDs around the front camera of the phone can compete with the more-beautiful-than-you filters we’re using on the daily.
Perhaps this is the part when I raised my hand and say, ‘guilty’. Do I think I look better with a Glow by Mayttearaneda? Yes. Do I also think that some cognitive dissonance develops between the re-tuned face I show the world online and the face that stares back at me every morning in the mirror sans wrinkles, pores, and blemishes? Also yes.
So, what gives?
The global pandemic has pushed us into overdrive, exposing a whole new realm of artificial enhancements. Thanks to multiple Zooms a day, I now stare back at my face approximately 300% more than I did before IRL meetings stopped becoming a thing, nit-picking even the smallest of flaws that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.
I now only take digital calls on Speaker View (where my face is not blown-up across half the screen); I am starting to fill my feed with skin-positive influencers who are making it their mission to show the before and after effects of these filters, and I am on a mission to limit my screen time and switch off a bit more.
I’ve fallen into a bit of a hole of social media filters setting completely unrealistic expectations of what I should look like – and I know I’m not the only one. Acknowledging that there is a more sinister side to technology is imperative because as innovation increases, the online beauty standards will become more unattainable.
I invite you all to join me in #NoFilterNovember: a social media switch-up where we give up any face-altering apps, filters, or otherwise for the rest of the month.
Putting your best face forward is easy in this selfie era, but just remember, ladies, our skin is for life, not for likes. Tag us on your (unfiltered) Instastories to join in.
You can use the image below to join Cosmo ME’s #NoFilterNovember:
