Beauty filter? More like UNATTAINABLE filter.
We are increasingly curating our online personas, handpicking the images we share and choosing to present ourselves through a “beautification” lens. This shift has given rise to the AI revolution. These digital tools — which apply an overlay of “perfection” to our photos — have infiltrated our social media feeds, offering the allure of flawless skin, sparkling eyes, and picture-perfect features with a single tap.
TikTok launched its new Bold Glamour Filter in February 2023, and it immediately started making waves in the online community.
The filter uses highly advanced AI to basically overhaul and remold users’ faces into something entirely new. The filter can do things like sculpt your chin, thin or reshape your nose, whiten your teeth and brighten your eyes. Many users say they are almost completely unrecognizable when they’re using the filter.
The biggest concern about this filter is that it is virtually seamless. You can put your hands or an object in front of the filter, and the filter will remain in place without a hitch. This is a big upgrade from previous filters, where you could add dog ears to your face or make your eyes look like those of a Disney princess. These earlier filters were much easier to spot.
Another issue: You can’t turn off the instinct to compare your face to its filtered counterpart. Normally, we compare ourselves to other humans, but with filters, you’re comparing yourself to another version of you, which is almost more devastating because it carries the seed of suggestion that that could be you. That may get you thinking about whether you should spend more time or money trying to alter your appearance to meet a beauty standard that is literally inhuman.
The lip-filling, eye-snatching filters that first drew attention on Snapchat and Instagram look crude compared with today’s beauty filters, some of which use artificial intelligence to reimagine your face in real-time. A retouch job that might take hours on Photoshop takes seconds with TikTok’s Bold Glamour filter or Instagram’s Glow.
Another issue with these filters is that they are all associated with positive and favorable words: beauty, glamor, bold, when in reality, that is the opposite of how we feel when using these filters. These filters don’t make users more beautiful, they make us AI-altered, something that no human can achieve. So instead of surrounding these toxic filters with words that don’t depict their impact, why don’t we use words like “unrealistic, AI-altered, or heavily edited”? Doesn’t that give you a better insight to what the filter actually is?
Users who have been compared to these filters, now have no motivation or want to post at all anymore. Even though it’s empowering to post with no filters, no edits, it can be intimidating when you are up against AI-generated content. Instagram isn’t an environment where users feel like they can truly be themselves anymore, and instead they find themselves scrolling through an endless feed of “perfect” people.
There’s a new place where users don’t have to be brave for posting an unedited selfie, where users don’t stand out for an uncurated feed. daylyy. It’s the only social platform that can guarantee no edits, no filters, no AI — just real, everyday moments captured in real-time.
