Snapchat filters: friend or foe?
Are flower crowns worth the risk?
Millennials and Generation Z are the biggest users of Snapchat. It’s a popular social medium for many reasons. Because Snapchat provides users with many unique features — like showing one’s facial expression in addition to text — the advance in this form of communication is constantly evolving.
One more popular aspect of Snapchat is the ability to use special lenses and filters. According to Snapchat, “Face Lenses can turn you and your friends into something new. Some can change your voice, and even feature games you can play!” Basically, this is the camera mode that allows you to add traits like cat ears and whiskers to your face or a fun flower crown.
As for filters, they are added once you have already snapped your selfie. This lets you adjust the way your image looks by turning the color effects, to black and white — or another light color scheme. Filters will also allow you to add your location, Bitmoji, holiday, or the day of the week in an artistic way. Overall, these addition seems lighthearted and carefree in nature, but like most things in life, there is much more hiding beneath the surface.
It appears that Snapchat lenses and filters exist for two main reasons: 1) to “enhance” the user’s or appearance, or 2) to be used comedically. This is all well and good for the most part, but there are some concerning trends when it comes to what characteristics are sorted into these categories.
For the “cutesy” lenses there are a few things that tend to ring true. The majority of these lenses will alter your face into ways that are not typically possible for the human anatomy. There are many lenses that will slim down a person’s face while simultaneously accentuating the plumpness of their cheeks to create an animal-faced effect.
You’ll typically find this in lenses with added/altered ears, noses, and glasses. This might seem harmless, but it can actually work to enforce unreasonable beauty standards that emphasize juvenile features on adults. Instead, a healthier alternative could be to simply include the add-ons, like animal characteristics , without altering the user’s natural appearance.
Another aspect of this type of lens is the way in which it often lighten’s the user’s skin color. Finding a Snapchat filter that actively makes a person’s skin any darker is rare — if even existent. In doing this, Snapchat is implying that white and light is “right” and what once should strive toward.
In addition to whitewashing, these lenses and filters have a tendency to airbrush faces to an unnatural extent. The majority of us have at least a few imperfections and blemishes, and by using this airbrushing technique one is made to feel that being “normal/average” is not okay or natural.
As far as lenses used for comedic purposes, the trends are pretty straightforward. These filters are aspects of people’s faces that are not within their control and in turn using these traits as a means of deprecation, and not as a source of normalcy or beauty.
This can lead to negative body image effects and associations — especially since the majority of Snapchat users are young folks whose brain is still developing and impressionable.
So, the next time you open up Snapchat to take a selfie or grab a quick pic, ask yourself if you are using filters because you like them, or because you don’t want to see yourself.
Let us know your thoughts down below.
