HOW FACE FILTERS ARE MORPHING OUR PERCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY
Like any good millennial, I am not a stranger to the ways of the selfie. Snap a cheeky picture of my little noggin, add a self-deprecating caption about the woeful situation that is Brisbane’s public transport system and how I seem to be its primary target, pop on a silly Instagram filter and chuck ‘er up on the gram. But I’m not sure if the instant relief I feel when I pop on that filter is quite healthy. Admittedly, many of the filters do a glorious job of airbrushing our skin, slimming down our chins, whitening our teeth and making our eyes as big and sparkly as anyone could wish, but at what cost to our already troubled self esteem?
I really do think that the ideals and standards of beauty have come a long way over the years, and mostly for the better. There’s still a long way to go, but never before have we had such diversity positively portrayed across our magazines, tv sets, and social media sites when it comes to race, gender, disability, and ethnicity. In our day to day lives, societal expectations about dress and grooming have changed drastically. The focal shift in Western society away from advocating community towards individual aspirations has affected perceptions of dress. 1940s fashion dictated a rather strict idea of what hairstyles, makeup styles, clothes, shoes and accessories could be deemed “acceptable” advocating for social heterogeneity in presentation, but today we live in a whirlwind of styles, colours and trends co-existing harmoniously.
And yet, somehow, we’re all chasing the same facial features.
As a platform, and an increasingly popular one, Instagram’s structure is highly dependent on visual content. Consequently, it is easy to understand how visually appealing content reigns, and bodies and facies are no exception. As Springer notes, in support of body dissatisfaction research ”how we are perceived on (social media) can influence the perception of our appearance and, in some instances, may encourage people to want to do something about it” (De Vries et al. 2014).
Increasingly, plastic surgeons are seeing patients come in, requesting to look like their filtered selves. This is a huge difference from being presented with pictures of celebrities: mostly actors and models, as was common practise in years gone by. But is this a change for the better? It’s certainly more attainable. Botox and lip injections used to be regarded as something only celebrities or rich socialites might get, but now it’s available just around the corner, advertised loud and proud at a price for the working-class mother, or university student. Or even better, for the price of your morning coffee, you can download an app which will do everything a surgeon can and more. The accessibility of cosmetic enhancement, according to this article is on the rise, a contributing factor to “minimally invasive” procedures increasing by almost 200% since the year 2000. But maybe it’s for the best that we’ve decided that we can’t all look like Beyonce, or Ryan Gosling, and are instead happy to make a few small changes to become an improved version of ourselves.
Except that the things we’re changing are more or less the same.
In Korea, the term “same face” has emerged to describe this phenomenon. A single standard of beauty for facial features has become so idolised, and is now so attainable through a multi-billion dollar cosmetic surgery and beauty industry, that it’s not uncommon to see this very face several times a week, on different women. Scholars Kniazeva and Babichev argue that this face has become the new consumer commodity, much like a pair of designer shoes, as a flauntable status symbol. But, as with any commodity, this has only become the case through market influence.
We live in a digital world now, and as much as art imitates life, the alternative is proving increasingly true. And there’s something a little jarring about digital apps such as Instagram and Snapchat now having a seat at the table where societal beauty ideals are being set.
I don’t believe all accounts of photo editing should be thrown directly in the sin bin. I can’t really find the harm in Facetuning out a pesky nose pimple, or that piece of kale stuck between your teeth. But maybe manipulating one’s entire bone structure, or removing every pore from our face is resetting a new standard in beauty. To produce such an unattainable standard, let alone advocate it, really isn’t kind to ourselves, or our anyone else who may pass our photos wanting to look exactly like this mirage we’ve created.
