Beauty Filter on the Wall, Who's the Fairest of Them All?
To be ‘beautiful’ means nothing, yet we are often convinced it means everything. We are presented with convoluted hoops to jump through in order to reach ‘ideal’ standards of beauty. We smooth and saturate our online personas to be perfect versions of our real selves. Versions that don’t exist. We further appease this by looking towards certain standards we aren’t aware are being set; standards which often perpetuate western ideas of what it means to be beautiful. Standards which are impossible to attain.
Social media sites such as Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat offer beauty filters as part and parcel of the in-app experience. Snapchat was the first to launch their augmented reality ‘lenses’ in 2015. They were marketed as harmless fun (depending on how you view the infamous dog-face epidemic) and primarily for younger audiences to enjoy bright, cartoonish animations.
Instagram mirrors this feature and, while some filters are creative, others are less so. Arguably, the worst kinds of creations are ones such as Glamouraesth’s ‘paper magazine’ filter on Instagram. Undoubtedly a popular lens and, whilst it does give the effect of a creased magazine, also alters the face to such a slight degree that one might even question if any change has been made. It isn’t until the filter slips off that you realise: your nose is not that small, your lips are not that plump, your cheeks are not that chiselled, and your skin is NOT that white.
These ‘beautifying’ filters are only designed to ‘beautify’ certain people. If your complexion is light then these filters might believably enhance a small percentage of you. If your skin is darker, there is no chance. You will look alien. The Eurocentric standard of ‘beauty’ is dangerous for everyone involved, but disproportionately so for young people of colour. Rather than being taught there is even ‘beauty’ to be attained, the very concept of being ‘beautiful’ is stripped from their very facial features. Are we not even good enough to be enhanced?
Young people of colour, in particular, are vulnerable to the narrative pushed by ‘beauty’ filter culture. They become ‘othered’ by the idea that looking ‘beautiful’ can only appear one way. If white features are ‘beautiful’, are brown features ugly? Not only does this affect how one perceives oneself, but also how we perceive each other. Young brown girls should not be labelled ‘masculine’ because femininity is equated with ‘beauty’ filters, and therefore whiteness. We can change our standards, but she cannot change her genetics (nor should she).
I mention young people specifically as filters, such as sashandiana’s ‘butterfly’ filter on Snapchat, are clearly appealing to children by covering their white skin and freckles in shimmery butterfly animations. TikTok further solidifies its appeal to children by interspersing ‘beauty’ filters with fun mini-games and quizzes. On Apple’s app store, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat all list their age ratings as 12 and above. Children are taught to play around with their faces as they would a mini-game. How fun.
By rinsing and repeating the word ‘beautiful’ and showing the user a warped version of them, filters are essentially suggesting that no matter how small, plump, chiselled, white, and freckly you are, you can still be improved (as per the Eurocentric ‘beauty’ standard). In this case, there is no such thing as being ‘beautiful’ as the ‘beauty’ filter will always augment you. For a person of colour, this end result has race-changing consequences.
How do we navigate this? We stop using them. Face filters are no different from our aunties using Fair & Lovely – both perpetuate an archaic standard of beauty. The difference is, ‘beauty’ filters are instilling it younger. Playing with filters is a losing game as artificial beauty is unattainable. The thumbnail of the filter is ‘beautiful’, not you. She is often white with a slight tan – the right kind of tan, not your kind of tan. Her skin never has texture – trust me, she doesn’t exist!