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📱 The Internet Sold Us a New Face - Now We Hate Our Own
"Fix Me" Filters & Fake Perfection: A Glitch in Reality?
Surgery filters have been widely criticized for promoting unrealistic beauty standards and harming mental health. One example is Instagram's "Fix Me" filter, banned due to its damaging psychological impact (BBC, 2019).
1,956 likes, 129 comments - danielmooney on May 24, 2019: "fix me filter just out - come live your plastic surgery fantasy".
The filter mimicked a surgeon's markings on a patient's face, illustrating the process of cosmetic enhancement. Its creator, Daniel Mooney, intended it as a critique rather than a glorification of plastic surgery, highlighting its unglamorous reality (Mooney, 2019). However, Instagram's ban underscored a deeper issue - while filters can reinforce harmful beauty ideals, they are not the root cause. Instead, they reflect and amplify pre-existing societal pressures, making unattainable beauty the norm rather than the exception (Elias & Gill, 2017).
Effects showing what people might look after surgery will go, amid concerns they harm mental health.
🚨 The real issue? Filters are not simply a tech innovation gone wrong but an extension of a billion-dollar beauty industry that profits from insecurity (Laham, 2020). While Mooney's filter was removed, the pressure to conform to digitally enhanced beauty remains stronger than ever, signaling that the issue runs more profound than any single app.
💭 So, are AR filters driving these toxic standards or merely exposing a system that has long dictated what is considered beautiful?
Eurocentric Beauty, Social Comparison & the Profitable Business of Insecurity
Leon Festinger's Social Comparison Theory (1954) explains how individuals evaluate self-worth by comparing themselves to societal norms (Festinger, 1954).
🔍 But beauty is not just an aesthetic preference; it is an industry that thrives on exclusion. The global Beauty & Personal Care, worth US$677.19bn, sustains itself by making people feel like they are never enough (Statista, 2024). In this economy, insecurity is currency, and filters are the salespeople, constantly redefining what is desirable.
✨ A striking example? Bella Hadid underwent rhinoplasty at just 14 (Ayoub, 2022), a decision shaped by the Eurocentric beauty ideals dominating her industry. Growing up in the spotlight, she was surrounded by a standard that favored features historically associated with whiteness - high cheekbones, small noses, and fair skin.
💭 Years later, she expressed regret, saying:
"I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors."
Her experience reveals how algorithmically curated beauty norms shape self-perception, pressuring individuals - especially those in the public eye - to conform from an early age.
“I too think I would have grown into the nose of my ancestors. But my realisation came well into my thirties.”
Dr. Michelle Smith linked this to 19th-century ethnic rhinoplasty, when people altered their features to "pass as white" for social mobility (Ayoub, 2022). This historical parallel reveals how beauty has always been a tool of privilege and power.
Social media intensifies this struggle. Platforms like Instagram and Snapchat profit from comparison, filling feeds with filtered, surgically enhanced faces that subtly suggest: This is what you should look like (Lavrence & Cambre, 2020).
💥 The result? This cycle fuels body dysmorphia, particularly among women and marginalized communities. However, resistance is growing - movements like body positivity, digital detoxing, and online activism challenge the dominant beauty narrative (Coy-Dibley, 2016).
Yet, the damage is already done. The rise of "Snapchat Dysmorphia" proves that filters do not just change appearances; they change how we see ourselves.
Snapchat Stole My Face: When Filters Rewrite Self-Perception
🎥 Four video testimonies reveal a disturbing trend: Women, confronted with their unfiltered reflections, express profound depression and self-disappointment (Hawker & Carah, 2020). This is not a fleeting moment of dissatisfaction - it is a psychological fracture, where the self they see in the mirror no longer matches the self they have been conditioned to expect.
For some, the solution is drastic: deleting Snapchat altogether, a digital amputation in pursuit of mental stability. For others, the cycle of insecurity continues - trapped in a loop where natural skin textures and facial features feel like defects rather than differences (Hawker & Carah, 2020).
🤳 This phenomenon directly aligns with Festinger's Social Comparison Theory - filters do not just offer enhancements; they create a new, unattainable benchmark for beauty, forcing users into constant comparison (Festinger, 1954). When social media rewards digital perfection, reality starts feeling like a flaw.
💔 Ultimately, these experiences reinforce the central theme of this essay: The internet did not just sell us a new face - it made us hate our real one. Through AR filters, beauty standards have shifted from aspirational to artificial, leaving a generation struggling to accept their reflections (Burnell et al., 2021).
What do you think? Are filters the real villain, or are they just exposing a much bigger issue? 💬 Drop your thoughts below! ⬇️
References
Ayoub, S. (2022, March 18). On Bella Hadid, beauty standards and the shame of hiding your ethnicity. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/on-bella-hadid-beauty-standards-and-the-shame-of-hiding-your-ethnicity-20220318-p5a5rd.html
BBC. (2019, October 23). Instagram bans “cosmetic surgery” filters. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50152053
Burnell, K., Kurup, A. R., & Underwood, M. K. (2021). Snapchat lenses and body image concerns. New Media & Society, 24(9), 146144482199303. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444821993038
Coy-Dibley, I. (2016). “Digitized Dysmorphia” of the female body: the re/disfigurement of the image. Palgrave Communications, 2(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.40
Elias, A. S., & Gill, R. (2017). Beauty surveillance: The digital self-monitoring cultures of neoliberalism. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(1), 59–77.
Festinger, L. (1954). A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202
Hawker, K., & Carah, N. (2020). Snapchat’s augmented reality brand culture: sponsored filters and lenses as digital piecework. Continuum, 35(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2020.1827370
Laham, M. (2020). Made Up. Google Books. https://books.google.com.vn/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sgPzDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=billion-dollar+beauty+industry+that+profits+from+insecurity&ots=AZ_Qn9qi2Y&sig=fo1J-veHSTuCngYQ0c2NacQ5-iE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). “Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze. Social Media + Society, 6(4), 205630512095518. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120955182
Statista. (2024). Beauty & Personal Care - Worldwide | Statista Market Forecast. Statista. https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/beauty-personal-care/worldwide
