It pains me how many times I’ve heard my mother say “jokingly” how much she hates the way her photos turn out without a skin-whitening, high-exposure filter plastered onto them. It pains me because I grew up thinking she was one of the most beautiful human beings on earth.
Social media has brainwashed us into believing that looking like porcelain dolls is normal and everybody truly looks like that – if you don’t, you’re doing something wrong.
How many times do you think a thirteen-year-old girl has gone down a rabbit hole of filters, trying to find a “perfect” but natural-looking one? By the time she finds it, her makeup has smudged, and she looks in the mirror only to see the one thing she fears most: her unfiltered reflection.
At what point does such fear stop being an individual’s own insecurity, and at what point does this become a pandemic of same-face syndrome?
It becomes more than an internal thought of one’s own when a celebrity is “exposed” for the way they look without filters and effects, and it leaves one wondering – is it so wrong to look human?
Imagine a scenario where a teenage girl, surrounded by influencers and celebrities on her phone, believes she can emulate their appearance. She sets up a camera, adjusts her lighting, and makes a video. The numbers begin to rise – hundreds of thousands of people are suddenly becoming her biggest admirers.
And suddenly, one day, the sun no longer shines as brightly, and her face has never looked worse; she receives a comment shaming her for daring not to match up to what society describes as “beauty”.
Her content changes, and so does she. What was once a fifteen-minute hobby turns into hours of getting ready for a camera and finding the perfect filter. Nobody must know that she wears a top so tight it restricts her breathing – simply to appear slimmer. Nobody knows how much effort she put into contouring her nose; she desperately hopes they think it’s small.
It eats her alive; you can almost see it in her eyes. All because a few people made her believe she’s wrong for existing the way she was born. It’s a brutal story, yet it’s a sobering reality.
People have been talking about a disturbing phenomenon on social media. You’ll be scrolling on your phone and come across a video of a gorgeous woman – but one close look makes you realise it’s not a woman at all; it’s not even a human. An AI-generated video paints a picture of the perfect woman. How very dystopian.
And although it may not seem that big of a deal on the surface, imagine someone slightly older or younger than you, more naive, less experienced in the world of social media – they don’t realise what they see is all fake; to them, this woman truly does exist. And that is where the cycle of comparison begins.
Hours behind a mirror as you pick apart your flaws: “Why can’t I look like them?” you ask yourself, a loathing tone in your voice. Why do we brush past the storm of self-hatred that takes over our generation at this very moment? It’s like fighting an invisible war with yourself, but nobody must know.
Low self-esteem takes over a gathering when a group of young girls go around in circles, talking about what part of themselves they dislike the most. Eventually, the answer to the question “If you could be anybody in the world, who would you be?” becomes “Anybody that doesn’t look like me.” And we think that for a young kid that’s a normal answer?
This isn’t just a phase anymore; it’s a brainwashing cycle that causes long-lasting effects on a young mind. They’ll grow up believing they will never look as good as they do with a face-changing filter – and apparently that’s a bad thing.
It’s scary how these large companies profit off self-loathing. There are even some filters you must pay for; paying to create a digital persona, it seems nightmarish.
Our devices become soul-sucking ghouls the more we let them take over our daily lives. Our online presence isn’t just a fun place to express ourselves any longer; they follow our every move – controlling the decisions we make and the way we present ourselves. Every day we wake up with a new perception of the world, a new perception of one’s own.
When will this end? The dysphoric digital misery.