#digitized dysmorphia

This week’s reading by Jessica Barker focuses on how Snapchat lenses, which we thought were harmless at the beginning of its inception in 2015 actually turned out to be problematic for users. (Barker 2020, p. 208). These filters apply virtual accessories and modify facial features, enabling users to incorporate augmented reality into their daily sartorial practice and self-presentation (Barker 2020, p. 208). These filters tend to enhance or distort the face and add animal-like features. (Barker 2020, p. 208). When you critically examine these Snapchat filters, you'll see why they're problematic because they make a face more attractive and flawless by thinning out the face, slimming and shortening the nose, enlarging the eyes, plumping the lips and smoothing out the skin, Snapchat seizes a user’s features and morphs them into conform to a preconceived notion of beauty (Barker 2020, p. 209). One controversial feature of Snapchat filters that go unnoticed, mentioned in Barker’s reading is that it whitewashes users' skin color. people of color find their complexions unnaturally and undesirably lightened by Snapchat’s filters (Barker 2020, p. 209). Skin lighting for the purpose of aesthetics and beauty is inherently discriminatory and only goes on to promote that ONLY the Eurocentric beauty standards make you beautiful.

Aline Martins describes her experience as she used filters for the first time when it was introduced and she could see a noticeable transition from the beauty enhancements in the filters.  She says in the reading, “I remember the day the ‘beauty’ filter came out on Snapchat – the one that ever-so-slightly retouches skin, narrows noses and gives doe eyes. The filter just barely changed my appearance but changed it enough for me to notice that I looked ‘better’” (Barker 2020, p. 211). For women who attribute filter use to a desire to appear made-up, delight

Women use the beautifying filters when their appearance looks rather tired or unpolished it is often tempered with complex feelings towards their natural beauty. The ‘pretty’ filter incited a complex process of gaining confidence while igniting insecurities. (Barker 2020, p. 212). This goes to show, although the changes portrayed by these filters may seem minor, they actually have a more profound impact on the user's perception of oneself.

These filters have created negative physiological effects on society. Users have become self-conscious about their facial features as a result of these modifications and may even consider having surgery to alter their appearance so they look more like the filtered version of themselves. (Barker 2020, p. 215). ‘Digital plastic surgery’ has affected some users to such an extent that they seek Snapchat-inspired plastic surgery in the real world. As tech site Engadget framed it, they wish to ‘look like a software-enhanced version of themselves’ (Barker 2020, p. 216). Users wanting to look like the filtered version of themselves has led to ‘Snapchat dysmorphia’ which is related to a body dysmorphic disorder, an obsessive-compulsive fixation on perceived appearance defects (Barker 2020, p. 216).

Coi-Dibley's article “Digitized Dysmorphia” of the female body: the re/disfigurement of the Image” analyses how digital editing and manipulation affect how the female body is portrayed in the media. She contends that the use of digital technologies to produce idealized and hyper-realistic representations of women has led to a new type of dysmorphia she refers to as "digitized dysmorphia." (Coy-Dibley 2016, p.1). Digitized dysmorphia is characterized by a disconnect between the real and the ideal, which creates a sense of insecurity and self-hatred in women who cannot live up to the digitally enhanced images they see in the media (Coy-Dibley 2016, p.2). 

The social pressure to alter one's image highlights the coercion individuals face to strive for a perfect self-image. Apps that are aimed at perfecting the body, airbrushing and erasing the raw image in exchange for an increasingly narrow, standardizing perception of female beauty reinforce unattainable beauty standards that marginalize differences in race, ability, and gender identity, presenting an extension and intensification of our images-saturated culture's homogenized, Westernized beauty standards (Coy-Dibley 2016, p.9). 

Social media filters have increased users' insecurity as they are reminded that meeting Ecocentric beauty standards is the only way to be considered beautiful. Brands, Social Media influencers, and platforms need to introduce more positive ways to counteract the negativity of filters to change the perceptions of beauty they have fostered in society as it could lead to more severe consequences. People should be reminded that they are BEAUTIFUL JUST THE WAY THEY ARE.

References

Barker, J 2020, ‘Making-up on mobile: The pretty filters and ugly implications of Snapchat’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 207–221.

Coy-Dibley, I 2016, ‘“Digitized Dysmorphia” of the female body: the re/disfigurement of the image’, Palgrave Communications, vol. 2, no. 1.