I love a Snapchat filter as much as the next person, but there’s something about them that just doesn’t sit nicely with me. I’m not here to talk about THAT side of using filters – the side that leads to image dysmorphia and distorted views of body image, etc etc. I do believe that they are very real social media problems, however that’s not really what I want this post to address. We all know (I hope) that the teddy bear ears and the puppy dog nose are not real – doesn’t mean that we don’t think they’re hella cute though.

What I want to talk about is Snapchat’s apparent obsession with perpetuating beauty stereotypes. Am I the only person with these uncomfortable feelings? Please tell me, because sometimes I wonder if I’m just being too damn sensitive.

Blue Eyes

Where my brown eyed girls and guys at? I get so annoyed when Snapchat keeps using it’s filter magic to give me blue or grey eyes. I have been wanting to call them out on this for a while now, and I have actually mentioned it on various instances both on the app and on social media. Almost every filter that alters the eyes – yes I see you making my eyes bigger Snapchat – changes the colour of them. Do any of the filters give people brown eyes? I don’t think I’ve ever noticed, but then I also don’t know if people with blue eyes notice how many filters give you blue eyes. I know brown is a pretty rubbish colour, but I have spent my whole life accepting my brown eyes. JUST LET ME HAVE POOP COLOURED EYES.

Skin Lightening

Okay so here is the thing, I like it when Snapchat bumps up the exposure a bit because it hides how red my face is all the time (yes, I know this is a self confidence/body image issue that I have to deal with). While I like that it makes my ghostly skin even paler, in a society where there are people who are surgically/cosmetically having their skin lightened in order to be ‘more attractive’ I think this is a problem. Sure, pale is beautiful but also not being pale is also beautiful. People shouldn’t be made to feel that they look better because their skin is being lightened. The last thing people need in 2019 is more insecurities over something as silly as the colour of the skin they were born with.

While we’re at it, please stop randomly giving me rosy cheeks. I’m literally trying to use a filter to hide my rosy cheeks, I don’t need you making them any redder.

 

Crazy Eyelashes

I was blessed with pretty long eyelashes, but that doesn’t stop me from liking to pop on some falsies from time to time (we’re conditioned to constantly need more, after all). So sure, I don’t really mind when Snapchat makes my eyelashes unnaturally long…but at the same time I kinda do mind. Why do you always go for the eyelashes, Snapchat? Why do you always have to make them SO LONG – there is literally nobody in the world with eyelashes THAT long because they would cause more issues than they would solve.

I guess maybe what I’m actually trying to say is that Snapchat needs to stop dictating what perfect make up should look like.

Glasses

I personally have no real problem with fashion spectacles, however please respect that there some people – myself included – who rely on spectacles (or similar) to see. I wish I could pick up a cool, fashionable pair and just wear them whenever I felt like it but the only way I could do that would be to wear my contact lenses (which I don’t have a great history with).

I realise that this is perhaps a bit of a ridiculous rant, but somehow somewhere it might flick a switch in somebody’s head (or heart, or butt, wherever your switches are stored). Have you ever noticed just how much changes when you swipe on a filter? I think the filters entered our subconscious as a bit of silly fun but have maybe transcended, like so many other things, into a way of trying to create the ideal aesthetic. Time to go back to the silliness, I think!