We’ve collectively got filter blindness, over the previous few years, through the sheer exposure and normalisation of them. On daily basis a recent beauty filter is trending, a filter that smooths the skin, sharpens the jaw, plumps up the lips. Names like pretty babe, warm tan and hazel eyes pop up on TikTok, manipulating our faces into the sweetness standards of the moment without us even noticing. Some body and skin positive influencers have tried to get us to think before we apply them, but the pushback is only a drop within the ocean in comparison with the masses who use them as second nature.

So it’s rare when a filter truly goes viral and even rarer that it receives backlash. But that’s exactly what happened this week with ‘Daring Glamour’, a heavy contour make-up filter that’s been utilized in 7.6 million videos over the space of a number of days. While there’s no shortage of face changing, digital make-up filters on social media, this one felt different – more insidious than its counterparts, more technologically advanced – and the responses and backlash to it feels equally as different.

‘Daring Glamour’ initially went viral when people began using it with captions like “this filter shows what u could appear like if u could do make-up” and “this filter humbled me so quickly”. Quickly, though, the tides turned and frustration prevailed. The filter tag is now full of comments saying it has gone too far, that the filter needs to be illegal, that it ruined their day and made them feel like shit. “So glad I grew up with the rainbow vomit and dog filter,” one user commented.

Joanna Kenny, an influencer who focuses on body confidence for the feminine gaze, told Dazed that she believes these filters should include a trigger warning, although even that wouldn’t be enough. “I do know after I’m creating these videos to lift awareness that I don’t really appear like that. But after I remove the filter I feel immediately ‘lower than,’” she says. “And it’s not only my very own personal use of those filters that impacts my mental health and self-esteem. It’s the extent of content I’m exposed to on a day by day basis that I can’t help compare myself to.”

While some people argue that filters aren’t any different to wearing a variety of make-up, Kenny says it’s for her. “I might never find a way to realize this look with make-up. And why should I? For those individuals who can and decide to present themselves this fashion, that’s effective. My selection is that I now not need to, but showing up unfiltered or without heavily contouring my face doesn’t feel like a selection I could make without judgement. That is a completely recent form of pretty pressure.”

It’s clear by now that the constant viewing and consumption of unrealistic digital content is a mental health risk. Research by Dove found that 50 per cent of ladies imagine they don’t look ok without photo editing and 60 per cent feel upset when their real appearance doesn’t match the digital version. ‘Daring Glamour’ is especially misleading because even having the ability to do a full face of make-up ‘well’ won’t ever fully achieve this look. No make-up product will remove the pores out of your face, offer you lip filler or make the whites of your eyes brighter. The seamlessness of the filter also makes it dangerous. Unlike previous generations of filters, nothing makes it falter – not waving your hand in front of your face, touching and moving your face, wearing glasses. Glitches are something which have at all times occurred with beauty filters, even essentially the most advanced ones, which have provided an often-needed pinch of reality, until now. If the mask never drops, people will forget who’s and isn’t wearing one.

@joannajkenny DON’T USE THIS FILTER ⚠️ That is the viral filter everyone seems to be using rn. Tell me truthfully, have you ever ever not shown up irl due to the way you’ve misrepresented yourself on social media? In that case, you’re not alone ❤️‍???? You need to live a full and glad life without worrying about the way you look doing it ???? #poresnotflaws #boldglamour #beautystandards #beautystandardsarefake #bodyimagemovement #bodyimagehealing #joannakenny #toxicbeautystandards #skinconfidence #skinconfident #nofilterchallenge #fyp2023 ♬ original sound – Joanna Kenny

In our recent era of AI and digital make-up, nobody can tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. TikToker @itshermeteor went viral recently because people thought she was CGI  – she is an actual woman from Germany, who has alopecia. It was only a matter of time until an actual woman was mistaken for an AI, on condition that we now have CGI influencers like Lil Miquela reaching almost 3 million followers. Inside the context of rising AI and non-consensual deepfake porn, realistic filters like ‘Daring Glamour’ that promote said beauty ideals are terrifying. As of 2019, 96 per cent of deepfakes on the web were pornography and just about all of those deepfakes depicted women.

Recently, Twitter was alight with debate about whether certain AI porn images were ‘realistic’ or not (note to reader: they weren’t). It seemed only to be men who couldn’t tell the difference. This isn’t any surprise, on condition that technology and social media have made it possible for girls to look a way that’s unattainable to realize in real life. All of this feeds into misogyny and patriarchy: in a society that already views women as second-class, filters like this one may very well be adding to how dehumanised women are.

So does the backlash to ‘Daring Glamour’ suggest individuals are finally waking as much as how negative filters could be? It feels trite to say, because most of us know this to be true, but we contribute to the issue regardless. When the ‘Paris’ filter first launched on Instagram, I used to be going through a very bad bout of psoriasis and I felt a variety of shame around my skin. This magic filter smoothed my chronic illness away in a single swipe and I assumed I’d hit the jackpot. Until, that’s, I had to go away the home and face my friends, who had been messaging me about how glad they were that my skin was clearing.

@chloegracelaws Showing the difference of this filter to me with zero makeup because I keep seeing people in full beat saying it doesn’t make them look that different. Filters like this are terrifying because we forget how we actually look. Because beauty ideals have gone to date, that men can’t tell the difference between AI women and actual women. Because every reality television star on instagram is overlaying this face on their photos and so they don’t even should sign post it. ENOUGH. #boldmakeup #boldmakeupfilter #filter #filtertransition #dropthefilter #feminism #patriarchy #beautyideals #beautystandards #fyp #fypシ ♬ original sound – Chloe grace laws

Now I attempt to only use ones that only change colors or graininess and I feel passionately that filters are contributing to unrealistic, eurocentric and patriarchal beauty ideals. But, like a variety of things (say, capitalism or sustainability), it’s hard to create change while you’re just one other cog within the system, and it might probably feel fruitless: so, why not join them? If everyone else is smoothing their skin, why should I be the just one showing my pores and pimples?

One TikTok user joked that they were glad this filter didn’t exist before their prefrontal cortex developed and isn’t that a scary thought? In my early twenties (I’m now 28) filters were more rudimentary, and so they were fun. People knew they weren’t real, because they weren’t purported to be. That’s all modified. Filters, now, are primarily about looking a certain way – digital make-up was once garish, and now it’s a subtle eyelash or a rather bronzed cheek. The purpose of them is to go unnoticed, and to create an illusion. This illusion is one society has collectively bought into; that it’s normal (and achievable) for girls to homogeneously look a certain (poreless, snatched, youthful) way. And we’ve internalised it.

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