Difference between revisions of "Face Filters"

Revision as of 14:38, 11 February 2023

Face filters, also called "beauty filters" or "augmented reality face filters," are filters that alter users’ faces to “enhance” their physical appearance or add other visual effects. They use face recognition and augmented reality technology to detect facial features and apply these effects onto photos and videos in real time. Face filters are available on most photo and video-sharing social media apps, prominent examples including Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, and are often critical components of these apps’ user experiences.

Facial features vary widely from person to person, as can opinions and ideas about what makes a face beautiful. Face filters, and more specifically beauty filters, modify faces to conform to or at least more closely resemble one highly specific vision of beauty, imposing and superimposing that standard of beauty onto an innumerable number of minds and a vast range of different faces. As face filters are as ubiquitous as social media platforms that create visual content are, ethical concerns have arisen as face filters can promote and perpetuate certain harmful biases. Concurrently, other ethical concerns linking face filters with online inauthenticity and deception have emerged as well.

Types of Face Filters

Following are some general, simplified categories of face filters. These categories are not meant to be mutually exclusive and can share significant overlap with one or more others.

Humorous

Funny face filters can be a simple way for users to convey their lighthearted, playful moods or just have some harmless fun. Examples of humorous face filters on Snapchat are the Pear Face Lens and others that distort one’s facial proportions to a comical degree, the Chicken Nuggets Face Lens and others that superimpose a food item or other object onto one’s face save for the eyes and lips, and the Shook Lens and others that distort the image of one’s face into comical expressions.

Festive

Photo and video apps often create filters tailored to celebrate holidays, events, and other festive occasions such as New Year’s Eve, Halloween, the Olympics, and birthdays. These visual effects can be applied directly onto a user’s face or in the foreground or background of a photo or video.

Animal

Animal filters are a popular and varied enough group to have earned their own category; some famous ones on Snapchat include the Dog Lens, the Horse Head Lens, and the Fluffy Cat Ear Lens. The photo and video-taking and sharing app Snow also has countless iterations of cat, rabbit, and teddy bear-esque filters. Animal filters can range from cute (e.g. fuzzy cat ears and whiskers superimposed onto a face) to unsettling (e.g. a user’s human face morphing into a realistic horse face).

Sponsored

As social media platforms have been increasingly partnering with brands and companies to monetize and advertise in the digital sphere, one tactic they have developed is to create filters that promote sponsored content. These filters can promote movies (e.g. Walt Disney Studios’s Avatar Lens on Snapchat turning users’ faces into those of blue avatars), restaurants (e.g. Chipotle’s AR Snapchat lens promoting more active lifestyles and the chain’s newly launched Lifestyle Bowls^[2]), and products (e.g. Mr. Clean’s Snapchat lens advertising their deep cleaning mist Clean Freak). These filters often come with a small label tagging them as “Sponsored” that goes away once the picture or video using the filter is taken.

Beauty

Face filters can serve as an easy, automated process for users to obtain touched-up, beautified images of themselves without having to edit the photos and videos themselves. Some popular effects on beauty filters include smoothened skin, freckles, flushed cheeks, tanned skin, lightened skin, and sparkling eyes.

Makeup

Face filters can provide users with the opportunity to try and test out a varied selection of makeup looks. Many superimpose features such as eyelashes, eyeliner, contour, and lipstick, while also additionally enlarging the eyes and shrinking the nose and chin.

Ethical Concerns

Unrealistic Beauty Standards

Research has shown that face filters can “articulate maladaptive internalization of unrealistic body images and unattainable appearance standards.” ^[3] The availability and accessibility of filters make it easy for users to only photograph their faces using them, and they can lead to distorted perceptions of what one should look like. This effect can be more potent with augmented reality filters than its photo counterpart called “selfie dysmorphia,” as the modification is more realistic and happens in real time.^[4]

Unobtrusive face filters can also perform as automated facial retouching, making it impossible to tell whether a photo uploaded on social media has been edited or not. This can set unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards and expectations for users, especially younger ones.

Imposing Eurocentric Ideals

Face filters, by function and definition, change and alter aspects of the image of one’s face, often into a socially or culturally “idealized” version of oneself. However, the most common changes and features beauty filters apply onto faces (enlarged eyes, narrowed noses, light-colored eyes) are Eurocentric. This has raised concerns in some for the impact of these filters on the self-images of people of color. ^[5] The lightening of skin color performed by some filters have also been pointed out as being troubling and problematic.^[6]

Mismatch Between Real and Online Faces

On a different note, ethical concerns have been raised against the users of face filters as well. As the world grows increasingly digital and digitized, there have been more occasions for people to upload their faces onto the internet. Complaints have been raised against those who post images of themselves that have gone through face filters.

References

1. ↑ Morgan. Chicken Nugget Lens. Snapchat. Retrieved February 11, 2023, from https://lens.snapchat.com/0b84825fdb384b2a90ead312afb5ffba?locale=en-US.
2. ↑ Wright, Webb. “Chipotle to debut wellness-inspired AR Snapchat lens on ‘Quitter’s Day’.” The Drum, 3 Jan. 2023, www.thedrum.com/news/2023/01/03/chipotle-debut-wellness-inspired-ar-snapchat-lens-quitters-day.
3. ↑ Santanachote, Perry. “Majority of Americans Who Know of Social Media Beauty Filters Find Them Troubling, CR Survey Shows.” Consumer Reports, 13 Oct. 2021, www.consumerreports.org/social-media/majority-of-americans-who-know-of-social-media-beauty-filter-a2740948053/.
4. ↑ Javornik, Ana, et al. “‘What lies behind the filter?’ uncovering the motivations for using augmented reality (AR) face filters on social media and their effect on well-being.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 128, 2022.
5. ↑ Rowland, Mary. “Online Visual Self-Presentation: Augmented Reality Face Filters, Selfie-Editing Behaviors, and Body Image Disorder.” Journal of Research in Gender Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2022, pp. 99-113.
6. ↑ Rowland, Mary. “Online Visual Self-Presentation: Augmented Reality Face Filters, Selfie-Editing Behaviors, and Body Image Disorder.” Journal of Research in Gender Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2022, pp. 99-113.