Branded as a “fun and powerful portrait editor that allows you to easily achieve magazine-style results”, Facetune is an app that allows its users to alter virtually every physical aspect of their body in a photo before posting it. With settings to adjust the whiteness of your teeth, smoothness of your skin, darkness of your lashes and even the size of your body, it truly does offer “magazine-style” results… fake results. Fake results, which alter girl’s perception of their own beauty.
But Patricia!!! Don’t bash something before you try it!!! How do you know it changes how girls look at themselves?!?! Because I, like 90% of the college girl population, bought this app and used to be an avid Facetuner myself (and you’re probably lying if you try to tell me you haven’t posted at least one photo that has been slightly Facetuned by you or a friend).
So yes, I’m guilty of having whitened my teeth. I’m guilty of having smoothed away breakouts. I’m guilty of having brightened my eyes. Worst of all, I’m guilty of having edited and reshaped the parts of my body I was currently “dissatisfied” with. I’ve thinned my thighs and arms, trimmed my waist and even erased a few double chins. So no, I’m not condemning you if you use this app, don’t worry sista, I’ve been there.
At first it seemed pretty harmless. In fact, it made me feel pretty good. Who would notice if I nipped and tucked a few places here and there? The problem was, I noticed. I knew. The me that I was creating was (in my mind) the prettier, skinnier, bright-eyed me with a perfectly white smile… and I started liking her better. I started wondering why the real me didn’t look like the Facetuned me. I began questioning if other people could notice that the real me wasn’t as seemingly perfect as the version of me I was posting on Instagram.
I’d created a false version of myself that had made me doubt the real me, all thanks to a “fun and powerful portrait editor”.
After realizing how much hold this app had begun to have over me, I began to notice how many other girls were using it to. I can hardly scroll through 3 photos on my Instagram feed without seeing a Facetuned photo (and if you’ve used it, you know, you can spot it too).
Here’s the thing though, no one’s skin is that perfect, no one’s eyelashes look dark enough to have been drawn on with a sharpie, and no one-let me just say it again-no one has a perfectly retouched, magazine-cover body. Not even the girls on the cover have that body.
We’ve heard it a thousand times, but its time we start to believe it: the idea of beauty thrown at us by the media is unattainable. The danger of this app is that it allows girls to shape themselves into societies idea of perfection and beauty, while it simultaneously forces them to question their own beauty.
I officially said goodbye to and deleted my Facetune app a little over a month ago, because I decided if I truly want to love myself for who I am, I can’t keep creating fake versions of me that diminish my actual beauty and worth.
There, I said it. I’m beautiful. Maybe I’m not a size 00 with flawless skin, but I’m beautiful.
And, friendly reminder, you are too.
But Patricia!!! Don’t bash something before you try it!!! How do you know it changes how girls look at themselves?!?! Because I, like 90% of the college girl population, bought this app and used to be an avid Facetuner myself (and you’re probably lying if you try to tell me you haven’t posted at least one photo that has been slightly Facetuned by you or a friend).
So yes, I’m guilty of having whitened my teeth. I’m guilty of having smoothed away breakouts. I’m guilty of having brightened my eyes. Worst of all, I’m guilty of having edited and reshaped the parts of my body I was currently “dissatisfied” with. I’ve thinned my thighs and arms, trimmed my waist and even erased a few double chins. So no, I’m not condemning you if you use this app, don’t worry sista, I’ve been there.
At first it seemed pretty harmless. In fact, it made me feel pretty good. Who would notice if I nipped and tucked a few places here and there? The problem was, I noticed. I knew. The me that I was creating was (in my mind) the prettier, skinnier, bright-eyed me with a perfectly white smile… and I started liking her better. I started wondering why the real me didn’t look like the Facetuned me. I began questioning if other people could notice that the real me wasn’t as seemingly perfect as the version of me I was posting on Instagram.
I’d created a false version of myself that had made me doubt the real me, all thanks to a “fun and powerful portrait editor”.
After realizing how much hold this app had begun to have over me, I began to notice how many other girls were using it to. I can hardly scroll through 3 photos on my Instagram feed without seeing a Facetuned photo (and if you’ve used it, you know, you can spot it too).
Here’s the thing though, no one’s skin is that perfect, no one’s eyelashes look dark enough to have been drawn on with a sharpie, and no one-let me just say it again-no one has a perfectly retouched, magazine-cover body. Not even the girls on the cover have that body.
We’ve heard it a thousand times, but its time we start to believe it: the idea of beauty thrown at us by the media is unattainable. The danger of this app is that it allows girls to shape themselves into societies idea of perfection and beauty, while it simultaneously forces them to question their own beauty.
I officially said goodbye to and deleted my Facetune app a little over a month ago, because I decided if I truly want to love myself for who I am, I can’t keep creating fake versions of me that diminish my actual beauty and worth.
There, I said it. I’m beautiful. Maybe I’m not a size 00 with flawless skin, but I’m beautiful.
And, friendly reminder, you are too.