It is pretty evident that the filtered effects on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram have come a long way. They no longer just add funny and cartoonish ears or tongues anymore. The effects are becoming more realistic day by day, which is blurring the lines between reality and fake. These effects have been so widely used that people’s timelines are flooded with hundreds of filtered or heavily photoshopped images each day. This prompted the start of the hashtag #nofilter to motivate people to use no filters on the pics they post online.
We all know how popular Instagram and Snapchat are for sharing funny and cute photos with your friends and followers. And to attract more users they introduced filters to make the picture look more interesting and popping. But some users take it way too far. And create great expectations in the minds of the viewers. And that is exactly what promoted this trend.
In this trend, people upload a selfie of themselves without making any external alterations to them and use the hashtag #nofilter. Or they will upload a video with the “filter v/s reality effect” wherein half the screen you will look color corrected, airbrushed, flawless with plump lips, and on the other side, it’s all-natural you.
This movement was initiated by seeing the degrading state of social conventions and the mental state of individuals striving for perfection beyond the limits of reality. This is to teach people to embrace themselves just as they are. To improve one’s self-worth, you need to look away from the fake image you have created to see the real you.
Even celebrities like Alia Bhatt, Jacqueline Fernandez, Anushka Sharma, Alicia Keys, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and even once in a while Kylie Jenner would post unfiltered selfies on social media. This is not only a way to show their vulnerable real sides to their fan but also promote the notion that you don’t need filters to look beautiful.
Every day on Instagram we may see countless images of people that are air-brushed. Making it harder and harder to decipher whether it’s their natural look or not. People are using filters to erase pores, remove any uneven textures or spots to seem more flawless, to put their best versions on the net. But what they are forgetting is that it is not their best self, but their fake self.
Isn’t it already bad enough that we see countless other people online to compare with, and now we have to compete with our filtered image as well? This isn’t just harmful to our self-esteem but our mental health in general. Slowly as these comparisons increase, so does our depression. In the quest to achieve some unattainable persona, we end up losing our true selves.
The filters have also resulted in numerous cat-fishing situations as well. People often fall in love with the perfect adaptations of others that are put online to the public. Not even knowing the real person behind those images, they often take a leap towards being disappointed or worse, being conned. There is no shortage of horror stories online about “Expectation v/s Reality”.
The number of times the picture of a beautiful and attractive girl was actually of a 40+-year-old dude with a tummy the size of a potato sack. Or the guy with a fit body and 6 pack abs in his 20s turns out to be a preteen boy posing with a phone with an adequate camera but with great photoshopping ability.
How about instead of lying to others and ourselves let’s get on board with the new trend of saying no to filter. Without conforming to others’ beauty standards, let’s just enjoy every moment in our own skins.
FashionBlitzs/Nadia
