*Photo  courtesy of Google.com

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When it comes to beauty filters, we can recognize that there is an issue to be had when filters further racial disparities and uphold whiteness and/or thinness as ideal. To be considered beautiful by society’s standards, according to advertising and filters, you need to have what is dubbed the Instagram Face: clear skin, high cheekbones, catlike eyes, long lashes, a small nose, and full lips. Individuals have been documented going so far as to also lighten their skin color and remove traditionally non-white features to fit societal white standards.

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However, it can be difficult to find a solution that accounts for all races, economic statuses, and other factors. Some people have argued for a move towards decolonizing beauty routines, meaning, as Donella shares, not only weighing what and from who you are buying beauty products and fashion items, but also expanding the mind further than what society defines as "beauty". Looking for more ways to ask questions of the systems currently in place and buy more products from people of color. Donella (2019) also notes how no matter how you go about decolonizing your beauty routine, it is "probably going to result in a lot of people being uncomfortable with your appearance. It's also the only way beauty norms have a chance of changing."

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Do we begin to create a culture of natural beauty being beautiful? Do we get rid of this standard of beauty all together? What might the consequences be for people from different backgrounds? Many people believe this change all begins with celebrities and influencers who flood our social media feeds and dominate much of society telling everyday users what products to use and trends to follow next. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Change can begin at the individual level, from choices of products and filters used, to advocating for change on personal platforms.

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There have already been movements made in this direction that I believe should be continued. One of the larger movements is the Body Positivity (#BOPO) trend. The BOPO trend has become popular with women and men alike sharing more real pictures of themselves on social media. Researchers Cohen, Fardouly, Newton-John, and Slater describe “body appreciation . . . as appreciating the features, functionality, and health of the body rather than focusing solely on its appearance (Tylka and Wood-Barcalow, 2015)." Preliminary research findings suggest that positive body can lead to improved psychological and physical health benefits as well as preventative measures. Rather than putting a focus on competing for who looks the best or has achieved the most, we can focus on celebrating where each person is at currently in their life journey, as well as what makes them unique in society. I am a personal fan of this solution. In the rise of this movement, I have noticed a shift in my feed from being filtered and perfect images to images when individuals are struggling or do not fit the “societal mold” and want to share that with others.

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However, it is important to acknowledge the potential trade-offs or limitations of the BOPO trend.

 

For instance, This BOPO trend can be linked to the neoliberal idea of individual self-agency in women’s empowerment addressed earlier in this website. With BOPO, emphasis is placed on a do-it-yourself notion of empowerment, which can communicate that fat people need to take agency themselves and choose to empower themselves rather than wallow in shame (Knox, 2019). This can divert attention from the sources of fat shaming and the institutions that perpetuate, and benefit from, fatphobia. According to anthropologist Hannah Knox (2019), “This individualized notion of empowerment denotes a personal conception of power, obscuring the real power relations in society, and thus making empowerment a matter of individual choice and responsibility (Pease, 2002); an effect that is comparative to the notion of health being a matter of choice and responsibility.”

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While I advocate for change at the individual level, there is a limit to how much one person can do to enact the change that many are wanting to see on social media platforms. It can also be, as seen above, more hurtful than helpful to use the self-advocacy route. That is where coming together to stand up against these systems that are creating divides and causing harm becomes crucial. It is the strength of organized groups that offer agency to those who do not have the individual agency to help make changes at the individual level, whether it be because of a lack of economic means, where the risks of refusing dominant beauty standards alone are too high, platforms’ unwillingness to acknowledge, amplify, or address critical voices, or an absence of education about the history and harmful impacts of beauty filters.

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That is why another solution I propose is that which I have tried to accomplish with this website: education. Users should know what is happening behind the scenes of the brands and platforms they use and love, as well as the implications of seemingly harmless things like social media beauty filters. If informed, they can choose not participate, or to begin their journey to make different choices and to link arms with those who are also looking for a change in beauty standards. Those who have access to educational and change-making resources must also stand with those who do not or cannot stand up for themselves alone. 

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After much research on this topic it has become apparent to me that the filters are not problematic at the surface level of problematic beauty standards of society. Rather they are a tangible example of systems of oppression that are deeply rooted within struggles against racism, sexism, fatphobia, surveillance, and exploitation that many individuals face on a daily basis whether realized or not.