If you think you've seen the worst of social media's toxic, poisonous effect on the mental health of girls and women, we haven't seen anything yet.
Women everywhere are discovering TikTok's next-gen of beauty filters – filters that don't blur or smudge when you put your hand over them and are nearly imperceptible as filters.
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An ultra-realistic TikTok beauty filter is coming under fire — for being too good. The filter, which convincingly alters facial features to look more conventionally attractive and simulates a soft glam makeup look, has some users freaking out that it conveys unrealistic beauty standards without viewers realizing that the look comes from software.
The "Bold Glamour" effect has been used over 6 million times and is garnering mixed reviews by those simultaneously mortified and in awe of the "FaceApp in a filter," referring to a popular editing app that alters users' selfies using AI filters. Several people said that they were "humbled" by the effect. Others were creeped out by the filter's ability to evade glitches and remain realistic and natural-looking even when obstructed.
Let this professional photographer (the second video) explain why this is so damaging:
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In the CS Lewis book, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of The Dawn Treader," there is a magic book of incantations that includes a beauty spell.
An infallible spell to make beautiful her that uttereth it beyond the lot of mortals.
In the most recent film adaptation (which admittedly does not follow the book very well), the young girl Lucy takes the page containing this spell and uses it to try to make herself look more alluring and mature like her older sister.
Lucy's reaction to her picture in the magic mirror is spookily like those using the TikTok filter:
As is her reaction when she realizes it is simply an illusion:
This is some hauntingly deep spiritual stuff right here.
And it's eating women alive, body and soul.
In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader film adaptation, Lucy ends up using the spell to almost wish herself away entirely. She's only saved by the magic lion Aslan, who represents God in the fantasy series.
Women: Don't wish yourself away. Protect your daughters and yourselves from this.
