Me and My Selfie

By Sarah Rutherford

Once upon a time a selfie was done out of photographic desperation with a disposable Kodak camera usually only capturing a grainy half of a head. Now the selfie is used as pictorial proof you were somewhere, doing something but more dangerously as a mirror to what a person thinks they should look like. With the advent of filters, Facetune and other photo editors, a new era of unattainable beauty expectations have been ushered in and with it has come a crushing effect on one’s self-esteem. As advanced practitioners in the aesthetic field, these new patient requests to look like their altered selfies blur the line between fantasy and reality changing the landscape of how consults and procedures are done.

For those of you who may not know what filters are, they’re algorithms within apps -or an attachment to an actual camera- that allows a person to alter the appearance of a photo whether suitably or dramatically. For instance, they can emphasize color saturation, create more contrast, add a soft-focus effect to the skin, or add accessories like glasses or cat ears. They can be fun additions to otherwise blah photos but shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Not to long ago a growing trend on social media was one of skin and body positivity, accepting a person for who they are with all their quirks and imperfections. The use of filters and editors are contradicting this message by allowing people to control and alter the content that they put out into the world. A 2017 exploratory study showed six main reasons why people take selfies including societal one-upmanship, attention-seeking, and mood modification. This study identified social competitiveness as a driving force of motivation for taking selfies. When an individual uses their appearance as a gauge of self-worth and validation there is a higher level of personal facial dissatisfaction as reported in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.  In another study out of Australia, researchers found that when a group of undergraduate women was shown idealized pictures of other women with make-up on their satisfaction of their own appearance went down and were more likely to consider altering their faces. I compare this to a word like spatula. Say it once and it sounds fine, but say 30 times in a row and it starts to sound weird and wrong. Same thing with selfies… one is fine, 30 is way too many.

When a patient desires to look like their filtered selves, managing expectations goes to a whole new level for medical staff as we’re dealing with a psychologically dominate issue versus a truly aesthetic one. I’m going to burst your bubble right now: I can not make you look like your favorite selfie. There is a professional obligation to get that out because there is nothing worse than a disappointed client. I can help you to achieve your healthiest skin, soften some wrinkles, and get rid of pesky brown spots, even send you down to the plastic surgery department but you will never end up looking like that picture. It’s about being the best version of your current self.

Filters and their unachievable ideals are narrowing the standards of beauty. They are making us lose sight of who we truly are in the quest for what we think we should be all while ruining our self-esteem. Beauty is an abstract construct. We all have our own ideas as to what is and isn’t beautiful but for me being unique ranks higher than looking like everyone else on social media.