Are photo filters harmful? How Snapchat dysmorphia drives people to seek cosmetic surgery
- Airbrushed photos with cartoon filters seem harmless, but can lead to an obsessive search for the unobtainable ‘perfect’ shot
- Cosmetic surgeons report an increase in the number of people wanting to look like their heavily filtered images.
People used to call Anika the Snap Queen. Between 19 and 21, she was “obsessed with Snapchat, to the point where I had 4,000 followers”. At the peak of her “tragic” behaviour, she reckons now – a year after quitting the image-sharing app – she was taking 25 selfies a day.
She liked the sense of having a platform, she says, with the average selfie getting 300 replies. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m so popular – I’ve got to show my face.’”
But the filters were also part of the appeal. The Londoner had long been insecure about the slight bump in her nose. Snapchat’s effects, which let you embellish your selfies with dog ears, flower crowns and the like, would also erase the bump entirely. “I’d think, ‘I’d like to look how I look with this filter that makes my nose look slimmer’.”
Socialising in the real world, she would choose her seat to avoid being seen in profile. She recognises that this was irrational – “but it happens. I feel like we’re in a world where a lot of people are seen to be perfect, and so we try and reach that peak.”
Sometimes her followers would suggest meeting in person. “Then it would be like, ‘I have to look like my selfie.’” It was around this time, the height of her Snapchat obsession, that Anika started contacting cosmetic doctors on Instagram.