Fake as Facetune


     James Charles. Youtube sensation. Successful male makeup artist. The first male Covergirl. There is no doubt James Charles is a successful business man as well as a Youtube celebrity, reaching millions of people through the internet. Among his other talents, James finds joy in photo editing and is notorious for his dramatic Facetune usage.

     Do not get me wrong. Many if not all social media influencers, as well as ordinary people, use Facetune to adjust the lighting, enhance their natural features, or smooth out their skin. However the use of apps such as Facetune or photoshop in general create an over looming feeling of pressure for people to fulfill these unreachable expectations.

     As we are glued to our screens, we are bombarded with fake pictures and begin to compare ourselves to these flawless images. Images of clear skin and full lips, bright eyes and a petite nose. Pictures of a curved figure, a thin waist, a flat stomach, and toned legs. Picture perfect images that enhance our own insecurities and breed new ones, causing us to see ourselves in a negative light. No matter how many times we are reminded of how artificial and highly edited these pictures are, the underlying feeling that we are not good enough nor will we ever be good enough is like a shadow: no matter how hard we try rid ourselves of it’s toxicity, it is always right behind us.

     I myself am not a fan of Facetune, for I feel as if people should embrace themselves, their whole self. We live in a society where people project the best image of themselves on to a profile, focusing on the high points of their life while concealing the low points. Yet we as attempt to erase all our flaws, we begin to erase what makes us human. We become robots with no malfunction, a machine that is designed with no imperfections. We develop a fake profile as we hide behind this facade, concealed in this cocoon we have weaved to protect us. Soon enough, what we project in cyberspace is no where near who we are in real life.

     Facetune and photoshop in general is an ugly endless cycle. Natural insecurities cause one to fix how they look in pictures, causing others to feel insecure, and the circle repeats. We are stuck in a monotonous loop, drowning in a sea of unreachable and unrealistic expectations. Though I still struggle with this idea every once in a while, I have learned to ride the waves of these lies. I still fall in every once in a while, sometimes almost drown, but I will always get back on the surfboard.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 5, 2018 at 8:09 PM

    James Charles has the right to portray himself however he pleases, but I agree with you that as someone that people look up to, he creates unrealistic expectations that other people compare themselves to. I have struggles with the temptation to edit my photos and in the past I have smoothed my skin or whitened my teeth, but as I have grown up around social media I understand that nobody actually looks like what their social media shows, and I don't need to follow along with that trend.

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