When comic Michelle Collins proved the obscuring powers of glam filters, yass-ifying a woman who brought her own mayonnaise to the airport in a now-viral post “to maintain anonymity,” it seems the overlords at TikTok were taking notes, a venture that culminated in the new Bold Glamour filter.
Offering users smooth skin, plumped lips and sculpted cheekbones that could rival any plastic surgeon on the eastern seaboard, the filter is only the latest entry into the internet’s sexy uncanny valley — one that is apparently giving 20-teens Tumblr a run for its money when it comes to body dysmorphia.
“I just woke up from a nap and I’m seeing this filter and it’s the biggest shot to my self-esteem,” mused TikToker @ivannamunoz5 before avowing to “catfish” her 459,000 followers. ‘I’ll always be using that filter.”
Yet it seems they’re far from alone. “I don’t wanna say this about myself but I actually look ugly when I take this filter off,” explained TikToker @joannajkenny in a video that has racked up more than 280,000 views.
“I’ve done a lot of work to unlearn that I owe prettiness to anyone,” she continued, adding that she doesn’t think her “brain knows how to deal with looking like this one minute and then this the next” before taking off the filter.
As TikToker @ispyshiny so aptly put it in her caption — “I am so happy my teenage self only had dog ears on Snapchat.”
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