Just one more 

Ok just one more but with this filter, I promise this is the one! OMG, my nose. Maybe I need another one with more lighting because it’s too dark… Ooooh look at this one, my hair looks so gorgeous and my teeth are much whiter! But wait… Does this filter make me look fat? And someone call puberty, tell them to give my boobs back! Eventually, we settle on our latest and greatest picture, start comparing ourselves with other people and wait for the comments to roll in. Meanwhile, we can start the gossip about how perfect other influencers’ lives are and how everything about them must be fake. Which in most cases, actually is…  

If I could just look at people reading the first paragraph, I can already imagine them nodding their heads. Do you realize how narcissistic we’ve become and so busy judging what’s on the outside that we forget what matters most? It’s just that by seeing all these perfect pictures online, we forget what it’s like to look like a normal human being. We do not have perfect symmetric faces and bodies, we all have “flaws”. Even though we know this deep inside, this inner voice is continuously working against us and making us doubt ourselves. 

When I was young 

I remember back in school when I was 13 years old, before the social media age. I would watch the 16-year-old “popular” girls from our school and think: “Wow, they are so perfect!”. Everything must be so perfect in their lives. Their hair was so soft and long, perfect brows, nails and make-up.  

There I was with my curly hair, no nail polish and too young for make-up. Bigger hips and butt while all the other girls were skinny and had zero curves. Back then that was the beauty standard, I was like a Beyonce in a Paris Hilton world. I didn’t look anything like the girls at school and felt like I didn’t fit in, weighed too much and needed a nose job. That’s why I thought I had to change everything about me, just to fit in, changing the most beautiful things that made me unique.  

Social media to the rescue  

That’s where social media came to the rescue! With the rise of social media and influencers, a completely different type of beauty and role models became widely known and gained a lot of popularity. They come from all around the world and represented all different kinds of beauty. This made me realize that I am in fact pretty, I just don’t look like the typical European girl. The curls, brown eyes, bigger hips and butt, Egyptian nose (if that’s a thing?). Now I look back and notice how unique and cute I was. 

Me, Myself and I 

Now that we have different role models to look up to and compare ourselves with, it wasn’t long before we could start comparing ourselves with ourselves. In the beginning, Snapchat was a funny thing with the animal filters or a pizza guy. They were all innocent, funny filters… Until they weren’t. When you realize those filters make your skin look smoother and way cuter than without, everything posted from now on has to be with the perfect filter. Also, every social media platform realizes this and makes sure to have the most beautiful looking filters. What’s wrong with playing around with filters to change the way you look? Nothing…. Right? 

Until you start realizing that nowadays you can look like the filtered version of yourself every day. Plastic surgery has become a commodity and girls start using make-up before puberty hits, just trying to be like the perfect images they see on social media. That’s when we try to bring the online world to the real world, even though it does not belong there. Then again, what happens if you changed everything just to match the current beauty standard and after 5 years this is completely different? Will you be seeing the doctor again?