Dating coach Eric Resnick recently asked a client to send him a photo of her profile that she wanted to use in a dating app. These photos are labeled "FaceApp 1", "FaceApp 2" and "FaceApp 3", indicating that the customer treats them with a photo editing application that allows you to smooth out wrinkles, fill in hairline or sculpt cheekbones.

Resnick said that beauty filters are the scourge of online dating. They are also very popular.

Resnick said that beauty filters are the scourge of online dating. They are also very popular. Everyone uses them: women, men, 20-somethings who don’t remember the world without Instagram, and 50-year-olds who like to hide signs of aging. However, Resnick advised his client to give up editing, which visibly soiled the skin around her eyes, neck and mouth. "If you want to make a real connection, don't lie," he told me.

On a practical level, this reasoning makes sense. Obviously filtered faces or modified bodies may close potential matches. Looking different from your photos is not the best way to start a face-to-face date. But it’s hard to blame people for trying to comply with the social media-driven beauty standards that prevail today, especially on apps that treat us as items in online catalogs. In our increasingly visualized culture, there are strong social and technological impulses that drive people to digitally improve themselves.

The philosopher Heather Widdows argued in her book "Perfect Me" that because striving to be beautiful has become a moral endeavor, wrapped in moral language ("you let go", "you deserve it"), it actually changes It's getting harder and harder to resist. She said that women's beauty standards are more important and specific than ever: with a few exceptions, women should aspire to look tight, smooth, young and slim.

Beauty filters are designed to make you look closer to that standard-but they also narrow the standard. The filter makes the eyes look bigger, the nose smaller, and the lips fuller (think: Kardashian Jenner). According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Technology Review, although the filtered ideals are somewhat racially ambiguous, many filters can brighten and brighten the skin, thereby exacerbating existing color discrimination. "Instagram face" is something that social media users can immediately recognize and covet from a young age.

Retouching was once the authority of celebrities in Guangxian magazines, but it has now been democratized. It's easy, it's available, and it's being lowered by our throat. Over the years, Instagram's filters have been smoothing our faces. Even Snapchat's very popular and seemingly naughty puppy filter has widened eyes, thinned faces and spray-painted skin. Anyone can download FaceApp or Facetune. Huawei mobile phones come with "beauty mode", which can automatically apply filters to your face.

Research on the impact of beauty filters on our mental health is still unclear, but it is undeniable that in a world where we are constantly staring at ourselves-whether through selfies, FaceTime or Zoom-it is easy to feel inadequate. When you turn off the filter and look at yourself in the mirror, and it does not appear as the enhanced image, "there is a huge misalignment between the real self and the imaginary self," Widos told me. "As the gap between them widens, the likelihood of anxiety, dissatisfaction and unhappiness increases." This is why people continue to ask plastic surgeons to shape their faces into filtered versions that resemble themselves.

A 29-year-old female dating app user told Johanna Degen, Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage and Jo Reichertz, “I feel naked without a filter, but I really never thought that my phone would automatically prompt beauties.” Germany Psychology researcher at the University of Flensburg. "It seems natural," she said. "If I don't use the filter, I look disgusting."

Filters have the ability to influence how you think about yourself and how you present it. But the design of many dating apps encourages us to expose our idealized selves.

Swiping through profiles, "likes" and matches on apps like Tinder are like scoring. You can collect a statistical data that can be used (intentionally or unintentionally) to measure the reaction to your profile and optimize the way you present yourself. This is like an A/B test version of the product. The product is you, whether you are looking for an app for love, verification or entertainment.

Since the sliding application is highly visual and relies on photos rather than text, adding beauty filters to your pictures is a way to optimize yourself. Degen of the University of Flensburg found in her research that people who use apps like Tinder seem to choose dating profile photos, which are easy to categorize (a man holding a fish, is anyone?) and often attractive. In order to compete in fast-paced, appearance-based applications, its algorithms have matched users according to their needs over the years, and most people want to make themselves look hot.

Attempting to appeal to the ideal of homogeneity means reducing risk-this includes honesty. Although this may lead to better relationships, exposing your true self to the public will make you more vulnerable. It is natural to want to obey.

"The filter actually puts a protective surface between you and the other person, so you can show yourself less," Degen said.

Hannah, 23, asked me not to use her full name. She posted a screenshot of her profile on Reddit, asking for feedback. She took a few photos. In the photos, her face is obvious but glows after lightly spraying the gun. She explained that she used a Snapchat filter because she didn’t have makeup and the filter mimicked its effect to make her eyelashes. Bigger, smoother skin.

However, Reddit reviewers criticized her filter usage, which is mild in terms of filters. "The filtered photos look too fake," a netizen said. "People generally hate filters," another added.

In the world of online dating, concerns about filters are understandable. The dating app Plenty of Fish banned facial filters in 2019. Previously, it stated that a survey showed that 84% of users want to be more “real” when dating online and face-to-face, and 70% of users believe that facial filters are deceptive.

Many people expect to retouch the baseline. When an unspoken subjective boundary is crossed, they will reject it, and this technique is no longer accepted.

At the same time, the filter has been standardized. The Plenty of Fish survey shows that generation Z has a lower judgment on the use of filters than older daters. "Slightly optimizing yourself is socially recognized," Degen said. Many people expect to retouch the baseline. When an unspoken subjective boundary is crossed, they will reject it, and this technique is no longer accepted. Defining that line can be confusing.

Hanna said that she hopes other Redditor users don't like the filter-but that doesn't mean they don't like the result. "I do think they are a bit hypocritical, because most men still like filtering and/or makeup," she said.

The contradiction between expecting a certain appearance and complaining about artificial realization is an example of what Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor of digital culture at Cornell University, called the "restriction of authenticity."

Women are particularly vulnerable to false accusations-this is nothing new. In the Victorian era, makeup was related to sex workers, who were relegated to "painted women". Duffy said: "It is this kind of thinking that if you put on too much makeup, you will be morally corrupt and try to hide your true self."

As most of our lives have moved online, the question of what is "true self" has become more complicated. For example, it is entirely possible for beauty filters to become as common and accepted as cosmetics. However, today, many of us are doomed to fail. These widely-used tools will make you look more like a beautifully acclaimed ideal-but if you use them, you may disappoint everyone, including yourself. Or called catfish.

Hanna Kozlowska is a freelance journalist who focuses on the intersection of technology and society. Her work has appeared in many magazines such as Quartz, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian.