Social media filters: comparisons, beauty ideals and how they affect us
DESCRIPTION:
Social media filters under scrutiny: comparisons, beauty ideals, and their effects on us. Do filters promote unrealistic ideals? How does this affect young people?
Social media, filters and beauty ideals: why comparing ourselves doesn't make us more beautiful
A Chinese influencer loses 140,000 followers within hours. The reason: a technical error during a live stream. The filter failed. Her unedited face was briefly visible. The audience fled en masse.
The story makes headlines because it seems so clear-cut: a woman lies, and her followers punish her. The solution seems obvious: just be authentic. No filter, no problem.
That is exactly what is wrong. And that is exactly the problem.
What social media is doing to our faces, and why this trend is continuing
Before we judge the influencer, it's worth looking at what's actually interesting. Not the unedited appearance. But the 140,000 clicks on "unfollow".
What did these people reject? Not a person. They lost an object, in the psychoanalytical sense—a projection screen. An ideal image they themselves had constructed, now collapsed.
Heinz Kohut described this mechanism as "idealisation collapse": when the idealised object "fails" and the projection no longer holds, a form of narcissistic disappointment arises, often manifesting as anger. In the digital context, this anger is called "unfollow".
The woman did not lie to her followers. She stopped feeding their fantasy for a moment.
The effect on self-perception: what research shows
Now for the part that is more uncomfortable because it affects the influencer rather than the followers. And because it applies to many of us who have never used a filter.
AR tools on streaming channels are more than just make-up. They are a shift in perception in real time. For those who interact with their own filtered image daily, who receive it as feedback and experience it as a mirrored identity, this image increasingly becomes a psychological reality.
A study by Kleemans et al. (2018) showed that even brief exposure to idealised influencer content significantly reduces users' self-confidence, even when they know the videos have been edited. Knowledge does not protect. The feeling prevails—the result: lasting dissatisfaction that intensifies over time.
Young people are particularly susceptible to this effect. Social media feeds function as a constantly running comparison tool. Algorithms select content based on engagement, not on how accurately it reflects reality.
Since TikTok has become the dominant platform for short videos, research into its impact on self-perception and eating disorders has increased significantly, with controversial but increasingly consistent results. These results impressively demonstrate how heavily filtered representations influence one's own well-being.
Research describes the phenomenon as "Snapchat dysmorphia": those affected come to plastic surgery consultations and ask to look like their own filtered selfie, not like a celebrity, but like their optimised appearance (Rifkin et al., 2021). This is more than vanity. It is a perception disorder caused by repeated exposure.
Body dysmorphic disorder exists as a continuum. Many sufferers experience harmless variations of it daily: discomfort in front of the camera without editing, a feeling of strangeness when looking in the mirror, which never matches the photo they know from their own perspective. The connection to illnesses such as anorexia is well documented clinically, even if it is often ignored in public debate.
The medium shapes the content: how unrealistic beauty ideals are given space.
A platform is not neutral. It is a medium that decides which posts become visible and, by extension, which ideals are considered normal. Algorithmically preferred videos follow aesthetic patterns that become more pronounced over time. This results in an invisible canon according to which appearance is evaluated.
The decision to use a filter, therefore, follows the system. Those who livestream daily react rationally to an environment that rewards idealisation. Responsibility cannot be shifted onto individuals here, even if that would be more convenient.
A recurring pattern emerges among those affected: the filter starts as a tool, becomes a habit, and ultimately leads the user to perceive their own face as foreign without editing. It is not clear when a tool becomes an addiction.
"Just be yourself": the most dangerous trend in the authenticity discourse
This is where the wellness discourse comes into play. And then it gets critical.
The knee-jerk reaction to such incidents is always the same: be authentic. Sharing makes you vulnerable, and that's a good thing. The real you is beautiful enough.
That sounds liberating. It is a trap.
D. W. Winnicott coined the concept of the true and false self as a clinical model, not as lifestyle advice. The true self does not arise through exposure, but through a protected space in which spontaneous impulses do not have to be immediately adapted to expectations. It is not like an object that you have to show off. It needs conditions, and a commercial platform does not create any.
In The Mirror Stage, Jacques Lacan described how the ego is constituted from the outset as a mirror image, always slightly offset from one's own experience, always defined from the outside. What a filter does is not fundamentally different. It merely shifts the mirror to a new, algorithmically optimised level.
The "true self" is a constructed norm. The message "be authentic" is not a neutral invitation. It is a requirement that does not replace the old ideal of flawless perfection, but rather complements it. Now you are supposed to appear perfectly imperfect, vulnerable, but in an aesthetically acceptable way. This, too, has a format. This, too, has a filter.
Authenticity as a product: sharing, viewing, selling
Body acceptance campaigns by large corporations. "Real beauty" as a brand promise. Influencers who advertise without filters, in carefully lit shots. Unfiltered aesthetics is a niche that has long since sold itself.
None of this is a counter-model. It is an extension of the same system.
The image of beauty has shifted: from flawless to authentically visible flawless. The woman in our example accidentally fell out of this market. Her face was visible for a moment without editing, but it did not correspond to the ideal of perfection or even acceptable imperfection; it was simply a face. And 140,000 subscribers punished her for it.
Publishing content is no longer a private act. It is an economic one. Young people who grow up on these channels learn early on that visibility means conformity. Actively promoting unrealistic body ideals is in the platforms' interests; they ensure engagement, insecurity, and consumption. This is not a side effect. It is an intentional design feature.
What this means
Self-perception and online identity are inseparable. The photo someone shows of themselves is no less real psychologically than the one in the mirror. In some cases, it has a stronger effect. This should be taken into account. The discourse on authenticity is shameful. It places responsibility on those affected rather than naming the system.
What can help is becoming aware of the relationship between one's online appearance and one's lived bodily experience, so that one can distinguish between them. This allows one to regain room for manoeuvre.
Conclusion
140,000 people unfollowed a woman because of her unedited face. The knee-jerk response in such situations is: she shouldn't have used filters.
The more psychologically honest response: they weren't interacting with a person. They were managing an object that carried their projections. When the filter failed, they fled.
The woman developed a rational strategy in a sickening system. The system is called a platform. The filter is not the disease; it is the symptom of an environment that not only tolerates unrealistic ideals but algorithmically sets them as a prerequisite for visibility.
The call for authenticity does not change this as long as it is reinforced by the same mechanisms that previously rewarded perfection. The true self is not a product feature. And those who sell it as one have not solved the problem. They have merely given it a new label.
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