Unfiltered Self-love: When My Ex Preferred Me with a Filter

It’s been a long time coming but I think it’s finally time to break up with Mr. Filterman. I know you’re probably wondering to yourself, “Charlotte, what do you mean? Why are you breaking up with Filterman when he’s been so helpful to you? I’ve never seen you look healthier than when you're together. You have smoother skin, whiter teeth, you seem to be taking care of yourself more, going to the gym… blah blah blah”. It’s all a lie. I’ve never looked better because I never looked like this to begin with. That’s exactly the problem. 

Elise Hu described my dilemma to a T. I truly felt seen when she said “the face looking back at me was ‘a face’ but not my face.”- eye widening, thinner, softer jawline, teeth whitening and skin blurring.” I truly owe it to Hu for her wonderful talk “How digital culture is reshaping our faces and bodies” as it showed me the toxicity I was living in. People may be shocked to know that the real me is not the one on my Instagram, Snapchat, or LinkedIn profile photo. What I haven’t been strong enough to say is that Filterman has had an alarming effect on me. 

At the beginning of our relationship, it was nice, he’d help me look as cute as a puppy in my Snaps, and would show me how to brighten and lower the contrast of colour on my Instagram pictures. But as time went on, the digital changes to my face became physical ones. Brightening up my cheeks with blush, whitening my teeth with strips, all to make him happy. In the end, makeup wasn’t enough for him. He wanted Photoshop blurred skin, and curves that could only be achieved through his perverse editing methods. I guess the realness of my pores was too much for him.

If only Filterman could see the world through my eyes, but I fear he’s shifted my perspective instead. I don’t think Mr. Filterman subjected me to “the male gaze”; no, it was far worse, his was “the technological gaze”. As described by Hu as “an algorithmically driven perspective that we learn to internalize, perform for and optimize for. And then, by taking in all our data, the machines learn to perform us, in an endless feedback loop,” the technological gaze became the driving factor of our relationship. I cared so much about how I looked because Filterman MADE me care. I internalized whatever trends he saw fit and I tried to recreate them for him, or with his aid. Instead of loving me for me, Filterman took my bare face and told me my value came from what he could do with it, not what it was at that moment. 

That stuck with me. 

He basically told me I’m bare-faced ugly. HOW CAN YOU TELL YOUR OWN GIRLFRIEND THAT?! And what’s even worse is I let myself believe it. 

Hu says we must reckon with the idea of filtered beauty, “because the more narrow our idea of beauty is, the wider the pool of ugly becomes.” I’ve come to realize, Filterman forcefully pushed me into the pool without knowing how to swim. I feel like I have been drowning trying to chase a digital beauty standard that is unattainable and sadly one where the “idea of attractiveness is only increasingly inhuman ... and cyborgian.” If that’s what Mr. Filterman’s looking for, he’s just going to have to find it somewhere else. I’m done optimizing myself for someone I will never be polished enough for; someone who has no limit when it comes to beauty standards. Luckily for him, there are two newly single chips available. Maybe he should tag onto: AI and Inter Net, I heard they’re looking for some filtering.