At first, it seems like a no brainer why we love snap chat filters. The dog filter is ubiquitous for its magical ability to make everyone look really cute without really doing much (it’s because it subtly and secretly slims your face and removes blemishes in addition to giving you a cute puppy snout and perky puppy ears). Snapchat filters are fun to play with and they make us look good, it’s that simple. But is there a deeper reason why we love them so much? And why do people love to snark and shame women for being “basic” or “vain” for using filters? What is the source of this vitriol directed towards the harmless phenomena of women enjoying their own beauty and exercising control over how they look? Let’s take a journey with Susan Sontag and John Berger to further explore the forces behind and against women using Snapchat filters, and how it relates to a broader conversation about self-image, the objectification of women in society, and allowing women to have agency over their own appearance and presentation.
In this age of internet, we are capable of expressing our individuality on an unprecedented level with the aid of technology. Whether you are using the flower crown filter, random funny filters like the one with the silly dancing bee, the adorable various animal filters, or the historical ones that transform you into a gruff Viking of yore, all the different flavors of filters provide their own unique atmosphere and visual effect that can cater to any personality. As millennials and generation Z grow up in an age with the aid of technology to redefine and figure out their own personalities for themselves as well as to explore how to present the version of their self-image they want to their peers, filters provide a way to help craft and aid the expression of their individuality they want to share with others. A regular selfie without any bells or whistles may many times not be adequate enough to fully express the emotions, feelings, and energy felt in lived moments with friends and activity. With the aid of filters, especially increasingly more creative and artistic ones, there are ways to customize the photos and moments from your day to share with your friends that can suddenly embody and capture the essence of that moment through added visual effects. A day at the beach with close friends and a bottle of moscato suddenly comes to life and all the joy, fun, and silliness can be fully experienced and captured with the effervescent filter that adds beautiful bubbles versus just a simple video of the beach, for instance. Filters bring out that moment in a way with vibrancy, customization, and theatricality that a simple photograph with no effects could ever do effectively. Susan Sontag writes how, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” A Snapchat filter captures the mortality and spirit of a moment by using art and visual effects to visually represent a formless, wordless feeling or experience in the moment.
We’ve all had those experiences where in the moment we feel and live an experience vividly, but as soon as we take a photo to preserve that moment, the photo itself is dull and nowhere near captures the sensual lived experience, but the right filter can not only capture but bring out essential elements of the photo’s subject. Like how clothing and style is a way to express individuality, the right filter expresses the individuality of the selfie subject who chooses it. The flower crown represents the gentle flower child who loves nature. The “glam” filter is for the fierce ambitious woman who wants to be her own boss and sets her own standards. Similarly, with selfies and photos of oneself, the right filter that fits one’s personality can be an added way to express their personality through a visual layer.
Despite the fun Snapchat filters offer, it’s hard not to notice the eye-rolling and judgment that using filters inspire. We have all heard that one cynical “friend” who rolls their eyes and condescendingly snips about how filters and women who use them are “vain” and “basic”. Why do women disproportionately get shamed and attacked for what is a relatively harmless exercise in self-confidence?
In the history of media, the visual of the woman represented through paintings was meant to be used as a status symbol and enjoyment for wealthy men. John Berger in his “Ways of Seeing” comments on the hypocrisy of the patriarchy and those who subscribe to its influence who support the consumption of images of women but condemn women who take charge of and find beauty in their own images; “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.” Throughout art history and especially paintings from the Renaissance and the representational artists, paintings of naked women who were offered as objects of pleasure for the viewer were considered par for the course, but paintings of naked women who could see and view their own beauty were assigned a negative moral value of vanity. This is how the patriarchy attempts to control and take away woman’s agency, and to keep her in the role of a sexualized object made for the pleasure of others, not a creator or an agent with power in her own right who has the ability to enjoy her own beauty. When a woman uses Snapchat filters, it is about enjoying and finding herself beautiful, and being able to exercise power and agency by choosing a filter she likes. The very act of a woman enjoying her own beauty for herself and not for others is an act of opposition to the patriarchy and thus why it is under attack from those who support it.
So the moral of the story is, ignore what other people think, and use Snapchat filters. Use every Snapchat filter that makes you feel good, that makes you happy, and that makes you feel beautiful. Women are constantly shamed for admiring their own beauty in society while simultaneously pressured to exist as pleasing objects of beauty and sexuality for others’ consumption, what is wrong with her subverting that order to find herself beautiful? Life is short. Enjoy yourself and smash the patriarchy by using whatever filter you love.