In the article ‘Do I Look Like My Selfie?” : Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze’, Lavrence&Cambre (2020) focuses on the use of the filters to manipulate/edit people’s appearance on their selfies on social media. The article also explores how the 12 focus groups (based on different gender perspectives) discussed participants views of the use of selfie filters, how they edit their selfies to present themselves on social media, how they view and examine other people’s selfies that involves a digital-forensic check, which posed a question “What do you really look like in real life?”.

Lavrence & Cambre (2020) highlighted interesting findings, such as:

• The discussion shows that the selfie filters are widely excepted or normalised for females and it also has a double-edged effect as the filters provide the ability to present themselves better online but it also prompts anxiety between the users or participants as it reinforces visual checks, measurements and comparisons between offline and their better online version on social media.
• The selfie filters are associated with feminine stereotype and the female participants in the focus group responded that they dislike the men that are using filters in their selfie as it shows weakness, insecurity and dishonesty.
• The male participants prefer more natural appearance/looking selfies, they indicated that selfie filters are used to hide undesirable features or mask themselves to look better or to be a better version online.
• People criticised the use of selfie filters as they think the users are being fake and overdone but interestingly they also prefer to use them to gain more likes.

I don’t post selfies on my social media accounts, and I never use selfie filters. But I tend to agree with the authors of this article, it has ‘a double-edged sword’ effect. I understand why most people are using these filters to enhance their appearance, they want to create good self reporting and a good digital presentation of themselves to their potential audience. As long it is used with moderation (not completely change the physical appearance) then its fine, but when people overdo it, it can become an issue as the online and offline version can be significantly different. People like to analyse and compare themselves with other people’s selfie, and they think other peoples appearance are so pretty and perfect, this type of thinking can cause lack of self esteem/low self esteem or body dysmorphia where people worry about the flaws of their physical appearance.

Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). “Do i look like my selfie?”: Filters and the digital-forensic gaze. Social Media + Society , 6 (4), 1-13. doi.org/10.1177/2056305120955182