When scrolling through Instagram you are almost instantly attacked by overly filtered images of girls with perfect skin and perfect bodies. It's so easy to look past the fact that much of this perfection is filtered and edited. With Facetune and other editing apps coming out of the limelight, it has become easier and easier for us girls to edit out our flaws and filter out anything and everything, becoming the image of perfection we see documented on social media every day. Being a culprit of this myself, I can honestly say these trends can have an obsessive quality. There's something so satisfying about having the power to blur acne spots, whiten your teeth, or sinch your waist when you look bloated, but these "benefits" can also be extremely toxic to one's self-image.

I can't remember the first time I was introduced to the Facetune app, but I can't remember the last time I didn't use it. I don't use it to enhance the look of my body, but I do find myself trying to blur out the spots on my face that I have become so conscious of because of social media. Even if I look fine in the picture I still manage to cover up these spots in the Facetune app that works like magic to make my skin look flawless. The problem with this? My skin isn't flawless and when I look in the mirror my skin looks just as it did in the unedited picture of myself that I chose to hide from the world, causing me to feel even more self-conscious than I did before editing my selfies, still I can't seem to stop using this app.

I talked to some of my friends and Instagram followers about the toxicity hidden within Instagram and the Facetune app. A majority of the girls I talked to about these topics spoke about Instagram acting as a catalyst for some forms of self-consciousness. Some girls told me that social media forces them to compare themselves to others, while others said that it puts pressure on them to do more exciting things or work harder to achieve more. Some talked about how this pressure creates healthy competition for them to become the best they can be in areas of dance, art, or singing. Others stated that Instagram can cause some feelings of hopelessness, that they will never be as good, pretty, talented etc. as who they are comparing themselves to. The girls that used Facetune, for the most part, talked on how it made them focus in on the parts that they edited, which in some cases meant focusing in on flaws. Girls also spoke on how the app caused them to feel more insecure and fear that followers would notice that their picture was edited.

Being that it is so easy and common in this day and age to edit photos, it's important to notice this as we scroll through Instagram. Not everything is 100% authentic and when we can notice this, these editing trends can become transparent and influence us less and less. I want to try my best to be my authentic self online, while Facetune can help with covering up spots, sometimes it's important to note that our spots are human and there is nothing wrong with being human.