To match doctored selfie, docs consulted
Remember the days when people would bring photos of celebrities to the plastic surgeon’s office and ask for Angelina Jolie’s lips or Brad Pitt’s jawline? That’s not the case anymore.
Now, people want to look like themselves — heavily edited or filtered versions of themselves, that is.
Doctors have spotted a trend of people bringing in their own selfies, usually edited with a smartphone application, and asking to look more like their photos, according to an article recently published in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery by researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine’s department of dermatology.
The phenomenon is known as “Snapchat dysmorphia,” and it’s causing widespread concern among experts who are worried about its negative effect on people’s selfesteem and its potential to trigger body dysmorphic disorder, a serious mental illness classified on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum.
“This is an alarming trend because those filtered selfies often present an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy for these patients,” the article states.
Neelam Vashi, an assistant professor of dermatology at the Boston University School of Medicine and one of the article’s authors, told The Washington Post that Snapchat dysmorphia is a result of people now being able to edit away any imperfections with ease.
“It’s remarkable,” said Vashi, who is also a boardcertified dermatologist. “What used to lie in the hands of ... celebrities and beautiful people who were innately beautiful made to look more beautiful, now it’s in the hands of anyone.”
On Snapchat, for example, the picture messaging application features upward of 20 different filters that users can toggle through by simply swiping across their phone screens. Aside from adding flower crowns or puppy ears, filters can give a person freckles, longer eyelashes, wider eyes and flawless skin, among other augmentations. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter also allow people to edit their photos in the application before uploading.
“Sometimes I have patients who say, ‘I want every single spot gone and I want it gone by this week or I want it gone tomorrow’ because that’s what this filtered photograph gave them,” she said. “They check off one thing, and it’s gone. That’s not realistic. I can’t do that. I can make people a lot better, but it will take me a lot more time than a week and it won’t be 100 percent.”
According to the annual American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery survey, selfies continue to be a major driving force behind people who wish to get plastic surgery done.
In 2017, the survey found that 55 percent of surgeons reported seeing patients who requested surgery to look better in selfies — a 13 percent increase from the previous year’s results.