Like most girls, I've got a time-honoured approach to selfies: chin down, eyes wide open, iPhone tactically angled at a high angle. Turns out I've been doing it all wrong – I could have just bought a 69p app that digitally trimmed 15 pounds off my face. Oops! Introducing SkinneePix, an app created by US developers Susan Green and Robin J Phillips that claims to shave between five and 15lbs off your selfie.
'SkinneePix makes your photos look good and helps you feel good,' the app description promises. 'It’s not complicated. No one needs to know. It’s our little secret.'
Green told the LA Times that it's not about succumbing to the pressure to look thin; the app motivates her to lose weight in real life. 'It's not that I don't like how I look,' she says. 'I just need to be healthy. And this how I want to try and do it.'
Digitally retouching your selfies is nothing new – celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Miranda Kerr all stand accused of Photoshopping their self-portraits. But apps like SkinneePix prove that ordinary mortals aren't immune to the pressure, either. It's not the first slimming app to hit mobile phones, either: a cursory search on the iTunes and Google Play stores throws up a range of similar ones, such as Skinny Cam and Slim Photo Creator.
SkinneePix is unlikely to surprise anybody who already thinks selfies are turning us all into approval-seeking, narcissistic monsters. But there's evidence that selfies are actually an empowering alternative to trying to achieve impossibly thin beauty standards.The #fatshion tag on Instagram brings up thousands of images from body-positive, plus-size women who use selfies as a means of self-expression and self-love, while the #feministselfie stream is full of those who are proudly saying, 'Fuck you!' to sexist standards, whether that's by wearing no make-up or taking part in a pro-choice march.
In a survey by AOL and The Today Show, 41% of women said that selfies made them 'feel more confident'. It’s not hard to see why: we’re bombarded with images of how we should look every day, so it’s empowering to take matters into your own hands. I've taken bathroom selfies when I've stumbled home from a night out, thinking, 'Damn girl, looking good despite the tequila'. I didn't even upload them; they just lurk in my iPhone photostream until I need to refer back for a quick injection of self-esteem.
Taking selfies is a pleasurable, personal thing – a way to acknowledge that you're looking totally hot without waiting around for other people to realise it for themselves. It kind of defeats the point when you have to retouch them, no?
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Picture: Eylul Aslan
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.