Snapchat is a messaging app that has gained quite the popularity especially in the USA and Europe. One of the most notable features of the application is that it allows the users to alter their photos via virtual stickers and augmented reality objects. This is very fitting for social media and a lot of celebrities are posting similar altered photos of themselves on their profiles, which has apparently influenced people to make weird plastic surgeries.
Plastic surgeries have been a go-to the procedure for a lot of people trying to improve their appearance so that's nothing new, but a weird trend that has been noticed is that some are going under plastic surgeries in order to resemble Snapchat filters. Popular figures such as Kylie Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski are known to post filtered pictures of their faces that reach a huge number of people who follow their profiles.
This has resulted in a new form of mental illness named Snapchat Dysmorphia, which is a term coined by Dr. Tijion Esho who is an aesthetician and originator of the ESHO clinic. People have come to him asking for procedures that would make them look like the filtered versions of themselves as it could be seen on their phones. Failed procedures of this kind result in physical and emotional trauma for patients.
Dr. Esho is not surprised when people come to him for surgeries that would make them look more like certain celebrities. So for example, some would like lips similar to those of Angelina Jolie while others are looking for a Hugh Jackman jawline. It's also expected that people would like to resemble Kylie Jenner but what baffles Dr. Esho is when a person likes to look like Kylie Jenner using an animated dog filter.
Dr. Esho was quoted to say: "With filtered images, it was even more of a cause for greater concern as many believed these changes to their face with filters at a click of the button were so easy, this would be the case in real life. This is a very unrealistic and also dangerous expectation, as it trivializes procedures which are a potentially high risk and it also sets up patients to live with unrealistic expectations of how they see themselves physically."
A lot of people that come to Dr. Esho are asking for smoother skin and lip fillers which celebrities use as filters on their social media photos. Others are looking for nose jobs that are non-surgical and some are even asking for alterations of their whole face shape. And while the assumption may be that is mainly women who are having these requests, Dr. Esho says that this is actually not the case.
In fact, he noted: "Aesthetics is commonly a female dominated market but the percentage of men coming for treatment increases each year - now making up more than 20 percent of the market. Men tend to filter their under eye areas, indicating they want to look less tired and fresher. I've also had some filter previous broken noses identifying how they'd like it to look and also used to demonstrate what shape they'd like their jawline to be."
