- Who is she?
- I don't even know what to think.
- I'm like literally speechless.
(upbeat music)
- Today we're getting our faces Photoshopped
into Instagram beauty standards.
- When I think of what Instagram face means
I definitely think of like the Kardashian, Jenner family.
I think they kind of set the standard.
- Bella Hadid, Gigi Hadid, like all these people
with like these super defined facial features.
- The look is definitely similar.
- [Nina] I think it was pretty like narrow noses,
definitely fuller lips, higher cheekbones
- [Jazzmyne] The skin tone, the eyes, the brows.
- As time progressed, this like idea has just been
escalated and escalated and escalated
and now it's just like this expectation
that everybody has to look a certain way.
- Who made these the standards?
Who can I speak to about Instagram face?
Do I need to talk to Instagram?
Instagram hello, hello.
The thing that like grinds my gills about Instagram face,
is when people try to borrow features
from different ethnicities to make like an exotic look.
These features of mine were not always celebrated.
- When we look at big lips
or trying to change your skin tone
to be a color that you are not, knowing damn well
that there are people that are being discriminated against
for looking like that, I think that's (beep) up.
- This whole fox eye thing,
when you see everybody like doing this,
that kind of changes your eye shape
to kind of mimic this like East Asian look
and growing up as a Chinese woman, I got made fun of
for my eyes being the shape that they are
and I think it does become problematic
when you see people losing confidence in their own features
because they want these features
that are so unattainable to them.
- I used to put this weird, like filter over my eyes
because I was like, "Brown eyes don't pop
"the way that blue eyes do in pictures."
It felt really weird and inhuman,
so I don't do it anymore.
- I don't edit myself, but you know what?
I'm not also one to like if you edit it yourself,
that's bad and just recently, I tried one of the filters
and I was like.
And then a few days later I was like
should I get surgery to look like this?
I think it definitely can mess with you.
- I wore colored contacts for a long time.
It did come from an insecurity.
Growing up, I just never felt like I was pretty enough.
So the Hazel eyes made me feel like
this was something that was gonna help me stand out.
And after a lot of self-work, I realized I don't need them.
I feel like specifically with black women,
especially darker skin black women,
our nose is something that always comes up.
I might contour it to death somedays
but I don't feel like I need to do the most on social media
when it comes to editing, to change it.
- My nose is a little bit flatter and a little bit wider.
I remember growing up,
it was something that I was made fun of for it
and it sucks because this tiny little skinny nose
that's like mostly prevalent in Caucasian people,
is what's preferred.
And that's like what all these filters
are making my nose smaller,
which is like further ingrains this dissatisfaction
with my own nose and I literally considered
getting a nose job for it and it's so sad,
because there's literally nothing wrong with me.
- Sometimes I see people getting cosmetic procedures
on social media to alter noses that look like mine
and I'm like, "Well damn, is this ugly? (chuckling)
"Do I need to change this?"
It definitely makes you second guess your own face.
- We are going to ask our photo team
to Photoshop the following features.
- [Vivian] Poreless skin.
- [Jazzmyne] Almond-shaped cat-like bedroom eyes.
- [Nina] High sculpted, cheekbones.
- [Vivian] A slender nose.
- [Mei] Full lips.
- [Jazzmyne] The filled-out arched heavy brow.
- [Nina] And long, upturned lashes.
- What I am most afraid of is to see these photos
and have it mess up my mental health
and my self-image or myself self-love.
- I'm just so curious.
I'm really fascinated by all of this.
So I wanna see what we're gonna look like.
- Let's get Photoshoped.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, so we just got the photos back from our photo team.
- I don't know, I just got more nervous.
- Okay, I'm gonna look. (drum rolls)
- Whoa. (chuckling)
- Oh.
- Oh my God, that's so scary.
I don't look real.
Nobody looks like that.
It's like the lips, the nose, the lashes, the brows,
like the skin, it's all so much.
It's too much.
- Well, they did a lot actually,
now that I'm looking at the back and forth.
The poreless skin really, really creeps me out,
because that's just like not a thing.
My eyebrows are fuller.
I wish my eyebrows were a little bit fuller.
Definitely made my lips bigger.
Not that much bigger but bigger.
I don't think that's necessary.
That's not what I want.
It makes me just look kind of cartoonish.
I feel like with my eyes looking like that
- This is surreal.
Right off the bat, the biggest change I noticed is the skin.
It literally looks blurry.
I've noticed a lot of the hair is cleaned up on my face
like including around my brows
and even just like around my mouth.
My nose is a lot slimmer,
which is something I've been insecure about in the past.
But now seeing it slimmer it just again
doesn't look like it's supposed to be on my face.
If there's one word I would use
to describe this whole new me is, unnecessary.
- I'm an alien.
I think it's the poreless skin that is really tripping me up
because it is so smooth.
One thing I did like about this smaller, neater nose
it's still looks African-American.
The lashes are really setting off this whole photo
and my eye bags, they took care of my bag.
It's not the biggest craziest transformation of all time.
It still does look reminiscent of me,
but it doesn't look like a real person
and I always wanna look like myself
and like a real human being.
It's like a cyborg, a hot cyborg,
but a cyborg nonetheless.
- Apparently, I prefer myself not Photoshoped
and that's awesome.
Now that I've seen my face conform
to these beauty standards, I think that they are both (beep)
Our individuality is literally what makes us beautiful
and I know that that sounds so corny and like whatever,
but it's true.
- I'm not as affected by this
as I thought I was going to be and that feels very good.
Just know that there are beauty standards.
Know that you don't have to look like that,
but if you'd like looking like that, go off.
Whatever makes you most confident
and most comfortable, try that.
- Seeing my features altered in this permanent way
has made me realize that I'd rather live
with some fleeting moments of insecurity
about my nose or my skin or my hairiness,
than totally change my face for beauty standards
that might change in a few years.
If you wanna edit your face via filters, Photoshop,
surgery, do you.
I just hope that we can be more open and honest
about when we do it and why we do it
'cause I think the more we can talk about
why we want to alter ourselves to fit beauty standards,
the more we can actually move past those standards
and start to embrace our own uniqueness and individuality.
- I think I have enough confidence in myself now,
where I see this after photo and I know it's not me
and this is not what I would put online to represent myself.
If anything, this makes me wanna post more raw photos
because I just want people to be influenced,
to be themselves.
This experiment has been so interesting
and really eye-opening about what Instagram face
would look like on me
and I think I'll just take my regular face.
(upbeat music)