Fun with Snapchat's Gender Swapping Filter
> I have a friend who does drag. It's a lot of work! I'm excited for technology like this, because it will make it easier for makeup & drag artists to experiment with new ideas and identities cheaply and quickly.Similarly, I'm transgender and use those applications to come up with new ideas on how to make little changes to my appearance to feminize my features. Sometimes coming up with makeup ideas is hard since I lack in experience and equipment. I don't want to purchase a bunch products I'll end up never using. Technologies like this allows me to quickly test makeup ideas. For example, I have green eyes so they automatically add purple eye-shadow to make my eyes look brighter. I've since incorporated this color in my daily makeup. I've noticed that they overdraw the lipstick to make the lips look fuller, so I also do that when I want a more polished look.However, this is a double edged sword.Those filters raise expectation on what you might look like after a gender transition.I've seen a lot of angry and disappointed people because of that. Those applications change a lot about your face, sometimes in subtle ways you won't notice. The curve of the jaw is slightly different, the eyes are a bit farther apart, your skull is more round, etc. Changes that are pretty much impossible even with facial feminization surgeries.People strive to reach that "perfection" and end up being stuck in limbo, unable to reach it so unable to free themselves from their gender dysphoria. It's easy to spiral down from there.