The selfie filter, the mask 2.0

Mask 2.0

The mask has always existed. Traces of it can be found in all human civilizations. This object has been able to adapt to all periods: warrior ornament to frighten, object used to imitate for ancient or Asian theatre, object of seduction in Renaissance balls. The mask has many functions… even today in civil protection or in sport for example.

It is therefore quite naturally that he had to make his digital mutation and here he is now occupying all our photo applications between graphic and artistic projection or the simple device to seduce.

The 2.0 mask, which can now be called “selfie filter”, is becoming popular and omnipresent.

Augmented Surgery

Do you want to go blond? No problem, there’s a filter for that. You want a well trimmed beard because it looks more manly, more masculine? No problem. No problem. Do you want to find the face of your 20s because despite the years that pass you are still that young idealist ready to remake the world? Nothing could be easier. You want to show your crush that you look good for him? Hop of blue, pink, black or red lipstick.

Selfie industry

The selfie is the most representative cliché of our time… but it is now dethroned by the augmented selfie. Improved version of you. Younger, more tanned, more kawai, blond, browner… more everything.

There are no limits to your new “You”. The ease of creation of these face detection filters allows the widest choice of customization. You are definitely more and more the product of your dreams, to the great joy of the companies that offer these filters. These perpetual innovations are among the levers used to get you back on these platforms. In fact, a record number of visitors was observed in a declining Snapchat when their “transgender” filter was published, allowing you to discover what you would look like in the opposite sex.

A juicy partnership on Snapchat, an artistic experience on Instagram… the filter is essential and is invented every day. Just take a look at the lenslist.co website, which lists new filter discoveries on a daily basis and classifies them into several categories. Every film, every product, every event can now claim its limited edition filter.

Filter for all

Snapchat already allows you to create your birthday filter by imposing your text, your color… rudimentary in front of the Instagram and Facebook couple who are moving up a gear by offering the in-house tool SPARK Ar Studio which combines a rather friendly interface with one of the most comprehensive libraries of free 3D objects on the web. The Instagram beta is still locked, but everyone can now create a new face for Facebook.

Love filter

We must now see these masks as a bargaining chip. Here is the follower’s new award on Instagram. Following a brand, an artist automatically unlocks the created filters, which will be added to the many filters already present in the application. You want that “great” filter that you see appearing in more and more stories? It’s simple, you just have to like this page, to follow this person. Basic. Effective. Filter marketing.

The latter will then be used by more and more people before falling into disuse the next day, replaced by a new effect that is even cuter, even more fun or even more “limited edition”.

The real question is whether these 2.0 masks will remain free or cash in again as Snapchat did at the beginning. However, the rental of beauty filters would have a bright future to compete with beauty salons and anti-aging products. This craze also sends us – for the most mechanical filters – a frightening vision of the transhumanism that awaits us, a world soon populated by exoskeletons and beings with polymorphic faces… Valar Morghulis.

To go further:
Some 3D filter artists:
instagram.com/solar.w
instagram.com/ramenpolanski/
Spark Ar software, its community and tutorials: sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio