// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Instagram face say to the filter? You're a perfect match.
Instagram face is a beauty standard based on the filters and influencers popular on Instagram.[1][2][3]
Overview
[edit]An "Instagram face" has catlike eyes, long lashes, a small nose, high cheekbones, full lips, and a blank expression.[4] Digital filters manipulate photographs and video to create an idealized image that, according to critics, has resulted in an unrealistic and homogeneous beauty standard.[5] According to Jia Tolentino, the face is "distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic".[6] The face has been described as a racial composite of different peoples.[6]
In 2024, cosmetic surgeon Paul Banwell said, "People used to come to see me asking to look like a particular celebrity, but many patients come to me now wanting to look like the filtered version of themselves."[7]
While based on digital filters, the look is achieved in person using heavy applications of makeup or cosmetic surgery.[4] Plastic surgery, Botox injections, and injectable filler have significantly increased in popularity since the rise of digital filters.[7] Influencers market makeup products designed to recreate the look.[4]
History
[edit]
The growth of reality television series and social media throughout the 2010s has influenced the popularity of Instagram face.[8] In 2019, Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker referred to this phenomenon as "Instagram Face," identifying Kim Kardashian as its "patient zero." Similarly, her younger sister Kylie Jenner significantly impacted the trend with her 2015 lip filler confession, which acted as a catalyst, introducing Juvéderm to a new generation.[6][9] Sirin Kale of Vice News has described Jenner as "at the vanguard of an aesthetic that’s swept through British towns and cities," while also pointing towards other celebrities such as Iggy Azalea and Farrah Abraham.[8]
In 2018, Americans underwent 7 million neurotoxin injections and 2.5 million filler injections and spent $16.5 billion on cosmetic surgery. 92% of the latter was performed on women.[6] Botox usage has also been on the rise.[10]
Criticism
[edit]In her 2021 book The Selfie, Temporality, and Contemporary Photography, Claire Raymond of Princeton University criticised "Instagram faces" for erasing "heritable quirks and lived history; it erases what makes the human face so compelling, whether conventionally beautiful or not," while also arguing that the procedures used to create Instagram faces "numb and freeze the face and skin, rendering less mobile the lips, the eyes, and the neck. Numbness is the central feature of the experience for the woman who gets Instagram face through cosmetic procedures. Others may see her more, but she feels less and less."[11]
Influence on popular culture
[edit]The increasing popularity of cosmetic surgeries towards a homogeneous ideal has resulted in the emergence of the "goopcore" sub-genre of body horror. The sub-genre combines graphic violence with body modifications from the beauty industry.[12] Allie Rowbottom's goopcore novel Aesthetica centers around an influencer attempting to undo years of plastic surgery with a new experimental procedure.[12]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Ryan-Mosley, Tate (19 August 2022). "The Fight for "Instagram Face"". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
- ↑ Chayet, Stéphanie (15 July 2022). "Construction sociale ou fruit de l'évolution ? Débat intense autour de notre attirance pour le « visage Instagram »". Le Monde. Retrieved 20 December 2025.
- ↑ Pierron, Séverine (19 January 2020). "Un visage « parfait », du selfie au bistouri". Le Monde. Retrieved 20 December 2025.
- 1 2 3 Jones, Alexandra (15 August 2018). "'I Tried 'Instagram Face' for a Week and Here's What Happened...'". BBC Three. Archived from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
- ↑ Hunter, Tatum (20 September 2023). "Should Women Use Beauty Filters Online? We All Have Opinions". Washington Post. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
- 1 2 3 4 Tolentino, Jia (12 December 2019). "The Age of Instagram Face". The New Yorker. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
- 1 2 Petter, Olivia (28 April 2024). "Instagram Face: Are We All Going to End up Looking the Same?". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
- 1 2 Kale, Sirin (23 September 2019). "The Unstoppable Rise of the 'Instagram Face'". Vice News. Retrieved 20 December 2025.
- ↑ "Goodbye Instagram Face — This Is The New Way To Enhance Your Features". The Zoe Report. 8 May 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ↑ "The Class Politics of Instagram Face". Tablet Magazine. 15 February 2023.
- ↑ Raymond, Claire. The Selfie, Temporality, and Contemporary Photography. Taylor & Francis, 2021. Pages 109-111.
- 1 2 Knibbs, Kate (12 April 2023). "Body Horror in the Age of Instagram Face". Wired. Retrieved 28 May 2024.