Teenage Look

I don’t miss my appearance as a teenager; I miss the feeling of buying a new dress and thinking it was going to change the world.

I downloaded the Teenage Look filter on instagram. 

I don’t usually play with filters because I find them uninteresting; the results are fake so even if you do look better, what’s the point in gazing longingly at something that isn’t real?

Don’t get me wrong, I can see the limited appeal of adding fluffy bunny ears to the top of one's head or superimposing one’s face onto a lemon - but beauty filters?

Flicking through them on Instagram is like Doom Scrolling your own face;

Smaller nose, different coloured irises, smooth skin, plump lips - all the things you might wish you had been born with or could afford to buy but can never have.

Aging is confusing and public.

I know this because I’m 35 (which is the oldest I have ever been).

I never believed I would be 35 nor that each day would become a battle between my tweezers and the sharp new hairs that appear on my chin. 

I remember feeling like I had ‘crossed over’ when I became older than Winona Ryder was in Heathers.

It felt backwards to aspire to be like her.

I shut my obsession with Winona away in a shoebox along with my teenage diaries and early love poems. 

Then came the Teenage Look filter. 

I was curious after seeing multiple videos of people crying as they stared at the airbrushed version of themselves.

I downloaded it out of morbid curiosity because what are beauty filters there for, if not to make you feel more imperfect?

However, I didn’t see my teenage self when I used it.

My teenage self had large front teeth that were clamped down by braces for over 4 years. My teenage self had cold sores in almost every school photo. My teenage self had shapeshifting hair that changed colour and started twisting into coarse ringlets.

The smooth, glowing face of the person that stared back at me was not my teenage self.

It was a version of myself that never existed. 

The Teenage Look filter removes us from reality even further by presenting us with a version of self that never was. Plus, it perpetuates the clingy, social narrative that beauty is youth.

I could of course reach into my desk drawers to retrieve real photos of my 14 year old self and look at those for dramatic or sentimental reference but I can honestly say that I would rather not. I am more comfortable with my appearance now than I have ever been, especially compared to that time. 

I realise I don’t miss my appearance as a teenager; I miss the feeling of buying a new dress and thinking it was going to change the world.

A new song, a new friend, a new outfit, a new place; Everything felt exciting. 

I believe that this feeling is closer to the true beauty of youth. 

But my teenage self is still very much within me (maybe that’s why I find the lemonhead filter funny). I can still feel the scars inside my mouth from my braces. Just because I have almost figured out how to style my hair, doesn’t mean I am not still the same girl who occasionally gets an eyeful of shampoo or burns her head with a curling iron. 

And what of augmented reality? Will we in future live behind glass fronted masks upon which we can project the images of our desired faces? Will we add bunny ears and Barbie noses? What then when the mask comes off? It makes me think of Roald Dahl’s Witches and their beautiful rubber disguises, concealing depraved hearts and wicked intentions. 

But the want to be beautiful is not wicked. 

Convincing yourself that you aren’t however, is.

Thank you Grandma_Droniak

Artwork by Glenn Whiting @whitingglenn