Yahoo LifestyleSkinneePix: The Completely Unnecessary App That Slims Your Selfie
It's a sad day for positive body image when we discover there's an app to make your face look thinner when you take a selfie
Our obsession with our own faces grows ever bigger but imagine how much more addicted to selfies the world is going to be when there's an app that makes you look slimmer when you take one?
Well that app has arrived, and if you've ever taken a million selfies and hated them all, you can now totally fake a face you like. (Even though it will make you look like a warped version of yourself.)
The fact that this app, SkinneePix, exists is a) quite tragic and b) a sign of the times.
It was dreamed up by two women in the US after a bunch of holiday selfies spun them into a body-image misery cycle.
Susan Green and Robin J. Phillips created the app, which allows users to shave five, 10 or 15lbs off their face to looks slimmer in their selfie.
[Are we becoming selfie-obsessed?]
[Boy becomes suicidal after getting addicted to selfies]
Susan explained their thinking behind the app, insisting that it isn't because women hate their bodies. "For as long as anybody can remember, there has always been that thing: the camera adds ten or 15lbs to you," she said. "That's why we're not going over 15lbs."
At 69p we decided to dowload it in the office and see how we could look 15lbs lighter. It's weird. And dangerous. Within five minutes most of us have decided we clearly need to lose 15lbs, depsite previously being perfectly body-image happy.
Yes selfies are pretty contrived as they are - we all know which angle to look at the camera from and how far away to hold it. And the creators might think it's a fun way to make you look as 'perfect' as possible for your social media profiles.
But it's not. This is dangerous. This is how eating disorders start.
Susan says that looking at her slimmed selfies gives her the motivation to be healthy, as she can see what she'd look like a little slimmer. It may give others the motivation to starve.
"It's not that I don’t like how I look, I just need to be healthy," she explained. "And this is how I want to try to do it.
"The selfie craze has just sort of taken off, and this is one of those fun things you can do with it."
We disagree. Just say no, ladies.
