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A now-deleted filter on TikTok sparked a fatphobic trend.
In late June and early July, TikTok creators began using a filter that enlarges their faces and adds wrinkles. Set to the song “1, 2, 3” by Sofia Reyes featuring Jason Derulo and De La Ghetto, TikTokers show themselves with the filter on while Reyes sings, “Parece que hoy me gustas un poco más,” which translates roughly to, “It seems today I like you more.”
Then, the filter comes off and shows the TikTokers real face to Reyes’ lyrics, “Hola, comment allez, allez-vous,” meaning, “Hi, how are you?”
Popular iterations of the trend were posted by @eunicetjoaa, whose TikTok has almost 30 million views; @sitianggunn_30, whose TikTok has 11.4 million views; and @katiana.kay, whose video got 6.3 million views.
Commenters on all three videos called out their use of the filter. A commenter wrote that @eunicetjoaa showed her “true colors” by participating in the trend, and a TikToker user wrote, “Yea let’s not do this,” under @sitianggunn_30’s viral video.
Fat TikTokers have made videos about the trend, too. Bubbles (@bubblesworlddd) made a TikTok saying that the trend is a fatphobic “confidence boost” for thin people. (Bubbles commented on her video that the filter—called “double chin”—has now been deleted.)
“You go from having to see yourself with a larger round fat face,” Bubbles wrote in her TikTok’s overlay text. “& then you take off the filter & feel relieved that you don’t actually look like that.”
TikToker Oliver parodied the trend. In his TikTok, he used the filter and identified the trend as a way to show how “hot &skinny” he is.
“Fat and cute,” he wrote in his TikTok’s overlay text after the filter had been removed.
Why it matters
In a TikTok direct message to the Daily Dot, Oliver said that when he first saw the trend, it made “[his] heart sad.”
“I’ve been bullied my whole life for having a round face and it just reminded me of those times,” Oliver told the Daily Dot.
He decided to engage with the trend by parodying it to remind viewers that “all people are beautiful and worthy”—and that social media’s beauty standards suck.