Filters

Filters are devices used to remove impurities. They remove unwanted materials from an object and they come in several different forms purifying air, water, fuel etc.

They are also used in a completely different form to make humans look better by modifying the body and making it look more appealing to one's eyes. I'm talking about the so-called beautification techniques. And here's where I get this wrangling feeling.

Just like every coin has two sides, image filters and beauty creams too, have pros and cons. The pros may include, for some, getting people to like you in the virtual world by showing them a picture of yours, modified by a computer or by increasing one's fairness by applying unknown chemicals present in cosmetics. But you have to take the bad with the good. For me, the bad seems to exceed the good in this situation.

I fail to understand the hypocrisy running in our blood which makes us do the drama of fighting racism and also, justify the use of fairness creams. These two just can't go together. If one uses fairness creams, it simply shows their negligence of intellect and their belief that white stands higher than black.

I feel these things are highly related to one's intellectual levels. For, using image transformation tools to hide one's freckles, blemishes or spots, or adding fake muscles and curves or even making the skin look fair and posting modified pictures and getting likes in the virtual world seems to give some mysterious happiness to people.

Apparently, the blame also goes to humans. It is someone like you, with a bit higher level of greediness, who makes you feel that you are simply not good enough. Not good enough to live in a world where people are more beautiful than you and making you question your own self. He markets all this in misleading ways, often showing computer generated models, showcasing "ideal" bodies which you then strive for.

Moreover, the skin whitening products available, many a times contain hazardous ingredients like hydroquinone and mercury. Many countries have banned products containing such ingredients. Even a country like Ghana, contrary to India has banned such products.

It's quite unfortunate that we live in a world wherein people fall into traps of some rich, greedy, shiesty people, where we call for an end to racism but also believe in the superiority of one skin colour over another.

The seed of this inferiority complex is sown in one's childhood. We see celebrities featuring in advertisements and asking us to use certain products which even they might have never used, to look just as attractive as them. We watch movies wherein the rich and the good are shown to be of a fairer complexion than the poor and the villains. Those are just a few examples showing the blatant attack on our thoughts.

Here's what Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut says about fairness creams and celebrities endorsing them:

Then they find this cream and they apply it. And they become whiter and suddenly the world is nicer to them. It is so painful that you can’t sit through it. I call it criminal but many actors and models endorse them.

We need to realise that it's not the colours of our body which makes us better or successful, but the colours of our thoughts. Creating attractive but modified images won't help us. We need to stop using filters, for people are like oreos. The good stuff is inside :)

Do watch this amazing video showing the ugly truth behind beauty magazines: