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Comment by smacktoward | Hacker News Reader

The key takeaway here isn't that "Instagram face" exists or what it looks like, but that it's a product of two factors: the emergence of less invasive plastic surgery techniques, and of software specifically dedicated to producing these faces. This being HN, the existence of the software is the really interesting bit.

It's called FaceTune:

> FaceTune, which was released in 2013 and promises to help you “wow your friends with every selfie,” enables even more precision... “I think ninety-five per cent of the most-followed people on Instagram use FaceTune, easily,” Smith told me.

It's a phone app. More information is available here: https://www.facetuneapp.com/

Click the "watch video" link on that homepage to see a good visual example of what the software can do. (Warning in advance, the video has an obnoxious, loud techno soundtrack. Mute the tab before you hit play.)

View on HN

My favorite FaceTune example:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmnSLiIF-Rl/

In a few words, wrinkles have been excessively blurred out. Newt looks like a big fat baby Huey.

Also faces squished or am I imagining that?

Oh that looks awful

Warning: if you click that link on some browsers it will remove your back button history by opening a new tab and killing the previous one.

Instagram is aggresively user-hostile and if you work there you should feel bad.

This is disgusting.

And in fact not even true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21778168

I work there and I would feel bad if I could repro that issue, but it seems like a totally normal link for me, having checked chrome, firefox, and safari :S

On mobile, clicking that link opens up the mobile app (which sends the browser with history into the background), but I assume that can't be what you're talking about...?

When did it become ok to target individuals who work at companies? The last week I’ve seen an uptick in these attacks on HN, they come off as very “I’m better than you” SJW’y, totally oblivious to a person’s situation.

Let’s not turn this into a thing people do.

I mean, as a society we agreed "I was just doing my job" isn't any sort of ethical defense about a century ago. It really just comes down to whether or not you support what these companies do.

This is beyond gross. This is Gingrich-gross.

Direct image link for the no-js crowd?

I haven't looked into how instagram hosts the images (had to look in source of the page to find the link, as it doesn't allow to just direct link to it normally), so please let me know in the comments if the link expired/not working anymore. As of now, it works, and I checked that it works in a private chrome tab as well, no login needed.

https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/e35/3...

P.S. Interestingly enough, if you remove the query string from that URL, the link refuses to work and displays a "bad timestamp" error. Which is what made me guess they employ some expiring timestamp hash in query strings for image URLs.

> I think ninety-five per cent of the most-followed people on Instagram use FaceTune, easily,” Smith told me.

Whenever things like this app reveal themselves to me, I feel so naive for not realizing that they even existed or that people would actually use such things.

Man I live in my own bubble...

I mean the only thing that’s actually different is that there’s a tool that can do the thing that professional photographers do(-ish).

The tools are approaching real PS experience where before canned photo enhancing software was a lot more limited. But it’s not new that they’re ragingly popular.

Think there’s a third underlying factor which is the addictiveness of Instagram. That Instagram becomes so important in your life that you end up changing your body for likes. That’s a terrible tragedy. You might argue that some are making a living of Instagram as influences but that’s a small percent; many more will be doing it for a desperate need for validation.

The influencers start doing it because of a desperate need for validation too. When they get paid, they feel validated.

So facetune is photoshopping magazine images of models given to the masses?

Yeah, but it's done poorly and is painfully obvious.

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