Are Tiktok beauty filters the continuation of a Victorian era architectural fraud? Seemingly Unrelated Ep 12

The hot button issue for Gen Z (according to media run by not Gen Z) is the impact of photo filters on body image and mental health. This sudden surge in access to easy to manipulate tech has launched a thousand think pieces about FOMO, impossible fitness standards, and a host of ills directly connected to too much social media and too much envy for outrageous lifestyles.Is this trend particularly new? What is the underlying mechanism that pushes people to slavishly follow the latest filtered trend? More importantly why did the guy who came up with this theory used to hide under tables at parties to spy on the guests? Find out in episode 12 of Seemingly Unrelated where we go #nofilter to discuss the link between Tiktok's AI generated beauty and a 19th century passion for pretending you are related to nobility. Subscribe to the audio only version on: https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelated Find the videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SeeminglyUnrelatedPod Want even more Seemingly Unrelated content? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month as well as the list of sources for this episode on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SeeminglyUnrelatedBrown, Charlie. ‘Social Media Is Distorting What You Think Human Faces Should Look Like In Real Life’. Medium (blog), 15 December 2023. https://charlie-brown.medium.com/social-media-is-distorting-what-you-think-human-faces-should-look-like-in-real-life-6245ced3572d.Carso, Kerry Dean. ‘Ruins’. In Follies in America. Cornell University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501755934.003.0006.Couzens-Lake, Edward. Ruins and Follies of East Anglia. Amberley, 2019.Engineering, Royal Academy of. ‘How Do Face Filters Work?’ Ingenia. Accessed 3 March 2025. https://www.ingenia.org.uk/articles/face-filters/.‘FOLLY CASTLE ABOUT 3/4 MILE NORTH OF WIMPOLE HALL, Wimpole - 1317807 | Historic England’. Accessed 3 March 2025. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1317807.Ganson, Kyle T., Alexander Testa, Rachel F. Rodgers, and Jason M. Nagata. ‘Use of Photo Filters Is Associated with Muscle Dysmorphia Symptomatology among Adolescents and Young Adults’. Body Image 50 (1 September 2024): 101750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2024.101750.Grove, Jennifer Van. ‘Instagram 2.0 Launches: A Faster App With Live Filters & Hi-Res Photos’. Mashable, 20 September 2011. https://mashable.com/archive/instagram-version-2.Guillen, A, M Bonakdarhashemi, A Pinkhasov, S Helo, T Kohler, and M Ziegelmann. ‘(208) SOCIAL MEDIA, BODY DYSMORPHIA AND RESISTANCE TRAINING: THE EMERGING WAVE OF ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS IN MEN’. The Journal of Sexual Medicine 21, no. Supplement_7 (1 December 2024): qdae167.203. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdae167.203.‘History of Digital Photo Manipulation | National Science and Media Museum’, 16 June 2021. https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/digital-photo-manipulation-history.Mears, Ashley. Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. Princeton, New Jersey ; Princeton University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691189895.MIT Technology Review. ‘TikTok Changed the Shape of Some People’s Faces without Asking’. Accessed 3 March 2025. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/10/1026074/tiktok-mandatory-beauty-filter-bug/.published, Luke Johnson. ‘Filter Focus: The Story behind the Original Instagram Filters’. TechRadar, 15 January 2017. https://www.techradar.com/news/filter-focus-the-story-behind-the-original-instagram-filters.Quartz. ‘Snapchat Is the Latest Tech Company to Be Sued for Mapping Faces’, 25 July 2016. https://qz.com/741028/snapchat-is-the-latest-tech-company-to-be-sued-for-mapping-faces.Reyes, Miles P., Crystal Nguyen, Ashley Lok, Mary Adakama, and Takesha J. Cooper. ‘1.44 From #BodyGoals to Body Woes: Examining the Link Between Social Media, Eating Disorders, and Body Dysmorphia and Recommended Interventions’. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, The Scientific Proceedings of the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 62, no. 10, Supplement (1 October 2023): S169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2023.09.051.Schroeder, Makenzie, and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz. ‘Digitally Curated Beauty: The Impact of Slimming Beauty Filters on Body Image, Weight Loss Desire, Self-Objectification, and Anti-Fat Attitudes’. Computers in Human Behavior 165 (1 April 2025): 108519. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2024.108519.Schwedel, Heather. ‘Face or Filter?’ Slate, 15 March 2023. https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/03/tiktok-bold-glamour-filter-real-fake.html.Slemming, Brian. ‘Good Golly, It’s a Folly: Fake Ruins and Walls to Nowhere Add “Something Impressive to Look At”’. Toronto Star, 19 July 2010, sec. Living.