This is What It Feels Like To Not Participate in The Annoying Face App Challenge!

Okay so what’s it like sitting out of the world’s latest hobby-FaceApp? Probably the same way it felt for those who stayed out of the Game of Thrones fandom I guess. Luckily for you I happen to have experience in both. (Don’t @ me)

FaceApp,-for those who live under rocks and hence haven’t heard- is a photo editing application designed by the Russian company Wireless Lab. The very first version was debuted in 2017 however it wasn’t as fine-tuned as this new updated version that has been making rounds on social media of late, dubbed The Face App challenge. The engineers behind this haven’t actually released a statement yet clarifying just how exactly the App achieves its aging effects, but it’s no secret that scientists have been studying the specific markers of facial aging for decades. So we have a pretty basic understanding of the things FaceApp’s neural network considers when transporting it’s users through time. Wrinkles, sunken eyes, flabby cheek meat…you get the image I’m trying to paint here.

So for some inane reason, the entire WORLD is suddenly obsessed with looking like their grandmothers and grandfathers. Now don’t get me wrong, I find old people extremely charming and endearing; their faces a worn canvas for age’s handwriting in fine print- a sign of the life well lived. But to see youthful faces aging fifty years in a split second…it’s weird. And yet everyone is doing it.

 By everyone I mean celebrities and the rest of you ordinary people.

Drake, Kevin Hart, Piers Morgan and the Jonas Brothers are just a few of the big names taking part in the challenge. The others took part as well, but not by their own doing. Internet users got creative and put their images through the aging application. If anything, it made for a really good laugh.

Before y’all get too carried away, though, here’s a warning to those who plan on heading the siren call of this wildly popular (pointless) photo-editing app. You should tread the waters lightly okay? Some observers have already raised privacy concerns about FaceApp and warned that its policies could allow it to collect all the images people upload to it. What the KGB would want with your wrinkly-ass faces? I do not know. The point remains that there are hidden dangers as look-alike apps are popping up in a bid to cash in on the sudden popularity. If you download and install them, you’re putting the security of your device at risk.

But hey, it’s not all bad news for those of you determined to be professional internet time wasters. According to a 2011 psychological studying, engaging with a realistic rendering of your aged self can yield a surprising psychological benefit. According to inverse.com, subjects who engaged with an aged version of themselves using virtual reality exhibited a greater tendency to deny themselves short –term rewards in exchange for more substantial long term rewards.

I don’t know about this though.

A couple of friends used my picture (against my will if I may add) and the result, well I can’t lie…I didn’t like it. Imagine the oldest person you know. Now multiply their aging by a thousand. Now fossilize them for a billion years. You’re still not close to how appallingly ancient I looked. I looked like the beginning of time. I looked like I baby sat Jesus at some point in my evidently long life.

Apparently this is the same for all my female counterparts. If you notice, among the FaceApp users, men have been more forth-coming with their images than women have been. While men age like George Clooney…well not George Clooney exactly-no one can age that fine, women look exceptionally elderly. Or so people say. Perhaps it is to do with the entire stigma against aging in women? (Sips from cup very carefully because this particular tea is very hot but for another time)

That’s not why I choose to avoid using the app myself though. I just don’t see the point. I don’t see the reason behind the hype. So you’ve got wrinkles and sunken eyes. Big deal! I look exactly like that after hours in a darkroom marathoning anything that isn’t game of thrones. I’m not saying that my refusal to participate in this whimsical fancy somehow makes me intellectually superior due to my ability to desist from the sheep-like mentality of societal norm. (I mean it does somehow make me superior. I’m just not saying it.) What I am saying is that I just don’t care.

If you were hoping for some deep and tragic take on my desperate need to cling on to youth and the depressive mentality associated with aging coupled with uncontrollable gerascophobia or whatever-I’m happy to disappoint you. My advice? Save your data for the next nonsensical fad.

If I want to see what I look like when I grow old, then I guess I’ll have to do just that-grow old and see.

satisfashionug@gmail.com