Edwina Bartholomew: AI beauty and the TikTok filter video I regret posting

7NEWS

30-07-2025

I posted a video online this week that I regret.
It was a summary of the news headlines on Sunrise featuring clips from our reporters and a look behind the scenes. It's something I do every day.
The problem was when I posted it on TikTok, I applied a 'soft face' filter.
Here's the difference so you can see for yourself. No blemishes, even more blush, exaggerated eyes and wrinkle free. The changes are subtle but significant. It's not what I look like in real life.
If a 42-year-old woman in full TV makeup feels the need to filter, then what example does that set for the young women watching the clip online?
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis summed up the issue perfectly in a recent article for The Guardian.
'The concept that you can alter the way you look through chemicals, surgical procedures, fillers — there's a disfigurement of generations of predominantly women who are altering their appearances', Curtis told the paper. 'And it is aided and abetted by AI, because now the filter face is what people want.'
There is nothing new about impossible beauty standards fuelled by celebrity worship, but the difference is that we now have round the clock access to heavily filtered stars.
When I was growing up as an impressionable teenager, we devoured magazines like Girlfriend and Dolly and upbeat ads for Impulse deodorant.
Our makeup supplies came almost exclusively from the chemist. We were never privy to the private lives of our favourite celebrities or GRWM videos detailing every product they used, or plastic surgery procedures undertaken.
Now, it's standard for the likes of Kris Jenner and Kylie Jenner to share the intimate details of their medical enhancements.
When recently asked about her breast augmentation on TikTok, Jenner didn't hold back.
'You have got what I am looking for to have done, in terms of like, a boob job,' Rachel Leary posted to the 29-year-old. Jenner. 'It's like the most perfect natural looking boob job ever.'
Jenner replied: '445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! Silicone!!!'
I suppose its admirable stars are honest about what work they have had done. It beats staring at someone's forehead to figure out of they've had Botox.
But what does it mean for our continued pursuit of perfection?
Vogue Magazine has always been the bastion of the fashion industry. The pages curated by Editor in Chief, Anna Wintour and her magazine minions around the globe have set the standard for fashion trends and taken the pulse of pop culture since the 1890s.
This week, a dangerous new trend appeared in Vogue's pages - AI models.
A campaign for Guess featured a beautiful model in what appeared to be a Greek village. The model was wearing a floral mini dress and striped maxi dress from the Guess summer collection, but it was all fake.
The only indication the images were entirely made-up was a tiny written disclaimer in the fold admitting they were AI-generated.
Vogue already features genetically blessed models, now we must contend with genetically altered too. Celebrities enhanced by plastic surgery in heavily filtered photos alongside AI models in exotic fake destinations. It sets an impossible beauty standard for the rest of us.
A 2024 Dove report showed almost 50 per cent of Australian women felt pressured to alter their appearance because of online content, even when they knew images were fake or AI-generated.
Even more concerning, there are currently few obligations in Australia to clearly label images as AI leaving individual publications to decide how transparent they are with readers.
I deleted my video this week and won't be applying a tricky TikTok filter again. The alterations made me uneasy. Ultimately, the more honest we are with our own content, the better off we will be.
Maybe magazines will follow suit and realise real is way forward too.