Tech

Facetune Video will enhance your ugly mug in video selfies

Now you can touch up your face in videos.

Woman taking a selfie.
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Selfie editing apps are all the rage nowadays as you can quickly and easily touch up your face before posting pictures online. Now the creators behind the popular Facetune selfie editing app have released a new version called Facetune Video that will, as the name suggests, help you touch up your face in video selfies.

The app is pretty straightforward. Once you choose a video from your camera roll, it will begin looping in the app so you can make changes and see them applied in real-time. There are all kinds of different options, like a "glow" tool that brightens up your face and an option to whiten your teeth.

Do we want this? — It's hard not to feel like Facetune Video and similar apps are sending us further down a path of separating our digital lives from reality. Some of the changes that you can make in Facetune Video aren't even "touch ups," they're actual digital plastic surgery. You can modify the size of your lips and nose, for instance.

Will there come a day when we stop looking at ourselves in the mirror because we feel our actual appearance is too painful to look at? Maybe that's a bit extreme, but it's well known that social media causes insecurities as people compare themselves to others, who themselves are only sharing the best moments. Studies have found the link between high social media use and depression is especially strong for young girls.

It's hard to say whether Facetune Video is a good thing or a bad thing, or maybe a mix of both. We should all try and love ourselves just as we are. But if you want to try it yourself, the app is available now on iOS for free with an Android version coming sometime in the future. A premium version for $7.99 offers additional editing tools.