The “creator space” is wiiiiild these days, thanks primarily to social media filters.

You can’t scroll social media for half a minute without encountering a face with a social media filter. You know the one — it’s airbrushed within an inch of its pixelated life. And in a world where everyone who hits “Post” is a creator, that adds up to a lot of faces.

To be honest? Said faces are looking good. There’s not a pore in sight! Dark circles? They’ve never met ‘em.

I’m a mixture of jealous (honestly, what is the name of the filter??) and low-key concerned.

Now before I explain why and come in with the ask, let me get the obvious out of the way: I’m a vain lady; make no mistake about it. I indulge in beauty treatments and tweakments, and I have absolutely no shame about changing my looks.

I’m also not one to decry beauty standards. Yes, the pressure on women to remain fresh! and look forever fertile! is a lot. But also, just like those annoying promotional texts, I am self-aware and evolved enough to easily unsubscribe of my own accord. After all, there is no one demanding I stick a needle into my forehead every 7 months.

And finally, I truly love that women can very easily embody a very complex duality—intelligent, mindful and deeply spiritual; as well as vain, sensual and unapologetically beautiful.

However. There is one ask I’m coming with today. And it’s for our collective mental health.

Please, show up on social media unfiltered.

Even if it’s just once a month, resist the urge to swipe a Paris over it, or run it through Tezza, or Snow, or whatever the heck it is people are using these days.

Occasionally, treat yourself — and the world — to the joy of your unfiltered, porous, lined, weathered, exhilarated, exhausted, and beautiful face.

I want your undereye bags. I want your dark circles. I want your natural-texture hair.

And selfishly, maybe I only want it so I feel better about mine.

As an Elder Millennial Prehistoric Dinosaur, my brain was trained on “real skin” for decades before filters — or even cell phones — even became a thing. Maybe you came up in the paleolithic era too, and maybe you also miss seeing, oh, I don’t know, a blackhead or a stray eyebrow or a forehead crevasse.

Where I start to get worried is when I think about our brains accepting social media filters as normal. How many poreless visages add up to full-on Facial Dysmorphic Disorder?

So, just like I’m always banging on about “what is it that we can do” when it comes to news and media literacy, I also think we get proactive when it comes to managing our self-image. And by that I mean, let’s—together—get comfortable viewing, and loving, our natural, unfiltered faces.

Identifying and rejecting online perfection is just as critical to your wellbeing as identifying and rejecting political tribalism. It’s tied to our mental health. No one can do the work except you.

Yes, you look gorgeous with the filter, but you also look gorgeous without it. Let’s try this together. See you on Instagram.

Subscribe to my Substack for posts about news, health and beauty, shopping, and more.