FaceApp, where have you been all my life!!

[Heather Nicole]

Ok, so I'm probably incredibly late to this, but this forum has just introduced me to the absurd wonders of FaceApp and I'm totally hooked!

 

Judging by what it thinks I looked like as a kid, I'm pretty well aware this software is far more for fun goofing around than it is for accuracy. But even still, the first time I gave it a selfie and hit the "Female" button, my heart instantly leapt straight out of my chest and I felt all fluttery for hours...That "photo" is now my profile picture :). (I swear, if I could look anything like that, I would come straight out to everyone, work, family and strangers, right now!, and have a name change application submitted within the hour!! (Ugh..if only I could decide on a name!))

 

Other top candidates include these works of deliriously intoxicating fantasy:

 

 

 

 

Just as fun, although not half as pretty, is this amusing nightmare :

 

 

That one never stops cracking me up! I'll spare everyone the masculine one that makes me look like an unholy union between Santa Claus and my biological father!

 

What cool images have other people come up with through this?

[Jordyn1215225]

I just tried the app.  Love it

[Berni]

Its The Mirror of Erised that App. I have spent hours under its spell.

 

(Apologies for the reference to She Who Shall Not Be Named)

[Berni]

[MirandaB]

Yes, FaceApp was pretty much what set me over the edge from 'thought CDing would be the answer til the end' to 'must transition NOW'. 

 

Seeing 'myself' 'outside' did it. And seeing 'myself' in everyday mode as opposed to a made up for cocktail hour mode.

 

I use it now with the eraser function to see how the hair I'm growing out looks if my face was more feminine, do the gender swap and erase the hair it adds. 

[Abi]

Ok so I am a FaceApp addict but, I wasn't sure how everyone looked at this kind of thing. I would say out of hundreds of them I have only really loved a couple. There is absolutely no chance I could ever look as good as this app makes me look. One thing I have found to be amusing as well is the fact that once in a while it will say I am female and offer to switch me to male. UH NO.... I am on the fence about sharing so please forgive me. I would love to share but, I have a feeling some people are bothered by this. I would love to hear opinions.

 

 

[Elizabeth Star]

I'm probably the only one who has a problem with faceapp. It's not a flaw of the app but how it could potentially make someone feel.

 

I admit that I use it, a lot, but the issues I see is with the gender swap feature. I caught myself using it to determine if I looked passing or not and that would set mood for the day. Sometimes I thought I looked really cute and femme but that app said "male". That put me in a very depressed state, feeling like I don't pass at all.

 

I quickly realized what was going on and am now careful when and how I use it but I see the potential for someone to do something rash because an app told them they weren't passing.

[Sally Stone]

Liz,

 

You aren't the only one that has issues with an app like this.  And really, I don't mean to disparage anyone who uses it for entertainment.  While I think it can be entertaining, my worry is that I would rely on the result to affirm myself.  There is already so much pressure in our society to look a certain way.  If the world is going to see me the way I am in reality, I think I want to see myself the same way.  Now, if the app could look beneath the skin and see my inner beauty, that would be an app I might actually try. 

[Abi]

@ElizabethStar and @Sally Stone, that is exactly why I said I am on the fence with sharing the pictures I have made of myself. @Heathick please do not take this as any kind of an attack on you or anyone that wants to share these. Like I said, I love this app. I just see how this could not only make some of us feel off for the day when we can't get the desired pick we want but, it could even make other people that are seeing these feel down too. I really am not meaning to harm your thread. I'm very sorry. 

[Heather Nicole]

2 hours ago, Abi said:

@ElizabethStar and @Sally Stone, that is exactly why I said I am on the fence with sharing the pictures I have made of myself. @Heathick please do not take this as any kind of an attack on you or anyone that wants to share these. Like I said, I love this app. I just see how this could not only make some of us feel off for the day when we can't get the desired pick we want but, it could even make other people that are seeing these feel down too. I really am not meaning to harm your thread. I'm very sorry. 

 

OMG, no!, Don't worry or feel bad on my account!!! I totally get it!! (But, OMG, that's so sweet of you to worry about it!!!)

 

Hey, I'm still a total newcomer to all of this: these forums, the LGBT+ community, having the freedom to interact with wonderful people in a way that doesn't require me to subconsciously censor myself to adhere to masculine standards...and definitely also to FaceApp as well (I didn't even know it existed a week or so ago!, and I certainly never actually touched it until just the other day!) If anything, I worry about my naive enthusiasm for a sparkling new toy inadvertently tugging the wrong way on anyone's emotions. And when I first sensed there may be any hint of dissent about the app, I worried whether I should have even posted anything.

 

I kinda feel the same way, really. I'll admit, the first time I used it, I went straight for the "Female" button not really expecting much, and when I saw what it came back with (my current profile pic), my heart nearly leapt straight out of my chest and I felt all fluttery for hours! But it didn't take long for me to catch on that the images were most likely highly unrealistic (however intoxicating). I'd say my biggest clue was the fact that the app's "teen" and "child" age filters looked like stock photo models and nothing remotely similar to how I actually used to appear at those ages!

 

So I totally get it, and I would never want to raise a topic that would make anyone here uncomfortable! You're all so kind, and warm, and genuine, and caring after all! Heck, I'm the who feels sorry for naively bringing up anything potentially sensitive or controversial!

 

TBH, I actually struggled a bit deciding whether or not to use the image FaceApp created for me as my profile pic. I ended up going with it, maybe selfishly, because I'm so in love with the idea of getting to be seen (even by myself) as anything similar to "her". But my hesitation, and I still worry about this, is giving anyone an unrealistic idea of potential real-world results. I was actually going to make a post in the "about the forum itself" section suggesting that maybe signatures should be displayed on user's profile pages (if technically feasible with this forum software). I modified my signature to hopefully make it clear that my profile pic isn't real, but then I noticed that when you visit this forum on a phone instead of a desktop browser, the signatures aren't shown...:(

[MirandaB]

11 hours ago, ElizabethStar said:

I'm probably the only one who has a problem with faceapp. It's not a flaw of the app but how it could potentially make someone feel.

 

On the various sites I visit, your take is the majority position. Many of us are quite irate about FaceApp and the like, saying it's 'dishonest'. To me, it's not all that much different than wigs, padding and makeup. And for those in the closet apps can be a way to satisfy a need to see themselves the way they need to without risking whatever they're in the closet trying to protect.

[Susan R]

Late to the party but I have to tell you...I’m impressed with the technology used in this app. I downloaded this app tonight to check out this gender swapping capability it has. It is so impressive how the algorithm seems to work to switch, stitch and re-render everything so well.

 

I started out using my current avatar pic in my blue tie dyed tunic and did a gender swap. What came back was an image that looked very much like a Pre-HRT photo of me in from way back in 2003 but of course the female version was taken just recently. The image with me in the black shirt at the bottom was the pic taken in 2003.

 

Just thought i’d share something fun. Maybe some of you others could see if your gender swap looks like an old picture of you and if you do try it...post it if you’re comfortable sharing yourself in your previous gender.

 

Susan R?

 

[Ann W]

I enjoyed the whole part about coming out right away to everyone if you looked like that...it made me laugh.  I don't know FaceApp (yet), but who can't relate to that.

 

And the name thing is no small challenge.  I really struggled with it, for all kinds of reasons.

[Heather Nicole]

5 hours ago, Ann Winslow said:

I enjoyed the whole part about coming out right away to everyone if you looked like that...it made me laugh.  I don't know FaceApp (yet), but who can't relate to that.

 

Aww, glad to hear

 

5 hours ago, Ann Winslow said:

And the name thing is no small challenge.  I really struggled with it, for all kinds of reasons.

 

Yup!

 

@Susan R: I hope I'm not crossing any lines by saying so, but FWIW, you look great in any gender!

[HollyElizabeth]

@Heather Nicole
just found that app and I love it. Lol

[Heather Nicole]

It can be seriously addictive, right!!?!

 

Sometimes it gets confused though and does some really weird, but amusing, stuff. Like, for example, what in the world is it trying to do to the right side of your glasses?!?

 

I have a photo it generated where, when it was trying to give me longer wavier hair, it decided that my shirt, clearly, must have a bare left shoulder, and so it just deleted my shirt's left shoulder replacing it with skin! Haha  (Actually, that's my profile pic. You can see the weird thing FaceApp did to my shirt by going to my profile and clicking on my "photo" to see the full image.)

[Gabriel]

I believe it is a controversial tool. On one hand it can show images that are just impossible to achieve. No just in changing sex, but even if you are trying to see how you'd look in your same gender but with other characteristics. I'm AFAB and I tried it with make up and hair styles, and I never looked like that even in my over feminie days (and I wore every kind of hair and had professional make up done several times). So it sets some expectations that can be hurtful if someone doesn't end up looking like they thought they could based on the app. When the truth is that if you own your gender and own your feelings you will always be (and look) more beautiful that any touched photo. It is when we are in motion, alive, that we show who we are.

 

On the other hand, it is a powerful tool to see if you are attracted to looking really female or really male. That is a powerful experience to have.

[AmberM]

@Noah A I am also torn on the tool. I am not going to lie, my profile picture is a Snapchat filter. My concern is based around does it set too high of a bar of feminine or male attractiveness? I never used anything besides Snapchat feminine filter, so I do not know FaceApp, but I don't plan on using it because I feel like it will set myself up for failure.

 

I am hoping HRT, electrolysis, and learning to use make-up will be enough to ease my dysphoria, because that is the face that is going to presented at the end of the day to the public. I don't want to discourage the fun of FaceApp, but I might want other people to not use it as a litmus test of passing, because like you said Noah, even AFAB don't meet the mark with it.

[Gabriel]

Exactly what I meant Amber. And it will not only be enough, you'll be beautiful.

 

Otherwise we are falling into the awful stigma that if we are not picture perfect we are not good enough. That stigma has polluted the feminine world forever, and the male one to a lesser extent. A stigma that the world is slowly moving away from. I know it's difficult, but let's try not to fall for that.

 

And again, playing and having fun with the app is perfect.

 

But let's love ourselves first.

[DeeDee]

2 hours ago, Noah A said:

playing and having fun with the app is perfect.

 

But let's love ourselves first.

Yup. This.

Face app pops up every so often, and there have been many discussions about the T's and C's stating that the company owns the rights to any pictures you take, and reaching for unreachable dreams.

@Berni was spot on with her quote:

On 9/27/2020 at 8:07 AM, Berni said:

Its The Mirror of Erised that App. I have spent hours under its spell.

 

Like Amber I have used the Snapchat filter and when I am already feeling good about myself it really does lift my spirits to play about with it and take cute pictures, but I never use it when I am down because it alters my face shape from round to egg and adds so much soft filter that everyone looks like a Goddess,though when I tried to do the male gender me it looked nothing like me either. I have a few of them saved and scroll through sometimes because it cheers me up, one day I hope to use one as my main profile pic, but as all it did was offer eyemakeup and smooth my skin it is really obviously me.

 

One of the benefits to having sisters is that I already know who I will look like when the horomone fairies do their job, my little sister was quite taken aback when she first saw me as DeeDee no filters or soft focus tricks just a smiling selfie.

Have fun, and remember that it is just the technical equivalent of those weird circus mirrors and you will be fine.

?

P.S. 

@HollyNoel You obviously need to go out as Merida next Halloween with that red hair.

 

[HollyElizabeth]

@DeeDee I know right. Lol.

[DragonflyGirl]

I've been using FaceApp to make babies with Harrison Ford. ??

[DeeDee]

@DragonflyGirl Your kids are adorable ?

[DragonflyGirl]

1 hour ago, DeeDee said:

@DragonflyGirl Your kids are adorable ?

Thank you! ?

[MaybeRob]

A new online app to play with!

 

I came across this Introducing the Gender Affirming Face Analyzer — Transpositions Coaching. It's a free (in Beta) app.

I uploaded a few photos taken over a few months and imo the analysis was actually fairly accurate. The recommendations were

also pretty useful. 

 

Hugs

 

Kate