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The Gross Reason Men Are Taking Screenshots Of Women’s Dating App Pics

Photo: courtesy of the author
The Gross Reason Men Are Taking Screenshots Of Women’s Dating App Pics

Women and our makeup have a, well... a complicated relationship.

For hundreds, nay, thousands of years, we have been using cosmetics to make ourselves appear more desirable than we otherwise believe we might be. In some cases, we've even gone as far as risking our own health for the sake of the beauty we believe we can achieve with the right selection of products.

Nowadays, things have changed. I mean, kind of. Many women wear makeup for themselves as a way to feel more confident and pulled together. I know that I personally enjoy wearing makeup because I feel like it helps me look like my best, and who wouldn't want that?

Apparently, if the creators of an app called "MakeApp" are to be believed, every single man on the planet.

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This app, which was created by a man (because of course it was), allows guys on dating apps like Tinder and Bumble to upload photographs of women they are interested in and run them through a variety of filters in order to reveal what this potentially conniving hussy looks like without her makeup on.

That's right, the truth of your appearance will finally be revealed, ladies. May shallow men everywhere rejoice, and may God help the rest of us.

The idea behind this app is that the men of the world will finally be able to see what the women they think they might be into really look like.

You know, because women aren't constantly scrambling to meet each and every societal expectation foisted upon them. Nope. They're just are constantly trying to pull one over on men in order to push buttons and see what they can get away with next. What hot trash.

The app allows users to process up to five images for free before it starts charging you. Frankly, if a man downloads this app, I'm glad he'll be forced to shell out a few bucks every time he uses it, though I'd prefer it if instead, he had to click a button that said something along the lines of, "By removing the makeup from this woman's face you are agreeing that you are a shallow human being and that you hate women." But maybe that will come when the next update is available.

I refuse to believe that men's eyes can't see what women's faces truly look like just because they wearing some pink lipstick or they've done their brows. If that logic held true, the men of the world must practically drop their phones screaming and run for the hills every time that they see someone, male or female, use a Snapchat filter that gives them like, animal ears, or something.

I gave the app a go for myself, and truth be told, it doesn't even work all that well.

I started out with this shot of my face made up as I would be if I was heading out to meet a guy I'd met online.

The app's AI seemed to understand that I had foundation on, but my styled lips and brows were deemed natural enough to be kept in place for my "makeup-free" result.

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In addition, the app also features makeup filters that you can apply to photos. Well, not you.

The filters, I can only assume, will be used by creepy men who spied you on OkCupid or Bumble or Match or Ashley Madison (hey, I don't judge), breezily screenshot your profile pics, and is now playing with painting your face just like you used to color in your Fashion Plates when you were a girl.

Of course, unlike those magical childhood tools of female empowerment, these filters work about as well a makeup removing app designed by a man with ties to the Russian Kremlin could be expected to work.

For as long as women have been wearing makeup, men have been saying they prefer a woman who doesn't wear makeup — which, we all know, is garbage. That's why there are so many tutorials explaining to women how they too can achieve the "natural" look in just 27 easy steps over 215 minutes.

Because that whole clean and natural look guys claim to love so much takes more products, brushes, and time to perfect than I have fingers with which to count. And thus ends your daily reminder that men everywhere suck.

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Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's the Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, and true crime.