HONG KONG — Your phone can make your face whiter. A touch can taper your jaw. It can slim your cheeks. Widen your eyes. Of course, it can make you thinner.
In China, beauty — of a particular kind — can come from a swipe. A photo app called Meitu gives its users the power to create idealized versions of their real-world selves and share them with others. Its makers say: “Our mission is to make the world a more beautiful place.”
Meitu and its related apps are hugely popular in China. The apps have 446 million users, and Meitu says more than half of the photos circulated on social media there in June were filtered using its editing app.
“Meitu makes everybody look more beautiful in an easy way,” says Du Sha, 26, a graduate student who uses it mainly to erase acne and to smooth and brighten her skin. “It’s a good technology for people to be more social or improve their self-confidence.”
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Mark Schlarbaum, Irvine, California