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I Filter You!

Are You Using Filters?

The other day I met some people for lunch. They had contacted me on TikTok and we agreed to meet. There was one contact person and a small group came along.

However, I had never met either the contact or the rest of the group in real life. This was the first introduction and I showed up at the coffee shop on time as usual. Upon arriving I looked around searching for the woman I had been contacted by online. I thought I may have been early as Indonesians are known to be late. I gazed around the room looking for the person in question. This was to be a real estate meeting for some investors, so I was looking forward to it, but not to what was about to happen.

Well, well, well…

The woman who contacted me was nowhere to be found. Not until she called out my name from a table where the others had sat as well. Let’s just say she didn’t look like her photo. I was a little shocked. So, this trend of filters on Instagram and TikTok truly irks me. I do not equate this to me making a video looking like a dog, or a cat, or when I put on a wig. That is obvious and we all know it’s a joke. However, when women and men alter their facial features and skin color on live video or in photographs; it takes it beyond Photoshop levels.

A person who changes their appearance so much that they are unrecognizable in real life makes me sad. Are you so disappointed in the way you look that you need to mask all of you with filters, eye colors, and online applications to make yourself appear presentable?

Disappointed

This meeting was disappointing. Not disappointed like I would have been if this had been a date or anything. However, I did feel cheated and lied to. I felt I had been misled by false advertising. All because this person is far from the woman, she made herself out to be. I mean photographs, videos, and content are now so skewed that there is no way to tell reality from the falseness online.

I can only imagine that Tinder and other apps are filled with fake profiles of real people that miss represent themselves.  If you have yet to try the face augmentations on TikTok please do. Smoother skin, wider or narrower jawline, face, nose, and whiter teeth are all waiting for you. However, if you do try it, please refrain from using it. In the end, the person you may meet will be severely disappointed!

The second time this happened to me was when another person asked me to do a collaboration with them at a small drink outlet in Bali. I was rather shocked to see the person I was meeting. It was such a sad state that she should have been arrested for faking her profile. Please keep it real people, keep it real.

Zsolt Zsemba

Zsolt Zsemba has worn many different hats. He has been an entrepreneur, and businessman for over 30 years. Living abroad has given him many amazing experiences in life and also sparked his imagination for writing. After moving to Canada from Hungary at the age of 10 and working in a family business for a large part of his life. The switch from manufacturing to writing came surprisingly easily for him. His passion for writing began at age 12, mostly writing poetry and short stories. In 1999, the chance came to write scripts. Zsolt took some time off from his family business to write in Jakarta Indonesia for MD Entertainment. Having written dozens of soap operas and made for TV movies, in 2003 Zsolt returned to the family business once more. In 2018, he had the chance to head back to Asia once again. He took on the challenge to be the COO for MD Pictures and get back into the entertainment business. The entertainment business opened up the desire to write once more and the words began to flow onto the pages again. He decided to rewrite a book he began years ago. Organ House was reborn and is a fiction suspense novel while Scars is a young adult drama focused on life’s challenges. After the first two books, his desire to write not only became more challenging but enjoyable as well. After having several books completed he was convinced to publish them for your enjoyment. Zsolt does not tend to stay in one specific genre but tends to lean towards strong female leads and horror. Though he also has a few human interest books, he tends to write about whatever brews in his brain for a while.