Monki x BDD Foundation

Around You reached to us to help them organize the AR part of the Selfie Love Initiative - a groundbreaking campaign they've been putting together for this collab between Monki and the Body Dismorphic Disorder Foundation (BDFF) calling for transparency on altered images on social media. 

Given our independent community of AR creators an the importance of the topic, we felt there was something special to do here to help sensibilise about the impact we can have on this topic as AR creators. 

Since social media beauty filters have originated a newBody dismorphic disorder called "Filter Dismorphia" which has seen numerous teenagers reaching out to Esthetic surgeons in orders to help them look like they do when they use beautification filters. And probably no AR creator active in beauty was aware of that problem whe the campaign was made back in fall 2021.

From there, our strategy was simple. We selected top female AR artists that are usually creating filters to complement user’s faces rather than transforming them.

Our hope by having Viv Galinari, Sarah and Isabel Aplumbo each creating a filter on the topic was that they would sensibilise their fellow creators and plant the seed of impactful inspiration in their minds. The impact of the campaign went beyond any expectation possible, helping the petition go viral, eventually leading lawmakers to tackle this topic, as you can see at the end of the video below. 

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Earlier this year, Wallace helped launch a partnership between the BDDF and the fashion brand Monki , lobbying for EU legislation that would see brands and social media users legally required to put a notice on advertising or social media posts that had been altered or filtered. Since it was launched three weeks ago, their petition has been signed by more than 30,000 people.

“The campaign with Monki is so important because it gets awareness of BDD out to a huge number of people and this could save lives,” she says. “We’re still a small charity and we’re dealing with such a huge problem, but there is also so much hope for people with BDD if they get the right help.”

Portrait of Kitty Wallace covered in the Guardian
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It is a great reminder that nobody’s too small to have an impact. The petition is still live here, there's never enough signatures for this kind of topic

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‍Special thanks to Around You, if you want to have a campaign that hits, as you can see, they know how to do it.