
Middle-aged vlogger who used filter to look young caught in live-stream glitch - mLuby
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-49151042
======
danso
Wow, this shows how out of touch I am with social media and technology. I know
that Apple's 3d-camera phones enable chat via Animoji, but that applies a
cartoon image across your face. I didn't realize reality-enhancement filters
(e.g. face thinners) were good enough to work in real-time? I'm confused
because the links in the article just show the woman's real face [0], and not
footage of when the filter was actually working. I guess I expected to see the
glitching in real-time, like the "Mission Impossible" hallway scene [1]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA)

[1] [https://youtu.be/qtA0JS1lBaY?t=359](https://youtu.be/qtA0JS1lBaY?t=359)

~~~
notimetorelax
Reading the article it appears that everyone knew that this was a filter. She
asked for 100k donation to reveal her face, but no one donated this much yet.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
I know this is tangential to the whole thing, but this is a cool feature of
the Chinese language:

>The story has been incredibly popular across Chinese social networks with
more than 600 million people reading posts that use a hashtag which translates
to "female vlogger experiences bug showing her old lady face" and more than
50,000 using the hashtag itself.

In english, you're never going to get a twitter trend of
#FemaleVloggerExperiencesBugShowingHerOldLadyFace. Does anyone know of
research looking at how more compact languages influence trending? It seems
neat.

~~~
newen
Good chance it's actually just 6 to 7 syllables long. So, not just writing but
compact speech too.

~~~
yorwba
It's #女主播直播出bug秒变大妈脸# [1]. 12 syllables. I can get an English translation down
to the same syllable count: #StreamingBugTurnsVloggerGirlIntoOldWoman It
obviously still takes up more horizontal space; to fix that you'd need to use
a font that squeezes about 3 Latin letters into the same space as one Chinese
character. However, the gap in information density isn't actually that large,
because Chinese usually requires slightly larger fonts to achieve the same
legibility.

It's maybe also interesting to note that hashtags are delimited by # on both
ends, because there are no spaces between words you could use to find the end.

[1]
[https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D1...](https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D10%26q%3D%23%E5%A5%B3%E4%B8%BB%E6%92%AD%E7%9B%B4%E6%92%AD%E5%87%BAbug%E7%A7%92%E5%8F%98%E5%A4%A7%E5%A6%88%E8%84%B8%23)

~~~
comex
Hmm... You could save another syllable by changing StreamingBug to
StreamGlitch, which is also more idiomatic. Same number of characters though.

------
cwkoss
This is just a form of digital makeup. I predict that using a young attractive
avatar will become the social norm and this sort of thing will be entirely
unobjectionable within a decade.

~~~
lostphilosopher
David Foster Wallace predicted not only that, but its rise and fall.
[http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527](http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527)

~~~
Balgair
Great Read!

I'm reminded of a Nebula(?) Award winning short story about hive-rats
interacting with nobility in the 'future'. The nobility is shrouded in
apperance/voice/stim tech such that the AIs are more the person than anything.
A princess is brought to the under-city by her father to a shop that can fix
the princess' tech, as it is malfunctioning. The daughter of the shop owner
tries to peer into the princess' life and psyche as the shop owner tries to
fix the princess. The princess has implants that stimulate her face, voice,
and body to say the right things at the right times, to move the right way,
that changes her face via lightsheets to be most beautiful to the observer she
is with, that causes her to say just the right thing at just the right time
and be increbily witty. But the daughter of the shop owner tries to peer
through the tech to see the woman behind the veil. She discovers that the
person behind it all is nearly mute and has the intelligence of an infant. The
tech had been installed before ego formation and the person behind it all
didn't really exist. She discovers it is also true of the man that brought the
princess down to them too. The entire nobility is essentially faking it.

I am SO sorry that I cannot find the link to the actual story. If anyone has
the title or author, I would love to know!

~~~
lostphilosopher
Do report back if you find it! I'll check it out.

Part of the premise of the Deus Ex games (thinking specifically of Mankind
Divided) is "augmentations" that can make people better in all kinds of ways,
but are generally only available to the wealthy elite which leads to all kinds
of trouble. What happens when the "elite" don't just seem better - but
objectively (and universally) _are_ by real measures. Longer and more accurate
memories, longer life spans, more knowledge of their surroundings, better
judges of character, stronger, faster, smarter - etc. Not necessarily "faking
it" they really do remember more, but that's because they can store their
memories in a chip in their head. All at a cost that prevents the 99% from
having these advantages. (Though, the progress made by these folks can be
broadly beneficial.)

Yes, yes, I know somebody is already itching to comment that this is present
state - I'll leave you to it.

~~~
lstamour
It vaguely reminds me of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary books, which if I recall
correctly have the rats, underworld, technology, and more, but it might not be
it as it doesn’t have the light sheets etc, I think... I’m trying to figure
out where I’ve heard this one before, it sounds familiar...

------
bitwize
Reminds me of the time a "cute anime girl" streamer had a glitch that exposed
him as a fairly typical otaku hikikomori using motion capture software to
puppet the character (and presumably some sort of voice synthesizer to provide
the dialogue).

~~~
namanyayg
Do you have a link? I'm amazed by the fake video generation we have now, I
wonder when we'll start seeing it used for spam and (mal)advertising.

~~~
Mirioron
This one. You can search for the articles when searching for "Nora Cat".

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iwL9Yz8LcKkJsnLPevOTQ/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iwL9Yz8LcKkJsnLPevOTQ/videos)

------
mLuby
> her fans urged her to show her face and remove her filter but she refused,
> instead apparently saying: "I can't show my face until I receive gifts worth
> 100,000 yuan ($11,950). After all, I'm a good-looking host." Followers began
> to send her donations with the largest reported to be 40,000 yuan ($5,813,
> £4,780) during the session.

> The story has been incredibly popular across Chinese social networks with
> more than 600 million people reading posts that use a hashtag which
> translates to "female vlogger experiences bug showing her old lady face"

> many live-streamers simply sing karaoke in their bedrooms, or eat snacks for
> hours on end.

~~~
INTPenis
I want an interview with someone who is willing to donate over a thousand
dollars to a person they're watching talk on a webcam.

~~~
crocbuzz
Go on some of the most popular Twitch.tv channels, you'll see lots of that
happening. Too many to count on two hands. It's unbelievable and quite sad.

~~~
Diederich
> quite sad.

I wonder if you can expand on that.

~~~
mLuby
Observers generally experience sad feelings from seeing someone waste
resources, and experience anger when someone is taken advantage of, probably
because we perceive _our_ risk increasing (in a tribal sense). Soliciting (and
receiving) outlandish "donations" from strangers can look like both a waste
and a con.

By tribal risk increasing I mean that if Ogg loses his harvest fording the
river, now the tribe has to feed him. Or if Ogg is swindled out of his pelt,
now the tribe has to worry about him freezing _and_ make sure nobody else
falls victim. In context, this is when your uncle Ben donates to some internet
personality and then has trouble making ends meet, and you might have to step
in to assist him.

A third unrelated explanation is relative value, where the observer might feel
upset watching someone throw good food to a dog, rather than giving it to a
starving person nearby because the observer feels the starving person is more
deserving of the resources than the animal. In context, this is when your
uncle Jerry donates to some internet personality instead of using the money to
help you or some other more deserving local charity case (not using that
pejoratively).

~~~
robocat
> from seeing someone waste resources

I think the word "waste" really doesn't apply to just shifting money between
people. Although there may be waste elsewhere (or it may be just unfair).

------
apo
The article links to this video of the incident:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8m4jYaALIA)

Without video of the filter in action, I'm skeptical of the claim.

It seems plausible that the person on the left is using a filter of some kind.

~~~
zzzcpan
Yeah, the tech is not at the level of side by side images shown in the video.
Only at the level of taking forever to replace a face in another video.

------
rvz
Oh dear, these filters are now so sophisticated and realistic, that they are
able to distort reality and can fool anybody. It is getting easier to fake
anything these days, and I can only see this being common place in the society
dependent on social media being a source of news online.

The importance of the 'Don't believe everything on the internet' advice is
becoming increasingly important these days, as there are many Wizards of Oz
out there hiding behind the computer screen and Instagram/Snapchat filters.

------
certmd
I think a reading of the relevant passage from David Foster Wallace's
"Infinite Jest" (from 1996) re: video conversations is appropriate here.

[http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527](http://declineofscarcity.com/?page_id=2527)

~~~
malandrew
I was actually looking through the comments to see if someone would reference
DFW videophony.

~~~
justinator
Same - exactly where my brain went.

------
edgarvaldes
When you reward people for their physical appearance (and certain standards of
beauty), it is no surprise that they take advantage of technology to look as
expected by the public.

~~~
devoply
To look at it another way, some people have a natural advantage in life that
they did not earn. This helps even that playing field.

------
asadkn
There's bias for good looks. And cosmetic/health industry spends billions of
dollars on marketing to re-enforce and further strengthen the bias. So is it
any surprise people would want to game it to get a better chance of success.

------
duxup
I have trouble believing the fans didn't know at some point. The article
implies they didn't, but also isn't specific.

Perhaps they knew but and the mystery was part of the show?

I haven't seen any software generally available that wouldn't be somewhat
obvious that it is in use.

------
pythonbase
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he
will tell you the truth." \- Oscar Wilde

------
bufferoverflow
I'm a guy and I have no idea why some guys throw ridiculous money at good
looking girls online. You have no chance of meeting them, let alone anything
else. If anything, throw money at not so good looking people, their lives are
harder on average.

~~~
dx87
It's the same reason people blow tons of money at strip clubs. They want
someone to like them, they don't care if the feelings are fake. Some of the
popular streamers also do fan meetups for their biggest donators, where
they'll go on a single "date" with them.

------
lol_jono
I'm impressed by how far technology has become to the point that she could do
this.

~~~
ergothus
Right?! I think there's lots of honest debate to be had about how superficial
we are, but honestly, my reaction to this is "That worked? wow!"

This is exactly why I have problems with all the "AI / self-driving cars /
CRISPR / etc" articles that correctly point out how long we've spent with
revolution "just around the corner"....that corner might be far away, or it
might be close and there's every reason to be skeptical of any given claim.
But when it happens, it WILL be dramatically rapid, and poo-pooing the idea of
thinking about it in advance just leads us to a society that was warned long
ago of a coming adjustments yet is always somehow surprised.

------
omarhaneef
This should send a clear message to all those people trying to look younger:
use makeup.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
Yeah, here's a great makeup tip: draw a 3d barcode or marker on your face so
that the tracking doesn't fail as easily.

------
rundigen12
All I see is a filtered woman on the left and a different unfiltered woman on
the right, the whole time. At what time does the glitch occur?

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
If you’re talking about the YouTube video, I don’t think they captured the
glitch from A to B, just the unfiltered capture.

------
SolaceQuantum
Everyone is presenting false versions of themselves, especially the people who
present themselves as a true version of themselves.

I'm admittedly quite sadenned by the continued commodification of female
appearances in this manner. I am curious if male vlogging has similar tricks
to get more $$$.

~~~
hestipod
I don't agree with this. At least except not in the most pedantic
philosophical sense. My role models were people who acted the same when they
didn't know anyone was looking, or there was no reward. They didn't put on
fake personas or dramatically code switch. They didn't primp and accessorize
to meet some vain expectation. They were of course respectful of others
expectations and wouldn't go to a funeral in pajamas or anything selfishly
ridiculous, but they were genuine, empathetic, kind....honest. I try to
emulate them the best I can. Any human failings in that trying is not at all
the same thing as the fraud that this article and so many perpetrate to gain
something.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
The examples you provide are more exaggerated than I am saying. Even your
greatest role models have probably genuinely thought harm to others in flashes
of anger, done things to people that they later regret, have their moments of
genuine cruelty to other. But interacting with them doesn't mean you get a
list of all their sins and insecurities at the time, and neither are you
obligated to them, which makes them seem untarnished by all their bad things
they done, thought, believed, so on and so forth. And they won't tell you
either, not until you get to really know them.

~~~
hestipod
As I said, the normal human failings/thoughts/emotions are not the same thing
as this articles premise. I also do not accept that everyone has moments of
cruelty. Cruel thoughts are not the same thing. We all think things and
choosing how we react is the difference. I feel that trying to claim even the
best people are secretly hiding evils is an attempt to feel better about one's
own feelings or actions. I am confident in the examples I look up to be sure I
"know" their true natures.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
My agrument is not the article's premise applies equally to everyone in
severity. My argument is that people are never who they present themselves to
be. This is due a variety of things, a mix of intentional avoidance of topics
and impossibility to completely share a lifetime experience with another,
atomic human mind.

That you assume this claim is itself a deceptive act is an easy cognitive
shortcut from parsing that I could be potentially as honest as you in my
viewpoint. Why do that?

~~~
hestipod
Because I don't see the fact that we have to present ourselves to the outside
world with some form of restraint or self censorship to function (your
technically correct "not who we appear to be") as remotely the same thing as
fraud designed to manipulate/profit. I don't think it's reasonable at all to
put those in the same box as some proof "everyone does it".

~~~
SolaceQuantum
The requirements of society are to practice restraint and portray ourselves at
our best. It’s manipulation, mutually agreed upon and without negative
connotation. Being able to observe extreme and moderate things at the same
time doesn’t make them completely different actions that aren’t at all
related.

------
njharman
This sounds like the setup for a Black Mirror episode.

------
tdxcbkifxx
Why does it matter if a cam girl is not who she presents herself as?

------
nabla9
And why not.

Getting plastic surgery is also used to make people look good and it has
become a practical necessity for any aging female performer. Filter is
cheaper.

~~~
colpabar
But isn't this just reinforcing that necessity?

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g9yuayon
It's interesting BBC noticed so called four great sorceries of Asia (亚洲四大邪术).
Applying digital makeup to someone to the point that his or her mama couldn't
recognize the person is certainly one of them.

------
mruts
I wasn't aware technology had progressed so far that retail consumers have
access to this kind of software for live video. I would be very interested in
what kinds of software these people are using.

~~~
probablybroken
Yes... The screen shot in the article looks a lot more like the 'filter' in
use is actually another actress. Though I'd love to be proven wrong.

------
echelon
I want to live in a world where everyone is confident in themselves and
doesn't care what others think about superficial details outside of character.

In the far-far future that may never come, I imagine people exist in a virtual
continuum and can change all aspects of their appearance such that they never
feel slighted by their perceived place in a fitness gradient they cannot
change.

Maybe technology is helping us get there. Or maybe it's showing the deep
facets of our evolutionary makeup and our learned societal pressures, and
we're incapable of doing anything but pay it lip service.

Being human animals kind of sucks, because intellectually we strive for more.
But we're tied to these basal frames.

~~~
hestipod
On casting Sir Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard:

Reporter: "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male
pattern baldness."

Rodenberry: "No, by the 24th century, no one will care."

I doubt even a few hundred years will wash out vanity and the worst parts of
us, but here's to hoping.

~~~
maxerickson
I have lots of gray hair before 40 and don't even think of dyeing it.

Of course, this is not so different than vanity on my part, as I'd be
mortified if I was dyeing it and someone found out...

~~~
fortran77
I shave my head, but I dye my grey beard. I know it probably looks like a "dye
job" but so what? Is it any different from tattoos or other body
modifications? And I can undo it by growing it out.

~~~
maxerickson
My argument is that I have the same basic impulse, it is just that I respond
differently to it.

