let's talk about gender on lensa!
i ran a small experiment using the three different gender markers (male, female, and "other") on Lensa and the results were...interesting. the "female" setting had the most aggressive "photoshopping" or airbrushing or what i'm just going to call "weird interferance with the geometry of the face". it also was the only setting that removed my glasses from the final image for some styles ("fairy princesses" dont wear glasses i guess???).
let's talk about gender on lensa!
i got "superhero" and "cyborg" for both my "other" and "male" avatar packs, but "fairy princess" only showed up in my "female" pack. "rock star" only showed up in the "male" pack, along with "astronaut." my "other" pack got "cyber scientist".
there were some persistent differences between the styles that were shared between categories. "Cosmic" for "female" looks very gaia-mystical-geometry-astro-goddess, while "cosmic" for "male" looks like Dr. Who.
let's talk about gender on lensa!
i dont think this gender essentializing is particularly surprisng to anyone. as mentioned by @kattiidenberg , the female setting is quite aggressive about adding large breasts and also earrings to images. it's silly and disappionting in an undergraduate 101 feminist theory seminar kind of way that in the year of our lord 2022 we have image platforms that apparently have been set to provide images of "fairy princesses" to girls and "rock stars" to boys.
let's talk about gender on lensa!
here's a comparison of "stylish" across the gender settings: other, male, female
let's talk about gender on lensa!
here is a comparison of "light" (which is the painterly genre) between "other" and "female" (it didnt show up for "male"):
let's talk about gender on lensa!
here is a comparison of "mystical" for "other" and "male", and then "cosmic" for "male" and "female":
let's talk about gender on lensa!
having given myself both a headache and an accute attack of _the genders_ doing this analysis, i am going to put my phone down now. maybe i will write more about this later if folks are interested?
let's talk about gender on lensa!
alex and i went over my full image result packs and in addition to the sick burn of "cosmic"+"male"="do not let this close magician near your drink at DNA Lounge (2008)", they also noted that lensa is very fixated on giving me blue eyes (my eyes are green), and including guns in lots of categories like "sci fi" and "anime" and "adventure". also "other" and "male" are allowed to be fat/round, but "female" are really really not.
let's talk about gender on lensa!
@oddletters this is fascinating.
let's talk about gender on lensa!
@oddletters Those two “mystical” pictures are basically my “Yes, that is what Mols looks like” default setting. Whereas, to your point, some of the “female” aren’t even recognizably seeded on a picture of you.
@scottpurdy it's a bit wild!
let's talk about gender on lensa!
@oddletters it’s honestly made me interested enough to consider downloading the app myself. I’m not interested in “female” me, especially if it insists on large breasts, but I’m curious now about what it thinks “other” looks like for me.
@scottpurdy @oddletters cyber scientist is so good honestly
let's talk about gender on lensa!
and just for fun here are what i suspect are the "uniques" for each gender category: "cyber scientist" (other), "rock star" (male), "fairy princess" (female):