It’s all fun and games until creeps on the internet ruin everything.
For the past couple weeks, the #SilhouetteChallenge has provided an empowering opportunity for people across the internet to feel good about themselves. Using a red light filter and a nearby doorway, everyone from Tiffany Haddish to Lizzo showed off their figures by participating in the latest sultry TikTok challenge. The trend also sent Doja Cat’s 2019 song “Streets” flying up the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
But of course, we can’t have nice things. Since the goal of the challenge is to show the outline of one’s figure using a silhouette effect, many users post the videos wearing lingerie, if anything at all. Now creeps online have been posting various tutorials on YouTube that share editing tricks in order to strip the effects of the filter, revealing the user's body.
As BuzzFeed News reports, other users on TikTok are now warning about these tutorials, including the post below by @lostvsnryshots, which now has more than 100,000 likes.
"I keep seeing the Silhouette Challenge on my For You page, and even though they're all really cute and creative and y'all look bomb in them, just make sure you're being cognizant of what you're wearing before you actually do all the editing for the final product," the TikTok user warned.
The editing doesn’t completely remove the filter, but it exposes more details. BuzzFeed reports that one Reddit forum, called r/SilhouetteUnfiltered, has been banned after posting the stripped videos. Other accounts on Twitter that edited #SilhouetteChallenge TikToks have also been suspended.
“Men are currently removing the vin rouge red filter from the silhouette challenge. This is readily happening across social media with little community violation response by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok,” a woman named Danyelle Thomas wrote on Facebook. “When reminded that this is gross, creepy, and non-consenting, men respond that women are always finding ways to make themselves victims and they shouldn’t have been naked on the internet.”
Despite the suspensions, tutorials are still available on YouTube. People are calling on the platform to remove the videos that help these weirdos violate the privacy of people who simply wanted to participate in this fun challenge.
