Meitu is a Chinese photo editing app released March of 2013 that has gone viral.
Meitu app turns your selfie into an anime character. As well give the illusion that one went under the knife. This magical app gained popularity in the US over the last couple of weeks and people are going crazy over Meitu.
The man in this image transformed himself into an anime with Meitu.
Photo Credit: Alfred Ng/CNET
This photo editing app fits all a selfie addict's needs, it can complete the simple task of cropping and changing the exposure of a selfie, as well as provide the perfect filter for food, since people love to post pictures of their spaghetti, also it can slim down your nose and of course transform you into an anime character, what else could you possibly need?
And while this app sounds perfect on paper, skepticism arose around the need for said app to access your GPS and other data. And while this would be enough to turn me away, as well as other customers, Meitu released a statement claiming this need is harmless, "Meitu's sole purpose of collecting the data is to optimize app performance, its effects and features to better understand our consumer engagement with in-app advertisement. Meitu DOES NOT sell user data in any form... Data collected is sent securely, using multilayer encryption servers equipped with advanced firewall and IDS, IPS protection to block external attacks". And while they were able to easily "walk off" this issue, the company has stayed silent regarding a different problem.
People are complaining, mostly on Twitter, about the app changing their skin tone. According to users this app instantly makes their skin more white and people are outraged over this discovery. A tweet posted by Erica Joy, senior engineer at Slack, said "Of note: the Meitu app removes nearly all traces of melanin from ones skin".
The user of this app has had the color of her skin lightened by this app.
Photo Credit: Encyclopedic
Regardless of the criticism this photo editing app is facing, the number of people downloading it keeps increasing. They even had a changing count representing their popularity up on their website.
How is this app being used? People are using said app to "perfect" their face and give them an anime makeover. But people are going further than just using it on their other face. Photos have surfaced of President Donald J. Trump "animated" and I think we all know he didn't do it himself. This photo alone makes me so happy and thankful that this app exist.
Donald Trump "Meitu-fy" by this app.
Photo Credit: Lucas Jackson from Reuters
The creators of Meitu also are responsible for numerous other apps including, MakeupPlus, an app that converts your bare face into a makeuped one, Spring, an app that lets you play with the proportions of your body, B612, an app that is a simple photo editor, and Snow, an app that is the Korean equivalent of Snapchat. Between all of Meitu's app this company has "450 million monthly active users and has raised $360 million in venture funding".
After reading about other people's opinions I decided to give the app a try. I was surprised but happy to see they got rid of the need to access GPS because that is something I am not comfortable with. Turning myself into an anime character was easy but that was about the only easy part of this app. There's a lot going on which other people may love but I personally found it over-whelming. There's just to many options and I found myself fumbling around trying to complete the simplicity selfie task. My final conclusion, this app is cool but is not user friendly.
I animated myself using the Meitu app
Photo Credit: Paige Kerr