Over-filtering, do we even recognize it anymore?

I went to Connecticut this weekend to catch up with some of the more affluent members of my family. It was pretty fun. We went to a. . . semi-private? beach. It's hard to explain. I think only people who own houses and/or live in the area are accepted into the beach, so it was fairly clean. Best of all, it wasn't crowded at all. From what I understand, you can have barbecues in these types of little islets:

If you own a boat, of course.

Then we drove around the neighborhood to admire all the beach houses that my family members can't afford. (They own property about five minutes from the beach. I'd have asked how much it cost, but it would've been tacky. It's cool, though. One of my aunts asked and it was around 600k. Ten years ago).

Anyway, in all the talk about pretty things, my mother aunt started talking about a beautiful cousin I have who posts artsy pictures of herself on Facebook. I was only half-listening, but my ears perked up when one of my aunts lamented that my cousin looks way more beautiful in pictures than in real life. I didn't join in, but of course she does.

It's obvious that my cousin expends a lot of time on her pictures. I'm not knocking her. They're beautiful pictures. I wouldn't know how to make myself look like that even with filters and photoshop. But I wonder how she must feel like in person. Does she worry that her Facebook and Instagram posts set up a standard that she can never meet in real life? Does she enjoy posting those pictures even though she must know that people make snide comments about how they're "fake"?
A picture I took today reminded me of this entire exchange between my mother and my aunt. In the middle of all the grime, cement, and greasy streets of the American city where I made my humble abode, I found this flower:

It looked so much prettier in real life

I stopped on the way home to take the picture because the flower caught my usually disinterested gaze. I wanted to send the pic to my mother because she loves flowers. Its color was sharp and even throughout, and the petals smooth and perfect except for a single pair at the center with fringed edges. It reminded me of the romance novel cliche about a tiny scar, or freckle, or something insignificant that saves the hero or heroine's face from the "burden of perfection". Then my phone's automatic filters did. . . whatever they did. They blurred the beautiful flower into a hot pink smudge of cheap make-up. 

I must admit that I usually like my phone's auto filters. On the odd times when I take a selfie, they make me look around fifty percent hotter than I actually am, with no effort on my part whatsoever. I don't take full advantage of the phone's capabilities, but I do enjoy the perks of modern technology when it comes to presenting the world "my" picture. 

Maybe the flower is trying to teach me some kind of lesson.