Pearl - January 22, 2026


China Bans Catfishing FOREVER!!!


Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

177.78546

Word count

3,086

Sentence count

57

Harmful content

Misogyny

42

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

22

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Today we re reacting to China banning filters on social media and phones. Why would banning a simple filter destroy entire careers and entire careers? Why is China banning them? And what s the real reason why? We re uncovering the secret to why filters are being banned.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 If those female streamers turn off that beauty filter, they really cannot be looked at. 1.00
00:00:04.780 It will scare the viewers so much they'll doubt life, she said.
00:00:08.760 What up guys? Welcome to my reaction series.
00:00:11.500 Today, we are reacting to China is banning filters on social media and phones. 0.98
00:00:17.160 As you guys know, so many women are catfishes. 1.00
00:00:20.780 I mean, when I was doing my show, I interviewed a thousand people. 0.94
00:00:25.200 Some of the women I would recruit on Instagram and I would think, 0.95
00:00:28.300 oh i'm recruiting this woman and she's a baddie she's so i mean this woman's gonna be hot she's 1.00
00:00:34.080 gonna give me so many clicks and views because you know i'm kind of like the reason i rate women 1.00
00:00:38.500 is because i worked in casting and so i would quite literally have to think how many like
00:00:43.860 likes are you gonna get on this video i know i could use a filter right i mean a lot of these
00:00:51.060 women they look better but then they would come in person and i was like i have been bamboozled 1.00
00:00:55.640 I have been bamboozled I thought you were hot and you were not and so I'm for this I think this would
00:01:02.260 be great because a lot of people come at me they say I could be better looking and I'm a good I'm
00:01:07.500 a decent looking gal right but it's like I look worse because I'm on the internet and all these
00:01:13.100 people have felt how am I supposed to compete with AI you know so suddenly rushing to do this
00:01:18.660 January 1st that's when thousands of women's careers end not because they did anything wrong 1.00
00:01:24.200 but because for the first time they have to show their real faces in china ai beauty filters are
00:01:31.420 being banned but the panic has revealed something very sinister why would banning a simple filter
00:01:37.140 destroy entire careers why is the yeah and so that's why i did the catfish of the year
00:01:42.660 and a lot of people were really upset with me that i did that um redheaded libertarian um you
00:01:48.580 won congratulations my friend um but people were upset and everyone was saying pearl pearl pearl
00:01:55.140 uh but you're not like a lot of these women are better looking than you and i'm like yeah 1.00
00:01:59.220 but they're still catfishes right they don't they don't look like that oh my god oh so much pain
00:02:06.740 excuse me sorry guys all right let's let's go west suddenly rushing to do the same thing
00:02:12.980 and what did they discover that made them act so fast welcome to glow up girl today we're
00:02:18.020 uncovering why ai beauty filters are being banned so be sure to like and subscribe because we're
00:02:22.980 going deep beauty mode doesn't just smooth your skin it rebuilds your entire face according to
00:02:29.460 an algorithm's definition of beauty turn on the filter and you become someone else entirely yeah
00:02:35.220 and that's what's making women crazy right they think they're as hot as their photos they they 1.00
00:02:40.820 think what are you doing spam them chat um they they literally think they look like their photos
00:02:46.660 and i'm like no um you're mid and a lot of white knights they come at me and they say but pearl but
00:02:52.260 pearl who are you to call anyone mid well you could say i'm sub mid mid whatever i don't it
00:02:57.300 doesn't really bother me uh but you know i know a mid when i see one so cry about it you know your
00:03:04.260 eyes reshape your nose pinches smaller your skin becomes porcelain reality bends turn it off well
00:03:13.380 well that's the problem oh my god nine point eight oh my god she went from a seven to a four 1.00
00:03:19.560 percent of female streamers use beauty filters not just most almost all these women built entire 1.00
00:03:26.660 careers on wait so i'm competing with all these women with phil oh my gosh faces that don't exist
00:03:33.620 thousands of followers donations from devoted fans all for someone who was never real we spent years
00:03:40.940 watching faces that don't actually exist and we've been conditioned to think they're beautiful
00:03:45.560 but when you learn what it's doing to your brain things get dark i'm not farting some of the chat
00:03:51.740 said i'm farting my dog all right my dog my dog is snoring all right all right there's a
00:03:58.780 psychological concept called cultivation theory long-term exposure to media content shapes what
00:04:04.240 you believe is real when you see filtered faces every single day thousands of them your brain
00:04:09.860 starts accepting them as normal real faces start to look wrong research shows that comparing
00:04:15.220 yourself to idealized images online is directly linked to body dissatisfaction and eating
00:04:20.580 disorders but there's a twist you're not competing with other women anymore you're competing with ai
00:04:27.380 with algorithms that yeah and i can actually say my experience as a female streamer you know it's 1.00
00:04:32.660 very frustrating when everyone else is cheating and i'm not saying i don't cheat a little bit you
00:04:37.220 You know, like I'd fake hair for a while.
00:04:39.640 I'll get a little bit of makeup, but it's just really, how do I put it?
00:04:44.620 It's just kind of frustrating when everybody has this like fake face and I have to pretend
00:04:50.840 you're not faking it.
00:04:52.160 You know what I mean?
00:04:52.620 Like, why do I have to pretend?
00:04:53.840 I generate one perfect face and paste it onto everyone.
00:04:57.900 Then there's self-objectification.
00:04:59.940 When you spend hours monitoring your appearance, treating your face like a product.
00:05:04.420 You got to think about what this, what the implications are for society.
00:05:08.240 Like women start to think even your phone smooths out your skin a little bit. 1.00
00:05:12.360 So we're more chopped than we think.
00:05:14.560 We are absolutely more chopped than we think we are.
00:05:17.580 ...and perfected.
00:05:18.960 Studies show it leads to anxiety and depression.
00:05:22.280 You stop being a person.
00:05:24.000 You become a project.
00:05:25.900 Reality has gotten so distorted that a new medical term has been coined.
00:05:30.220 Snapchat dysmorphia.
00:05:31.780 Women are now seeking plastic surgery to look like their filtered selves. 1.00
00:05:35.360 They don't even want to look like models. 0.87
00:05:37.140 They want to look like the algorithm's version of them.
00:05:39.800 These filters didn't just change how we look.
00:05:41.800 Like that is diabolical.
00:05:43.560 Four, maybe five.
00:05:45.860 Five, seven, five.
00:05:49.220 It's like two points it gives you, these filters.
00:05:51.960 Online.
00:05:52.600 They've changed what our brains believe we should look like in reality.
00:05:56.380 So why is China banning them?
00:05:58.560 the official reason is to improve content quality and crack down on misleading visuals
00:06:03.180 but dig further and deeper reasons that is hilarious actually that is so funny all these
00:06:08.540 girls made like careers off of being hot and it's like the middest mids it's crazy 1.00
00:06:13.960 this isn't just about vanity it's about fraud chinese netizens started calling it out directly
00:06:21.340 streamers making money through excessive beautification are basically committing fraud
00:06:25.380 But the damage goes far beyond individual deception.
00:06:28.860 It's social poison.
00:06:30.380 One Chinese commentator explained it this way.
00:06:32.940 Men no longer watch TV.
00:06:34.900 They don't look at their own wives.
00:06:36.480 They just scroll on their phones to look at pretty girls who look like fairies. 1.00
00:06:40.240 But those fairies aren't real. 1.00
00:06:42.020 Do you think this is beneficial to relationships?
00:06:44.460 To lowering divorce rates?
00:06:46.520 He called it spiritual poisonous grain, not inferior to opium.
00:06:51.380 Women using filters started believing their own illusions. 1.00
00:06:53.880 they look at their filtered face and think i'm a nine out of ten yeah and it's the same
00:06:58.260 same thing with makeup women start to think we look like that i mean look i could even speak 0.65
00:07:04.060 like the attention you get super dolled up as a woman is completely different like if i put in
00:07:09.540 full hair extensions a really nice dress like you get it's so different but it's not real like i
00:07:14.740 personally just cannot maintain that maybe i'm lazy right i don't know but yeah you know it's
00:07:20.820 just not real i deserve a wealthy tall handsome man their standards skyrocketed but walk down
00:07:27.260 the street you wouldn't see a single woman who looked like her online and all the catfishes um 1.00
00:07:32.220 life does check them right actually i wonder if that fat chick wants to come back on i'm gonna 1.00
00:07:37.100 message her hold on sona beauty mode made them lose themselves china isn't banning beauty filters 1.00
00:07:44.200 because they're vain they're banning them because they've become a form of mass psychological
00:07:48.340 manipulation here's what the chinese government isn't saying out loud across the developed world
00:07:53.540 something catastrophic is happening birth rates are collapsing marriage rates are plummeting
00:07:59.380 young people aren't dating they're not having relationships they're not forming family yeah 0.99
00:08:04.180 and it's because um women need attention we don't necessarily need sex as much as men 1.00
00:08:09.220 i mean we want it at certain points from certain men but um yeah so um we can when we get attention
00:08:16.820 from the world we can kind of live without it the united states most of europe china japan south
00:08:23.140 korea the pattern is everywhere and nobody can pinpoint exactly why except what if social media
00:08:30.260 is part of it think you want to see me mog someone i'm too chopped i wish i could but you know god
00:08:35.860 had other plans you know about it men scroll through thousands of digitally perfect women 1.00
00:08:42.740 every day women no real person could ever compete with so why would they pursue real relationships 1.00
00:08:49.140 oh my god i like how women have been committing fraud like that's what this is women are committing 1.00
00:08:55.140 fraud and somehow they're the victims isn't that incredible i mean the media is incredible women 1.00
00:08:59.540 committed fraud now women are the victims why settle for reality when the fantasy is always 1.00
00:09:04.260 one swipe away and women compare themselves to these impossible standards and feel worthless or 1.00
00:09:10.020 they demand partners who meet the same fictional criteria they see online both sides are chasing
00:09:15.620 illusions and by the way if you suffer from debilitating period symptoms check out paramo
00:09:20.420 it's an all-natural drink that replenishes the nutrients your body discount link in description
00:09:25.220 one chinese man described meeting a woman from a dating app after seeing her real face he deleted
00:09:30.820 the app entirely how many millions of potential one in the chat if that's happened to you
00:09:35.860 if you've met a woman i mean that would happen i would get catfished when i did casting for my show 1.00
00:09:40.980 you know potential relationships died exactly like that how many marriages never happened
00:09:46.100 because someone couldn't live up to their filtered profile meanwhile the divorce rate 1.00
00:09:50.340 climbs both men and women scroll through endless fantasy oh my god i like how women are so great at
00:09:57.460 obfuscating the blame like they're like you know it's both men and women that are addicted and
00:10:03.220 harmed by social media men aren't really on social media i like i think i had rachel on the show
00:10:09.060 love rachel nothing against her i just disagree with this argument she made the argument that
00:10:13.220 men had equal social media accounts like on instagram and i'm thinking it's just not the
00:10:18.100 same because if you go out and about like women are on their phones men are the ones like i mean
00:10:23.620 they have an account but they just don't post on it like that who is this troll today yeah convinced
00:10:30.740 they're settling for less convinced their reality isn't good enough filters might be destroying our
00:10:35.940 ability to form real human connections to see real people as attractive and to accept reality
00:10:41.620 as good enough china's birth rate is in free fall their economy depends on population growth so this
00:10:47.700 isn't just about beauty anymore this might be about survival when the ban was announced the 0.73
00:10:53.060 panic was immediate 90 of streamers will all lose their jobs one broadcaster predicted okay well
00:11:00.340 okay if you lose your job because you were committing fraud like that's like me like
00:11:05.700 imagine if we had sympathy for jordan belford and said jordan belford didn't like he's gonna
00:11:11.620 lose his job we're like yeah we're making fraud illegal and they're like well but jordan's gonna
00:11:17.060 lose his job it's like incredible this is incredible if those female streamers turn off 1.00
00:11:22.980 that beauty filter they really cannot be looked at it will scare the viewers so much they'll doubt
00:11:27.940 life she said these women built everything on a digital mask their entire persona their income 1.00
00:11:34.820 and their identity so what happens when that mask is ripped off viewers will stop donating the men
00:11:41.060 who've spent thousands supporting their favorite streamers will feel betrayed yeah because it's
00:11:45.860 fraud right but nobody it's so incredible women get frauded by um i don't know that guy um
00:11:53.460 um simon or whatever the tinder swindler and they get a movie women fraud men and it's still we feel
00:12:00.700 bad for women this is incredible incredible raid careers will collapse overnight some women fought
00:12:07.060 back defensively i paid thousands for this phone i'll use beauty mode if i want what does it have
00:12:12.620 to do with you others insisted fraud even with beauty mode you need good bone structure if you're 0.99
00:12:19.740 ugly even level 10 beauty mode can't save you but underneath the anger was fear because they know
00:12:26.200 the truth they built their careers on deception and now they're being forced to show their real
00:12:31.340 faces good good and that doesn't get the same view count so could america be next well it's
00:12:40.460 already starting here tiktok announced they're banning certain beauty filters for users oh that's
00:12:45.380 awesome under 18 filters like bold glamour that dramatically reshape facial features
00:12:50.980 gone for minors and in europe they're investing nearly 2 billion euros into safety initiatives
00:12:56.900 whatever that means mental health experts are calling this a necessary step if teenagers stop
00:13:02.900 using filters now they might gradually normalize a more authentic online presence china bans it
00:13:09.300 tick tock restricts it for minors instagram and snapchat are watching closely the domino effect
00:13:15.140 has begun but here's where it gets complicated on one hand there's a strong case for bans
00:13:21.140 we're protecting young girls from impossible beauty standards we're ending mass deception
00:13:26.260 we're forcing people to be this is incredible i hope this happens any information that aims
00:13:30.900 for emotional response is propaganda oh that's interesting any information that aims for an
00:13:36.340 emotional response is pro i like that authentic sincere and real but on the other hand isn't it
00:13:43.700 your face your choice film and television use makeup color grading and effects why are filters
00:13:49.940 different some women genuinely feel empowered and confident using them who gets to decide what's too 0.94
00:13:56.340 much and government censorship is an extremely slippery slope give an inch and they'll take a
00:14:02.020 a mile before you know it you won't be able yeah but i just think this is too far do you know what
00:14:07.940 i mean it's like if we really wanted the birth rate to go up we would ban social media i think
00:14:13.960 that's kind of impossible now but like that that would be a step in the right you know conservatives
00:14:19.340 always talk about like porn and i'm like uh women are leaving their families um because of social
00:14:26.540 media so to log in online without three layers of biometric identification and here's the
00:14:32.380 uncomfortable middle ground what if the problem isn't the filter what if the problem is that we
00:14:37.700 created a world where women felt they needed to hide their real faces to be valued a band 0.99
00:14:42.600 oh my gosh so women like imagine if men fake having money and they're like well we created 1.00
00:14:47.880 and a guy lying about having money we said well men we created a world where men feel like they
00:14:54.420 have to have money to be valued. You wouldn't really be like, no, you chose to lie. And just
00:14:59.520 like these women are choosing to lie. I might not ever fix that. An entire industry has been built 1.00
00:15:04.780 on women who don't exist in reality. Billions of dollars, millions of hours, all spent on faces 1.00
00:15:11.500 that were never real. Now the Chinese government is forcing them to face reality and people are
00:15:16.660 calling it oppressive. But ask yourself this, if someone built their entire career on catfishing
00:15:22.400 millions of people would you defend that because that's what this is mass catfishing yes at scale
00:15:29.680 for profit and it isn't just that filters deceived us it's that we wanted to be deceived
00:15:35.680 we chose the beautiful lie no because i think do you know what i mean like if men wanted to be
00:15:42.860 deceived they don't have a choice like you have to give them the choice but now there's no choice
00:15:47.980 i mean uh one in the chat if you've matched with a girl on a dating app who dating app who fat 0.94
00:15:53.660 fished you you thought she's gonna be hot and she was fat you know over the ordinary truth 1.00
00:15:58.260 and maybe that's the real reason this band cut some of us so deeply it's not taking away filters
00:16:04.040 it's taking away permission to live in denial so i've got a real question for you if every filter
00:16:11.400 disappeared from your phone right now how would you feel relieved or terrified if it's a second
00:16:17.460 one. That's the problem they're trying to solve. Not the filter itself. The fact that you need it
00:16:23.000 to feel worth looking at. An entire generation of women grew up believing their real faces 0.99
00:16:28.340 weren't good enough. That pores were mistakes. That texture was a flaw. It's just crazy. Women 1.00
00:16:34.680 committed fraud and get sympathy. Is there anything we can do and not get sympathy? Is there anything?
00:16:41.600 that aging was something to hide fix and erase we didn't just normalize filters we made them
00:16:48.160 feel mandatory so if you made it this far let me know honestly would you support a filter ban
00:16:54.220 i would i think i think that i think this is like women you've gotta go you've gotten up this has
00:17:00.200 gotten out of hand this has gotten out of hand and you need to stop this we have given you too
00:17:05.220 much power so yeah but anyways let me know what you guys think of the comments um do you like
00:17:11.100 Do you agree? Do you disagree? How do you feel about a mass ban on social media filters? Let
00:17:18.900 me know in the comments, like the video, and I'll see you next time.