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Unfortunately, there’s an app for that.
The latest trend to sweep social media has been dubbed fatphobic as people use generative AI to make themselves appear “chubby.”
On TikTok, the “chubby” filter is making its rounds, much to the dismay of body-positive users who have slammed the fad as “toxic” and “giving mean girl vibes.”
Using the generative AI tool on the video editing app CapCut — and then uploading to TikTok — users are transforming a photo of themselves to make their bodies larger, joking that they should stop eating too much or are using the end result as gym motivation.
“Shouldn’t of [sic] had that takeaway last night,” user Dennis McCann wrote in the caption of his post.
“If this doesn’t scare me into sticking to the gym I don’t know what will,” a creator named Demi wrote on her clip, adding that she “burst out laughing” upon seeing the filter applied to her photo.
But the filter — and the creators using it — have received swift backlash from viewers who slammed the trend and criticized the content creators for making jokes about the particular body type.
“How is body shaming still a thing in 2025?!?” one person commented on McCann’s post.
“It’s giving mean girl vibes,” chided another.
“This trend is so offensive, toxic, hurtful and this video could have a huge impact on a plus size person and trigger harmful eating,” scolded someone else. “Weight can be due to medical issues and isnt a joke, pls be kind.”
“It’s 2025 and we’re still laughing at people for their body type,” one user commented on Demi’s video.
“This trend is basically mean girls outing themselves,” another wrote.
“This trend is so beyond disrespectful… such a step back in society’s beauty standards,” someone else chimed in.
But some people defended the filter, calling it “harmless” and “a joke.”
“Don’t understand why all these people are triggered by this, it’s just supposed to be a bit of a laugh, life doesn’t always have to be so serious,” scoffed one person.
“Why are people getting upset? It’s not that deep,” someone else said.
While Demi doubled down on her decision to partake in the trend — calling offended viewers “boring” — many content creators posted their own videos to bash it, calling it “cruel” and “disgusting.”
Another TikTokker named Stella even said that “mean girl” trends like these make her want to “cover” her body up.
“It’s not funny or lighthearted and anyone who claims that it is is either naive to the origin of the trend or the aspirations of people using the feature (flattery on being a smaller size/ fat shaming people who aren’t that creators current size) OR they have used the filter for their page and are playing dumb to the comments because it might have given them a few new followers or likes on their profile,” creator Saff Michaelis wrote on TikTok, calling the trend “sick.”
“[Between] the Vogue ‘Hairspray’ video and now this, it’s been a big week for fatphobia,” chided one TikTok account, which referenced this week’s backlash against Vogue’s “Hairspray” homage featuring Gigi Hadid, which noticeably lacked body diversity, one of the core tenants of the musical.
“This ‘chubby filter’ trend is wild bc some of the captions and comments make it seem like the worst thing in the world you can be is fat,” user Jess King also wrote on TikTok.
“Making fun of people for the way they look doesn’t make you cool or funny or sexy just so you know.”
