Every now and then, Snapchat will throw out a brand new filter that sends the world into a tizzy and stops any and all productivity for at least a couple of days.
Most recently, the social media platform introduced the filter which drastically modified your appearance to emphasise male or female traits, resulting in one guy getting more than 1,600 Tinder matches when he pretended to be a woman and another guy transforming all of the Avengers.
Now though, we have something altogether more entertaining and – in my opinion – hilarious thanks to the introduction of the spider filter, which makes it look as though a giant tarantula is crawling across your face.
If you’re sat there thinking that doesn’t sound very funny at all, thank you very much, just imagine what happens when children are introduced into the mix.
Poor, unsuspecting children who probably just wanted to take a nice, normal selfie with their mum or dad but instead were subjected to the vision of a giant creepy crawly on their face. Like I said, hilarious.
The realistic filter has been taking over social media in the lead up to Halloween, with parents sharing their kid’s hilarious reactions to seeing the fake spiders crawling across their eyes and even mouths.
One proud uncle, Twitter user @Munyajiri, shared a video of his terrified nephew’s reaction after applying the Snapchat filter, with the young boy heard screaming in fear and crying as he attempts to shake the creepy crawly off.
You can watch the video below:
Alongside the video, the uncle wrote: ‘Nah look at the stress on my nephews face’ alongside two laughing face emojis. In the thread, he asked other Twitter users to use the same filter on their own children, adding: ‘Let’s make a thread and laugh about how dumb kids are’.
Obviously, the Twittersphere pulled through. One person shared a video of a little girl who reacted in a similar way, spitting her trick-or-treat candy out of her mouth and screaming in fear. ‘She just wanted to chill and eat her post trick or treat candy,’ Twitter user @TatloJay wrote.
One mum, Twitter user @tiramisu27, couldn’t hold back her laughter as her son spotted the giant spider on his face and jumped away screaming.
Sadly, not everyone found it funny and the videos sparked outrage among many social media users who claimed the use of the spider filter was ‘child abuse’.
The videos prompted warnings from some, with one woman commenting underneath one saying ‘poor baby’, and another person saying: ‘I felt her pain… want it off but don’t want to touch it’. Another man simply warned: ‘This can literally cause the kid trauma’.
The parents/uncle were able to laugh the whole thing off though, with the latter responding to several hateful comments with a meme of a man sleeping soundly – as though he couldn’t care less about their insults.
*No children were harmed in the making of these videos*
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).