• Snapchat recently released new augmented-reality lenses that let users add traditionally female or male features to their visual appearances.
  • People have started using the eerily convincing lens to trick friends and strangers into thinking they’re someone else.
  • Some men have created Tinder profiles for women using their female-appearing filtered faces and have started to realize the type of messages women often receive on dating apps.
  • Since debuting the new lens, Snapchat has seen its app downloaded by an estimated 7 million new users.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Snapchat may have found a way to fight its decreasing popularity among teens with a new lens filter that’s getting a lot of attention from users.

The latest augmented-reality lenses from Snapchat allow users to change their appearances to include facial features that are traditionally male or female. The male-appearing lens translates to adding a five-o’clock shadow, thicker eyebrows, a widened jawline, and attempt to blur out long hair. For the female-appearing filter, Snapchat adds smoother skin, thicker eyelashes, long hair, and a leaner face and jawline.

Read more: A new survey shows that Snapchat is still the favorite social platform among Gen Z – but it’s not the app teens are using the most

Looking on social media, the gender-changing filter seems to be particularly popular among men. While the male-appearing filter on women does work, the female-appearing lens on men is much more realistic. Men have posted their transformed looks after applying the Snapchat filter, and it’s often hard to tell that it’s a digitally created female-appearing person.

Some people have already started to use the feature for slightly more nefarious purposes than just playing around with their appearances in Snapchat: Several men have posted online that they've created fake Tinder profiles using their computer-generated female-appearing faces and have found success with their catfishing attempts.

https://twitter.com/J_Askew/status/1127050762985582592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/jburny99/status/1127683586176442368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

These fake Tinder profiles have also brought to light the type of abuse many women are subjected to on dating apps. Some men have begun posting on Twitter about how their female-appearing profiles were inundated with matches and often vulgar messages from male suitors.

"I made a Tinder using that female Snapchat filter and holy f--- did I make a mistake," one Twitter user wrote.

https://twitter.com/MoshWithTyler/status/1127668016857079808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/MohimenMahbuba/status/1127391568980320256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/fuckgarrett/status/1127811140434706433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Even the "Catfish" host Nev Schulman got in on the fun and said the filter was "really, really not good."

Still, since its debut, the feature has been wildly popular.

Many on social media have said they've redownloaded Snapchat or created a new account just to be able to use the new filter. In the five days since Snapchat rolled out the new lens filter, 7 million people across iPhone and Android have installed the Snapchat app for the first time, according to data from Sensor Tower.

That's a huge increase from how many new users Snapchat usually draws in: During the same five-day time span a week before, Sensor Tower reported the app was downloaded only 3 million times, which means there's been a 133% increase in the amount of new Snapchat downloads, a significant jump for an app that has been seeing its daily user base shrink.