About

Gradient is a photo-editing app on iOS and Android which grew popular on social media thanks to a feature wherein a user uploads a picture and the app will tell the user what celebrity they look like. Social media users shared the various celebrities the app's facial recognition technology told them they looked like, which were often humorously dissimilar to the users' actual appearance.

History

Gradient appeared on the Apple Store on iOS^[1] on October 11th, 2019. The app offers a variety of photo editing services, including selfie editing and hair-color altering. However, the most popular service is the "You look like" feature, a feature wherein a user uploads a photo of themselves to the app and the app, using face-recognition technology, produces a celebrity the person looks like. The process is shown in four images: the user's picture, two pictures of the original photo being turned into the supposed celebrity look-a-like, and the celebrity. It is available for a free three-day trial, followed by a $4.99 weekly subscription or a $19.99 monthly subscription.

Online Presence

The app grew popular thanks in part to the Kardashian family. Kim and Kourtney Kardashian both posted their results with the app to their Instagram stories as ads, getting Cher and Audrey Hepburn, respectively.^[2] Scott Disick posted his results to Instagram,^[3] showing the app gave him Jared Leto, Brad Pitt, and himself (shown below).

After the Kardashian family posted about the app, it gained significant popularity across social media. PewDiePie posted his results with the app, which told him he looked like Snoop Dogg (shown below, left). Journalist Eve Peyser posted an example showing Elizabeth Holmes turning into Mark Zuckerberg, gaining over 4,000 likes (shown below, right).

The app was covered by several publications including Gizmodo,^[4] Daily Dot,^[5] and The Sun.^[2] Gizmodo noted that the site says in its privacy policy it is not mining data unlike FaceApp, a similar app that went viral earlier in 2019.

Ethnicity Estimate

Ethnicity Estimate, also known as DNA Ancestry is a feature of Gradient app that provides an estimate of a person's ethnic background based on a photograph of their face. Following the introduction of the feature in March 2020, it gained popularity in posts on social media.

Race Filter

On September 22nd, 2020, the app introduced a race filter similar to FaceApp's.

Search Interest

External References