Happy 4/20 day everybody! To celebrate, Snapchat teamed up with the estate of Bob Marley, and the results were … unfortunate.
Snapchat created a lens that makes your face look more like the legendary musician’s by adding Marley-like features — a cap, dreadlocks, a beard and darker skin. Amusing? Probably for some users, but it comes with some really awful historical associations. The lens prompted a number of users to point out that it’s basically the contemporary equivalent of blackface.
To be fair to Snapchat, this isn’t something the company did on its own — it was sanctioned by the Marley estate. (Other things the Marley estate have approved include Bob Marley-branded marijuana and a 4/20-themed mix on Spotify.)
Plus, this kind of thing isn’t totally unprecedented. MSQRD offered lenses that put Obama and Snoop “masks” over your face — but the lenses appear to be gone, post-Facebook acquisition (it still has a “rasta” lens that doesn’t change skin color). You could also argue that the mask approach is less icky than actually darkening the appearance of someone’s skin.

Additional reporting by Brian Heater
