the fall of videophony

An entire culture voluntarily adopts disguise apparatus at scale, and for vanity, not espionage. Confronted with "Video-Physiognomic Dysphoria" — the horror of one's own video-face, 60% calling it "untrustworthy, unlikable" — consumers turn to "High-Definition Masking": their flattering features "cast… in a form-fitting polybutylene-resin mask," built with "the exact same cosmetic-and-FBI software" law enforcement uses, worn on Velcro straps and left "hung on a small hook on the side of a TP's phone-console," dangling "empty and wrinkled" between calls. The book's flattest satire and its deepest theme meet here: the mask goes mass-market, the same imaging tech that makes police composites repurposed so every caller can present a false face — disguise democratized into a household appliance.