<p>Although appearance has become an important issue in social media, the third-person effect of targeted friends may vary due to the social distance and psychological self-enhancement effects. In this research, we propose a framework to examine the effects of self-exposure to appearance content on user perceptions of different genders’ appearance anxiety and their selfie-editing behavior in social media. The framework was tested through an online survey of female social media users in mainland China (<i>N</i> = 1,236) using the stratified sampling method. It was found that exposure to appearance content was positively related to its perceived influence on users’ appearance anxiety and selfie-editing behavior. Exposure to appearance content was also indirectly positively related to its perceived influence on users’ appearance anxiety through the presumed influence of such content on friends. However, users’ selfie-editing behavior was negatively related to the perceived influence of appearance content on male friends’ appearance anxiety but positively related to the perceived influence of appearance content on female friends’ appearance anxiety. We discuss the theoretical implications regarding the third-person effects of self-exposure to appearance content on different genders’ appearance anxiety and selfie-editing behavior in social media, along with the practical implications.</p>