Recently, the blogging world has been put under the microscope and ‘influencers’ have been questioned/asked/called out for their behaviour online, mainly over their use of photoshop and facetune.
The pressures for women and men to look a certain way has always been an issue, however with social media and easy-to-use editing apps, unrealistic and untruthful images have been littering our screens causing the problem to grow tenfold.
Body confidence is an issue, body dismorphia is an issue.
The photoshop debate is rife now with many ‘influencers’ or bloggers swearing off editing their images from hence forth and apologising for overly editing and overly smoothening their photos/faces.
The discussion is most certainly needed, but swearing off editing images isn’t.
Education is, as ever, key.
Fashion brand Missguided are a prime example of this. They recently launched their #MarkYourMark campaign, pledging to never retouch models’ ‘perfect imperfections’.
Samantha Helligso, creative manager at Missguided, said on the decision to stop editing their images;
“As a brand, we feel we have a strong sense of social responsibility to support young women and inspire confidence. So we’re on a mission to do just that by showing our audience it’s okay to be yourself, embrace your ‘flaws,’ celebrate individuality, and not strive for what the world perceives as perfection. Because basically, it doesn’t exist. By showing imagery that’s real and authentic, we want to show it’s more than okay to be yourself. All you have is what you’ve got, so own it every day.”
F*ck perfection, it doesn’t exist. As part of our new #KEEPONBEINGYOU campaign, we’re on a mission to inspire babes the world over to love themselves, for themselves. Discover the #MAKEYOURMARK campaign: https://t.co/DyVuq3xODJ pic.twitter.com/gfNe9NnwaA
— Missguided (@Missguided) December 12, 2017
They still photoshop their images, as in the lighting, removing the skin coloured thong the model might have on or some fly away hairs.
Photoshopping isn’t the devil. I’m prone to altering the brightness, exposure, contrast and saturation of an image to get the desired effect I am going for that day or for that post.
The issue here is editing your images to the point where you don’t look like yourself. Altering your thighs to make them smaller/bigger, your waist, your stomach, your face, your nose.
What happens when your followers meet you in person and your nose, hips and ass are all twice the size they are in your Instagram pictures?
Or god forbid you are human and have pores, maybe even a…..spot.
I get spots, I always talk about my skin issues on Snapchat and Instagram. And I will hold my hands up and say I have edited some spots or a breakout out of an image.
GET THE SHACKLES AND LOCK ME UP.
What we all need to realise is that all of the images we see online or in the magazines/papers have been photoshopped.
Mainly to clean up the image, make areas of it stand out more, enhance the colours or light.
What we need to stop, is changing our faces and bodies into something they aren’t!
The odd spot removal here and there isn’t a big deal. I probably will always try and alter the brightness to hide a spot. What I wont do is go in and smoothen out my skin within an inch of its life and tighten up jaw line.
If you want to be an influencer and have a following you should remember that you will also become a role model for people.
Take that seriously! Teach them that you should love yourself (however hard that is). That images are edited, but teach them how they are.
Anouska showcased this on her Insta stories. Informing her followers that she will use editing apps to bring more life to a photo, not change her face/body into something it isn’t.
I’ll repeat education is key.
We don’t need to feel guilty for using a filter or some photoshop to enhance an image. You should feel guilty if you edit a picture of yourself and YOU don’t even recognise YOURSELF.
Enhance > Change
