Photo editing apps used to let you do things like fix red eyes in pictures, but now they let you do absolutely anything you want to pictures, using filters to add makeup or Photoshop-like programs to whittle away at the image of your body.
Altering pictures to such a radical extent is not good for our own self-images, and it can also cause other people to have unrealistic expectations of what human bodies should like in general. With up to one in 50 people suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), it’s dangerous to so completely blur the lines between fantasy and reality.
A Twitter user with the name Sierra (@ssssssssssierra) shared an ad for a photo-editing app called PhotoLift, along with the caption, “This is terrifying my god.”
Not only does this hurt us and how we see ourselves. It also affects how men see us. They cannot help but become hypernormalized to these images and their brains naturally become accustomed to this aesthetic. Which in turn can *genuinely* impact their attraction to us. Just STOP. https://t.co/oLf98aqASr
— Jameela Jamil ? (@jameelajamil) June 4, 2019
Good Place actor and body positivity activist Jameela Jamil retweeted Sierra’s tweet, adding a really important caption. She wrote:
Not only does this hurt us and how we see ourselves. It also affects how men see us. They cannot help but become hypernormalized to these images and their brains naturally become accustomed to this aesthetic. Which in turn can *genuinely* impact their attraction to us. Just STOP.
People responded to the tweet in droves, some with serious words…
this is sickening https://t.co/3pRcW36Wy7
— amy.jackson (@amyljacksonx) June 4, 2019
These women are already beautiful the way they are. There doesn't need to be an app for changing it. Stop putting such standards on women! https://t.co/BMihrRw4ax
— Kat Brittingham (@zenkat11) June 5, 2019
Victorian art critic John Ruskin would not have sex with his wife because he was disgusted when he saw her naked. He didn’t expect female bodies to have hair and smells and wrinkles and things real bodies have. Talk about being brainwashed by the ideal images being set forth.
— NecroFancy (@traceracer) June 4, 2019
…and some with jokes.
Now you too can erase part of your rib cage to impress your faraway friends
— Cat Face (@grimalkintalk) June 4, 2019
Some people took the time to point out to anyone who needed to hear it that they are fine just the way they are, whatever way that might be.
YOU ARE ENOUGH. Breaks my heart that still-developing (physically, mentally, and emotionally)young girls and boys are growing up in this every-day-photoshopping culture. They are enough just the way they are. https://t.co/Wou8IB4Lxz
— LifeOfTorres (@LifeOfTorres) June 5, 2019
One person brought up the fact that this sort of thing affects not just relationships between men and women, but those between two women as well.
Just a humble comment over here! In your tweet you only mention men as being affected by this regarding attraction to women, but it also harms lesbians and bi girls!! (I’d say it affects us more bc it hinders our relationship with our own body and with that of the girls we date)
— ?️? bollera justiciera ?️? (@Bochancita) June 4, 2019
And another person pointed out that what the people who made the ad had actually done was take thin girls and make them look heavier, so it would be easy to neatly trim the weight back off.
That's exactly what they've done
— ham (@darrenham) June 5, 2019