When selfies are too good to be true
When ordinary people insist on embellishing and enhancing their online image, Josie Steenhart wonders where it will all end.
Recently I had to unfollow someone on Instagram. Big deal, I hear you say. But bear with me. As conscious unfollowings can get political, I try to only do it with good reason.
My reason in this instance? Prolific, pointless selfies for starters – a pet hate – but to make matters worse, the selfie-poster in question was quite clearly using any number of filters and photo editing apps, for the purpose of what I assume was to ‘‘enhance’’ her appearance.
I’ve used quote marks there as in this case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Making your eyes so exaggeratedly large you look like a Japanese manga character and your skin smoother than any human face has ever been is not conventionally considered a legit or even believable set of improvements.
As you may have guessed, I’m not big on the narcissistic selfie at the best of times – that is, the kind that serves no purpose (that I can see) other than the gratification of the selfie-taker.
Beyond just being weirded out by these images coming through my feed, I was curious as to the motivation behind this phenomena, because that wideeyed, peach-skinned instagrammer is far from alone.
The Kardashian clan are prime examples of heavy-handed filtering and adjustment, but as a particular kind of modern-day celebrity it’s accepted as part of their personal brands, and most social media users with any savvy would (I hope) have some idea that all is not what it seems.
But the more you look, the more you see how widely the practice is used and – this is where it gets sticky for me – it’s not just those under the pressure of the public eye who are doing it.
Thanks to decades of glossy magazines, we’re already used to the idea of models and celebs getting a good going-over with the old retouching tools.
But – call me naive – I didn’t really expect my friends and peers to be adopting these same techniques for use on their own photos.
I’ve had situations where I’ve met someone I follow on Instagram in real life for the first time and been bemused, confused and in a couple of cases downright bamboozled about how different they look in person.
Shock, horror, they have freckles, and smile lines, spots, a bit of a double chin, their hair doesn’t shine like silk, their brows are less than perfect arches.
Where is the luminous skin, the high cheekbones, the full pout, the playful twinkle in their wide, wide eyes?
More curious – are they aware of just how different they look? Can they see the puzzlement in my normal-sized eyes?
I picked the brains of a friend who admitted he was ‘‘addicted’’ to editing his selfies, spending around 10 minutes on a photo, ‘‘more if it needs more work’’, and using three different apps. What does he actually do?
‘‘A little skin smoothing, mostly removing moles/freckles, make my eyes a little larger and brighter, slim my nose a little, colour correcting and altering levels so everything looks good after I put a filter on.’’
And while his addiction hasn’t reached the point of many who can hardly bear to even look at unedited images of themselves, he admits he is shocked when he looks at the original photo and compares it to the edited one.
‘‘Sometimes it can make me feel a little s...y and dishonest but only if I alter my features a lot, which I have kind of chilled out on recently.’’
And while he’s confident that for him it’s a harmless addiction, he says he thinks it’s only damaging ‘‘if you feel the necessity to use it’’.
A female photographer friend is another self-confessed selfie-editor, who admits she frequently uses the VSCO app and Snapchat and Instagram filters ‘‘to make my face look more aesthetically pleasing’’, sometimes adding one filter on top of another as well as adjusting exposure settings and turning up the grain.
She too finds it disturbing and shocking to come face to face with unedited photos of herself.
‘‘Yes, I have my own hang ups so when Snapchat released that skinny filter that made your nose look smaller and longer, I definitely loved what I saw. And to be honest, it gave me a real confidence boost.
‘‘Also I have to take into account that I had just come out of a relationship where my partner made me feel very unattractive on a regular basis, so I was still rebuilding my self-confidence.
‘‘And in a small way it really helped to see pictures of myself where I didn’t cringe straight away.
‘‘I am lucky because I work behind the camera on a daily basis, I know how much they can distort someone’s face and I also know what it takes to make a beautiful image,’’ she’s quick to reassure me.
So when did it become normal for us Kiwis to be digitally enhancing our every documented moment?
Rachel Cohen, a clinical psychologist registrar currently completing her PhD on social media and body image concerns in young women, is considered one of Australasia’s experts in the field, though is the first to admit it’s a new one.
I’m curious to know from Cohen just how damaging the use of filters and apps on selfies actually is.
For example, do the people doing it usually already have issues with self-perception or is this selfie-manipulation culture actually creating the issues?
‘‘It’s difficult to give a straightforward answer on this because this is a very new issue,’’ Cohen says, adding that there is limited research.
Cohen suspects a ‘‘recursive’’ relationship at play – ‘‘those who are already quite focused on their appearance are more likely to engage with filters and apps on selfies, and then this engagement further perpetuates their focus on appearance and potential issues with self-perception’’.
She relates it to a psychological concept called self-objectification, ‘‘whereby women internalise an external perspective of themselves and view themselves as an object to be evaluated based on their appearance’’.
It’s the same process at play in eating disorders, for example, and potentially depression and sexual dysfunction.
Cohen agrees it’s similar to the way that idealised images of models or celebrities in traditional media formats like magazines lead to body dissatisfaction in women via such appearance comparisons.
‘‘But now, women aren’t only comparing themselves to Photoshopped models in magazines, but to their own peers who they perceive to be more ‘real’ despite editing apps and filters that are commonly used by women on social media.
‘‘Moreover, with the advent of smartphones, these comparisons are daily if not moment-to-moment and therefore are probably even more harmful than the occasional magazine perusal.’’
So it seems we’ve got a problem on our hands. How we fix it, or if we can, is still far from clear.
What we can do, and what makes me glad I’ve written this (see, I told you I had a point), is raise awareness of what’s going on, so that those doing it might turn it down a notch at least, and give those of us viewing it a chance to admire them the way they actually look, and in turn feel a little better about ourselves.
I've had situations where I've met someone I follow on Instagram in real life for the first time and been bemused, confused and in a couple of cases downright bamboozled about how different they look in person.