Reel v/s Real: Editing Reality

Editing reality: Physical Appearances

The photo editing application Facetune had 20 million users by the spring of 2018, and was named to be one of the most popular apps on the app store. Its’ rapid rise in popularity was due to its’ ease of photoshop - which means that anybody with it had the capacity to alter their images according to their liking. Where does this dissatisfaction come from? Social media has been widely criticized for its propagation of unrealistic beauty standards, such as flawless skin and a body that only plastic surgery or photoshop can help achieve. These standards are considered by its audience to be reality but it actually reflects a reality that is distorted by attempts of achieving perfection. To be fair, there are relatively few pages that advocate for the acceptance of everyone’s body shape, but they are often clouded by the larger pages that aim to promote an image of the lean skinny body, if not that then skin that is pore-less and flawless facial features. This is known as Dysmorphic concern which is defined as the excessive preoccupation with one’s physical appearance, on Social Media stemming from the dissatisfactory attitude with one's appearance that is a result of an inbuilt idea of perfection. This is a cycle, one's insecurities are masked and the audience is made aware of their own flaws.

Illustration by pch.vector