We're All Too Airbrushed: Performative self-image vs Real self-image

Hannah Pridemore

hp138016@ohio.edu

As someone who has grown up with Instagram, I'm no stranger to photo editing. While I've never altered the pictures that I post, I have played with the tools and it's quite frankly easier than it should be to make yourself look like a brand new person. 

This doesn't mean that I post just any picture to my Instagram. Oh no, I make sure I have the perfect angle, my curls look amazing, my nose and jawline look sharp and smooth and I'm not holding any part of my body in a weird way. I might not edit my photos manually, but I can't say that the pictures I post can be considered completely natural.

I can look like the girl in the pictures I post, but I don't look like her every second of every day. It's a relative and slightly undetectable deception that you can only really pick up if you spend a lot of time with me. This is what I want to discuss here: the performative self-image, absolutely nothing like the real-self in media, socially and journalistically.

Picture source: Paper

 

James Welsh, a British youtuber best known for his skincare videos, has a running series on his channel called Instagram VS Reality. He worked in photo advertisement before starting his YouTube career and he uses what he knows to show how influencers and celebrities have altered their photos and videos (even when they claim they haven't). They're well worth the watch and very informative without being judgy.

It's no secret that women's magazines have edited the ever-loving life out of every woman they put in them. This is just a fact that has come with some rough consequences. We're still dealing with the fallout of body image issues that Photoshop has created, and this article from The Huffington Post from 2011 is still relevant now in 2020. 

I will never forget the day I saw this photoshoot of Christina Aguilera for Paper. I didn't recognize her at all as she looked completely different from every other photo that I had seen of her. Her true self (at least what they're promoting as her true self) looked absolutely nothing like the image media had given me and it was startling. 

What we need is a nice and messy grunge era to wipe away all of the airbrushing and perfecting that the last 10 or so years of media has created. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look great, but that shouldn't be the default in every situation.

What we see on our screens and in magazines should be a reflection of reality, not the other way around.