Think you want to look like a model?

[BainsBane]

What happens when you take a bunch of pictures of regular women and transform them (via Photoshop) into cover girls? Turns out they're pretty nonplussed!


BuzzFeed recently rounded up several ladies and had them participate in a professional photo shoot (complete with makeup, styling, and "angle this way" instructions), then ran the results through the Photoshop wringer until they qualified as "cover models." You know, the kind of stuff magazines do to actresses every month. The response was interesting: The women weren't mad, or offended, so much as bewildered and disenchanted.

"I feel like it doesn't even look like me," said one, while another asked, "Why would you want to make someone look so different?" Perhaps the most poignant: "This is how I always wanted to see myself, but now that I see it, I'm questioning why I ever wanted to look like that." Probably because we're constantly surrounded by this crap!

http://jezebel.com/regular-women-watch-themselves-get-photoshopped-into-co-1522812341?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[cvoogt]

1. I prefer real over fake any day

Thank you very much. Our society's way too preoccupied out with outward appearances and material things.

[seaglass]

2. Thanks BainsBane, sending this to my daughter.

She is a beautiful young woman in so many ways who is never beautiful enough (from her POV).

We are taking yoga together and the yoga instructor read this at the beginning of the class. My daughter loved it and I hope it will sink in with her:

My beloved child, break your heart no longer. Every time you judge yourself you break your own heart. You stop feeding on the love which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come. Your time. To live, to celebrate, and to see the goodness that you are. You, my child, are divine. You are pure. You are sublimely free. You are God in disguise, and you are always perfectly safe. Do not fight the dark, just turn on the light, and breathe into the goodness that you are.

-Swami Kripaluanandaji (Bapuji)

[BainsBane]

3. It is sad that young women criticize themselves in relation to such images

That are a product of a capitalist commodified culture. They are toxic in that they tax women's energies and sense of power.
I made a conscious decision to stop reading "women's magazines" in my twenties. I like fashion, but not enough to subject myself to toxic messaging about female beauty.

Your daughter has a great advantage in having you for a mother, Seaglass. I hope you can help her understand her beauty comes from what she accomplishes in life rather than external and unrealistic standards of physical attractiveness.

[loudsue]

4. That gave me chills. Wow.

A powerful and right-on message.

Thanks!