Kim Kardashian’s revealing photos for Paper Magazine came out a few weeks ago. The article’s headline was “Breaking the Internet,” and the magazine essentially accomplished its goal: The photos were trending on every social media site. And if you’ve seen the risqué photos, you can tell that her body looks so … photoshopped.
The magazine’s aim was to gain media attention, and it was clearly a success. But at what price?
Photoshopping men and women on the Internet damages the idea of how we think real people should look, causing people to think there is something wrong with their features.
I have seen the damaging effects media images can have on people first hand. I’ve seen friends buy clothing from a store, but when they tried it on at home, they said it looked better on the model. I have seen people attempt to alter their appearance through exercising at an unhealthy pace – some developing eating disorders – so they could look more like the media “ideal.”
The Huffington Post reported a United Kingdom survey polled more than 2,000 women age 18 to 65 on a variety of female body image topics. The survey found that 15 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed were convinced that the images of models and celebrities in advertisements, magazines and billboards “accurately depict what these women look like in real life.”
Photoshopping images create a picture of an ideal woman or man in our minds. This causes young people to grow up thinking they will one day look like the pictures they see in magazines. And then when they get older and develop different body types, they are left wondering why they don’t fit the ideal.
The effects of photoshop can lead to damaged body image. Huffington Post also noted more than 650 of the survey’s participants said they struggled with confidence issues, reporting that they are “unconfident to extremely unconfident about their body.”
And this is not only a female issue. Men are also altered in images in the media and movies. Adding muscles and defining bodies can lead real men to think how they look is inferior to what they see in the media and cause lower self-esteem.
All of this has led to a culture of objectification. It is stereotypical to blame men for objectifying women. Take for example, the ever-so-popular Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue or Playboy Magazine. But women are also at fault for fawning over pictures of Taylor Lautner or another actor’s six-pack.
In the end, photoshop doesn’t do any good. It only produces an unrealistic view of how men and women should look and damages self-esteem and body image. The damage has already taken place; we have already created a culture of objectification. Now it’s up to us – and the few celebrities who already refuse to be photoshopped – to demand that the media portray a healthy body image.
Claire Noack can be reached at noac8702@stthomas.edu.