Do you think Photoshopping models is acceptable? (Might go NSFW)

Its not a necessary trade off. Once edited models stop being used, people’s fantasies will re-adapt. There might be a short term loss of sales (or maybe not, unsure) as people re-acclimate, but afterwards it’ll be back to sex sells as usual.

Yes as far as fashion models go because the layout and photography for the clothes or articles is a craft, an art and so no one should get too far bent by the surrealism. At least I don’t.

I think the photoshopping is awful. In general, I think it can really create problems, especially for young people, to grow up just believing certain things as facts of life, and then to be shocked to find out that the real world isn’t necessarily that way. False expectations are never healthy to have.
It applies to so much more than just models. One example that hits close to home for me, is the publicizing of people with chronic illness, or cancer or something, who have a very strong positive attitude towards their situation. They’re incredible, admirable people of course, but the unbalanced attention towards those people can make a person believe that incredible strength is just a given when one is dealing with health problems. It discourages a natural grieving process and puts pressure to be strong on the sick person.
Sorry, that was a long spiel and may seem off topic, but my point is that the general media attention that puts false expectations into people’s minds is very harmful. Models included.

Holy cow, this is awesome!

I think it may stunt sales… very briefly. I agree completely with @roundsquare, we’ll just readjust. We spent far longer on this planet living without Photoshop than with it. Everyone will be just fine. Otherwise… it’s about damn time. The young ages that children are developing self esteem and body issues is just devastating, hopefully this is a step away from that trend.

Gadzooks, what does not or might cause someone else to have an unrealized view of things? Be a gangster you will ride around in a fly car with women dripping off you and fancy jewels and dope ropes dripping of your body, booze make ordinary boring things fun, etc, etc. I think it is pretty much part of the job of the parent to teach their children good eating habits and explain of they eat well and exercise where their body is at is where nature determines where is should be. If we have to micromanage everyone’s thoughts then commercials should have a guy in a suit come our and tell you to buy “Blamo” breath spray. Tell you what is in it and how it makes your breath smell good for 8 hours, hold the bottle to the camera for a close up and then cut. There should not be any hot women or hunky men implying the object for sell is sexy or will make you sexy if you buy it. Photoshopping a model may not be totally honest but neither are the millions of boob jobs out there giving girls and unreal expectation that unless you are 36DD no guy will want you or you won’t be as sexy. People need to spend time with there kids and educating them on what is real or not real in a magazine. They take half an hour to explain ”stranger danger” they can give 15 minutes to go over a magazine with them.

Yes.

I’d rather advertisers didn’t Photoshop anyone, but those who are trying to sell something are going to idealize the effects of the product as much as possible.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, though. The whole point of most advertising for adults is: “Wear/buy/smell like/do this and you will have awesome hot monkey sex all the time with super hot people!” Right? So we have to teach our kids that living your life in that headspace is crazy-making and counterproductive to a useful existence and to not pay attention to advertising; that it doesn’t tell the truth about life or people.

Sorry, but I have to agree with @Hypocrisy_Central on this one. Advertising isn’t really meant to be realistic and I do think the parents have some responsibility in teaching this to their kids. That doesn’t mean if a law that outlawed photoshopping models was passed I’d be crying over it, but still, one should be able to distinguish a fantasy world from reality.

@Hypocrisy_Central of course you should discuss these things with your kids, but the overwhelming amount of media that we and our kids observe on a daily basis is staggering. We are completely bombarded by it, and it is unnecessary. If it were as simple as understanding that it isn’t realistic, then adults wouldn’t struggle with the same self image issues that children and teens do.
We are constantly seeing these images of ideal bodies and faces, and even if we consciously recognize that they aren’t realistic… that doesn’t mean that they don’t affect us.

It’s just unnecessary. Frankly, the original photo of Kim Kardashian used in the article is just as hot as the retouched photo. So why not just do away with it and let society be reminded of what real bodies look like.

I think the recommendation is a good one but people will ignore them like they do warning labels on cigarettes. And no I don’t think photoshopping to make every person skinnier than they are is acceptable.

If product owners and advertisers feel the need to modify the images of models, be it a human or any other object, then it could be a case of false advertising. Yes, some of the media viewers/readers are more gullible than others, but as long as they are of sound mind, so be it.

My concern goes out to those that have some type of disorder, like anorexia. It also extends to those in the media that get Photo-shopped without their permission. I’ve read/seen a handful of interviews with people who mentioned that their photos were altered and didn’t approve of it.

@ANef_is_Enuf @Hypocrisy_Central of course you should discuss these things with your kids, but the overwhelming amount of media that we and our kids observe on a daily basis is staggering. We are completely bombarded by it, and it is unnecessary. I sit down and watch TV, network not cable, for 90 minutes and I get 20 times more reference about indiscriminate or casual sex over what is an unreal body type, unless you count the actress that has been nip/tuck and sucked to look like Barbie. As @aprilsimnel said, they tell you that you buy this product, drink that beer, drive that car you will be cool get a hunky man or a hot woman and go home and have hot monkey sex. It goes all the way down to burgers, gum and then some. That is the commercials between the serial where some guy is trying to bed the office intern because she is ”hot”, and we ain’t talking temperature, or some doctor is “operating” nude in the “on call room” with some hunky surgeon that is not her husband. I would spend my time unraveling that illogical of not equally unhelpful images and ideals.

@Hypocrisy_Central You make a good point that it would be nearly impossible to completely rid the world of any stimuli that might cause a kid to misconstrue the nature of the “real world” in any way. But some of it is SO unnecessary. I’m going to provide another not-exactly-on-topic example.
I watched wayyyy too much Disney channel as a kid, and I guess the makers of the shows are trying to be cute by exaggerating the stereotypes associated with high school, but it can really scare and confuse an impressionable little kid. I entered high school with a terribly defensive attitude because I thought that because I didn’t fit the perfect image of the “cool kid,” I was going to get horribly ridiculed. I thought the cheerleaders were all going to be pretty, popular girls who ran the school, and if they chose to reject me, I’d be toast. I thought that because I wear glasses, that was going to be an invitation to dunk my head in a toilet or throw food at me in the cafeteria. Why on earth do kids need to be shown these terrible exaggerations of the hardships of high school?
I know the above doesn’t really have anything to do with the models topic, but again, it’s relating to my belief that putting false expectations into the heads of children is harmful.
To take a model, who is already going to be way more beautiful than your average person, and believe she still isn’t beautiful enough, so much so that you have to edit her appearance, is going to show kids impossible standards to measure up to. And that’s not healthy.

The disclaimer is a good idea. I’m all for destroying dumb fantasies lol.

I’m surprised how little responsibility people want to take for the world they choose to surround themselves with. C’mon. If you own a TV then if it’s not been discussed at school then surely parents and friends have discussed what’s real, what’s not and why it’s dished/motive to you that via media sources.

At a basic level, photoshopping is an art-form. Allowing us to look at what might be. However the rampant, systemic and unregulated use of it has taken it’s toll on the collective psyche. We, like children, have bought into the impossibly perfect fairy tales. Where do you draw the line between impossibly perfect or unattainable and realistic expectations.
The way you are brought up will have major role in what you consider to be acceptable/unacceptable levels of retouching. I don’t believe all photo-shopping is wrong. But considering the fact that it possibly plays a major, but not prominent role, in perpetuating media myths of rock gods and movie stars; it should have some level of regulatory oversight and accountability. Maybe a legal spin-off of sorts from the implications of false advertising.
Most crucially though, the impact on post-modern gender relations has been catastrophic. Granted that photographs of male models are also photoshopped and retouched, but the expectations form women have risen proportionately higher. That in itself is a huge question mark on the ethical implications of retouched images. It may not have been intentional, but the correlation is worth exploring and some deep-seated assumptions will surface regarding how one gender is specifically circumscribed to the aesthetic slavery of the other on accounts of being “the weaker sex”.

Oh. One more thing.
When I was in junior high school was when I first started taking great interest in learning to draw well. I drew a self-portrait of myself, but I wanted to tweak a few features that I didn’t much like about myself.
So I drew this face with enormous bug eyes, a teeny tiny nose, and a hairstyle that defies gravity. At the time I thought it was pretty. When I look back on it now….it looks nothing like me! It doesn’t even look human; it’s actually kind of scary looking! It’s interesting to me to look back on that and to wonder why oh why did I feel the need to alter my face so much?

One of the reasons I brought up “might go NSFW” is for the pornography aspect. From what I understand, some areas “down there” also get ‘Shopped, to eliminate unsightly areas (i.e., out of the ideal). I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks see more nude women in porn than in real life, at least for a while, and then they expect real-life women to look all prim and perfect in their private areas than they really do. Hence more women go in for cosmetic surgery, to correct themselves so they look like the ‘Shopped porn actresses.

It would be nice if parents were responsible and talked about everything important with their kids, but parents often do not. (Sometimes, it may even be considered immoral to do so: you’re not going to talk about image edits in porn, if you can’t talk to your kid about sex in the first place.) Whether we nix ‘Shopped images or not, kids need to have some kind of healthy body image, unless we want sick kids. Someone’s gotta do it. There are plenty of things that kids need to know, but which their parents are unable, unwilling, or unqualified to teach them (which is why we started having public education, I suspect). But when there are things which we can’t teach them in the media (because it’s “the parent’s job”) and we can’t teach them in school (because it violates someone’s moral code or something), and their peers don’t know, where are they going to learn it?

@Hypocrisy_Central – so you don’t think it’s hypocritical to have ‘Shopped ads? Or that it is, and you’re OK with it? I would think that you, in particular, would have been all over this issue: telling kids (through our media and our actions) that this is what they’re supposed to try to look like, except people don’t really look like that.

from that article: “We must stop exposing impressionable children and teenagers to advertisements portraying models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software,”

pretty intelligent.

I’m against photoshopping.

Censorship is never the answer. Education is.

I would think that there would be a lot of money to be made if fashion designers actually designed their clothing to look good on real people. If women (mostly) saw outfits that looked good on short, chubby, pear shaped, apple shaped, beanstalk shaped, large bottomed, flat bottomed, droopy bosomed, huge bosomed, flat bosomed women, women of all shapes and sizes, colors and various degrees of imperfection then they’d be very excited to buy those fashions.

@wundayatta I’m curious whether you think that photoshopping is censorship, or if not photoshopping is censorship?

It’s not much different than comic books illustrating the human form in wildly unrealistic proportions.

An artist should be allowed to create and interpret any subject in any manner they choose.

People should be smart enough to judge reality for themselves.

We don’t need the reality police to mind our manners.

I don’t think it should be a crime, but I do think it increases the insanity caused by the industries involved, resulting in suffering, waste, bolemia, death, etc.

I think the proper and most effective response would be education, art, drama, literature, etc.

In other words, it’s in the same category for me as recreational drugs, bungie jumping, not wearing seat belts, pornography, and badly-done violent video games and movies/TV. Shouldn’t be illegal, but should be willingly adjusted, educated, etc. Because it’s foolish to snort cocaine, jump off cliffs, not wear seat belts, auto-porno-hypnotize, play badly-made games too much, watch too many badly-done films, etc., but these shouldn’t be illegal, and the solution is better education, drama, stories, conversations, etc.

Yes,as @RealEyesRealizeRealLies said“An artist should be allowed to create and interpret any subject in any manner they choose”.He is exactly right.
Many people are so quick to blame external influences.If your child’s self-esteem is shattered because of some photoshopped image.you didn’t do your job right.
Apparently,everyone is a fucking vicitm.

The media and advertising do not raise our children and even if its only goal is to influence people how to be, feel, dress, act, etc., we have a choice to either be influenced or not. That’s what free will is. There are influential circumstances all around us, but most people grow to understand the difference between fantasy and reality and if they are children and therefore do not understand, it is an adult’s job to educate them.

A lot of times, I see people searching for something to blame rather than taking responsibility for their own actions. Photoshop is fine. The former is not. The advertising world is not your own personal babysitter and it is not forcing you to be a certain way. Recognizing your influences is one thing, but blaming developmental abnormalities on outside influences is irresponsible and will keep you susceptible – not a victim like most would like to think.

@laureth @Hypocrisy_Central – so you don’t think it’s hypocritical to have ‘Shopped ads? Or that it is, and you’re OK with it? I would think that you, in particular, would have been all over this issue: telling kids (through our media and our actions) that this is what they’re supposed to try to look like, except people don’t really look like that. I could indeed be all over this. In general it is deceptive, so are many other things, I am a bit ambivalent about it in the sense that while looking at it I view it not much different than a special effect. I know what I am seeing is more than likely ”doctored”. I know there is not two sets of women ”those model women who look super gorgeous”, and ”those everyday women that will always look dumpy”. In a way it is like when I get that coupon from a famous sandwich maker and the sandwich on the coupon is stuffed with so much you could hardly get the bread closed but when I buy it I can smash the sandwich quite flat because of how lean the guts are. If they were saying that is what all women should be they would be hypocritical. That might be what many get from it but I am not sure that is the main message they are trying to give. I do think it lends a bit on the deceptive side, but I can point out nearly half a dozen things that can be equally as deceptive and you have no ideal they should be fake or altered. I say they let the actor, actress, model, etc. stand on their own. I am more for natural beauty than all the war paint anyhow. Photoshop can’t do everything a trip to the gym should have.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Photoshop can’t do everything a trip to the gym should have.”

Someone skilled with Photoshop can easily add or remove 50lbs or more from a photo of a person. This and this are good examples.

@wundayatta said: “Censorship is never the answer. Education is.”

typically I agree but that would ignore the fact that imagery in itself molds minds.
some ideas are useless and even detrimental to have in your brains at all. May as well cull some of it where we find a good place to.

Not that we can’t have access to it elsewhere.. just not in public advertising.

@ANef_is_Enuf Why would they want to do that for a star everyone knows is not that thin? That would be like taking starlet X and slimming herdown 25lb but then she shows up on The View her correct size then everyone knows the photo on Redbook was a fake.

@wundayatta and @Zaku – Please understand that nobody is suggesting making Photoshopping models a crime. The idea is not to introduce legislation saying “you can’t do that.” In the U.S., the idea is asking advertisers to voluntarily stop doing it, and in France, the idea was to post a disclaimer next to ‘Shopped models. They can still edit to their heart’s delight, if they want to, with no penalty whatsoever.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – I think it is very different from “comic books illustrating the human form in wildly unrealistic proportions.” I won’t expect any woman alive to look like manga artwork. The Photoshopping in the original post was much more subtle and didn’t imply unreality.

@Vunessuh – It’s easy to think we are totally in control when deciding whether to internalize the images we see, or not. But it’s not that simple. Even when the parenting is better than average, the messages still creep in. It’s very common for repeated images and messages to be taken as truth, whether they are or not. Repetition doesn’t make something true, but it does make it soak into our brains more than it should.

To everyone who says that this is a parenting issue: Even if it is our own or our parents’ fault when kids start puking up their lunches in order to look “normal” like the Photoshopped women, clearly that message isn’t being absorbed by all parents. This is like saying teen pregnancy shouldn’t be a problem because all kids should just know enough to say “no” – but abstinence education doesn’t work, and neither is “they should just know every model is an edited work of art.” Since they aren’t all getting educated, education clearly isn’t enough. In the absence of education, what can we do?

@laureth Thank you for putting into words the thoughts that are in my head.

@laureth “I won’t expect any woman alive to look like manga artwork.”

Regardless of your expectations, there is an entire culture that feels differently. Certainly there are children in your neighborhood that dresses up to play Little Mermaid.

@laureth “The Photoshopping in the original post was much more subtle and didn’t imply unreality.”

Are you the reality police?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies comic books and manga are marketed as art or as fiction. Advertisements and magazines are marketed as reality and news…

@laureth You’re making a generalization that everyone internalizes these images the same and allows themselves to be negatively affected by repetition or anything with the ability to “creep in”. I don’t believe that’s true. Not everyone gives credence to a photoshopped Kim Kardashian.

Are we supposed to walk around with disclaimers around our necks when we get a tan or wear make-up or wear a padded bra or do our nails or get highlights in our hair or use spider vein cream or wax our bikini line or get plastic surgery because we are straying away from our “natural” state in order to enhance our appearance? Should we now tell Hollywood and the gaming industry to let us know when fiction is being used in their movies and games so some idiot doesn’t jump off a bridge wearing a Batman costume? No. Photoshop is not used as a weapon and I highly doubt it’s used to intentionally start an eating disorder epidemic.

We live in a time where we know Photoshop is widely used in advertising. We have the ability to decipher pretty well what’s real and what’s fake. I’m not saying that it is impossible for outside influences to affect us, regardless of knowing the difference between reality and fantasy, truth and lies. It happens all the time and I do feel it is important to recognize our influences to assist in recovering from a major problem, but when they are used as excuses to avoid responsibility of your own decisions, therefore severely stalling your own growth and recovery because you’re too focused on how your current state is everything else’s fault, it’s childish and cowardly and artists and the advertising world shouldn’t be censored or punished for that.

Not all advertising is marketed as reality @ANef_is_Enuf. Any cruise line or amusement park will readily admit they market an escape from reality… you know, like comic manga does.

Perfume companies may sell fragrance, but they do it by selling fantasy.

These products, which manipulate photos and alter the human form are no different than brushing teeth to hide bad breath, using hair gel, or make up to smooth skin tones. They’re all designed to hide or mask reality. A person who buys them, with the sole purpose of altering their own reality should not complain if the ads themselves have been altered to do the same.

@Hypocrisy_Central so the next story they run can be about how that actress gained a ton of weight and then proceed to publish an un-Photoshopped picture of them on the cover in a bikini with cottage cheese thighs. ;)

What concerns me most about magazines, is that Walgreens has awarded Cosmopolitan a position right up at the register with the other point of purchase (pop) items. So who cares if the grade school is a block away, and young girls stop by to get a candy bar and learn a little bit about Bad Girl Sex, Your Best Sex Ever, and His #1 Sex Wish, and how to Arouse Him Like Crazy.

Find me one Cosmo that doesn’t have Sex and Weight Loss as top stories on the cover. The words people write are far more misleading and damaging to teenage girls than any photograph they show. And next time you’re at a convenience store right after school lets out, tell me how you feel about our youth having these adult topics thrown in their faces no less than 10 inches from the eyes and represented in such a superficial and lightly topical manner.

The photos may get attention, but it is words that stick, and tinker with our minds in ways we have little understanding of.

A decade ago, when I wanted to introduce my children to human sexuality, I found that a trip to the local art museum was a great starting place. There in lies my counter attack againgst the influences of pop culture upon our youth. Let the arts do their job. Let the arts cultivate a refined aesthetic in the minds of our youth. In this way, they become better equipped to distinguish trash from treasure, rubbish from rubies, shit from shine-ola…

No, I do not think Photoshopping models is acceptable. It’s disgusting, degrading and disrespectful to real people…and should be abolished.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies The photos may get attention, but it is words that stick, and tinker with our minds in ways we have little understanding of. All those Cosmo ads that is the hypocrisy I am talking about. First off it is suppose to be one of the quintessential women’s magazine yet most of the women on the cover put them in a bikini, booty shorts or a mini and they would fit right at home on the cover of FHM, Maxim, Blender, or Gear. Most of the women on the covers look no larger than a size 8, though most are probably smaller. It is a safe bet quite a few are Photoshopped anyhow. One might be able to point the finger at them men’s magazine but Redbook, Glamour, Allure, etc. are just as guilty, even Shape gets in on the attractive slender women. If women are doing this to other women via women’s magazines, they are as tacitly as shallow as the men’s magazine, if they are indeed shallow.

On top of showing the girls the most attractive of females, the message on the covers say another thing all together. Randomly picking about five magazine covers the marquee articles were ”78 Way To Turn Him On”, ”The Sex Quiz You Must Take”, ”Get Naked”, this one with a cover of Lea Michele of Glee showing cleavage as deep as China, ”75 Sex Moves Men Crave”, “The Love Tricks That make Him Want You More”, ”Look Sexy”, etc. Almost if it is saying you have to be sexy and know sexy moves in the bedroom to be interesting to men, I am sure the feminist love that. If these women’s magazines are trying to send the message that women are more then T&A they are not exactly saying it point blank.

The kicker is that many antique and vintage art the nudes have women nowhere near “bread stick women” of today, or a lot of what is thought of as sexy.

So a good parent will balance the free press media that they cannot control coming into the face of their children with a different perspective, preferably more refined, from art. Balance is key.

I know I don’t like to know that a cover is photoshopped. Because I like to believe that I can be like that too. But I can’t because even that girl doesn’t look like that. To quote Cindy Crawford, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.”

So I would say there be a bit more honesty in the media portrayal of women. Beauty is a very wide ranging concept. The “white man’s burden” would be greatly eased if it reflected a diversely consolidated beauty concept.

Using a photo editing program to get rid of a nasty zit or that one distracting strand of flyaway hair is one thing; using software to distort already-slim models into skeletons is quite another.

I totally disagree with the practice of ridiculous Photoshopping, but if it’s banned, will that lead to more realistic women in ads? Or will it lead to more drastic measures being taken by models to make their bodies actually look that way?

No, I am not the reality police.

No, I am not saying that absolutely everyone is gullible and fooled.

What I am saying, is that we have, for whatever reason, a culture where artificially thinned images of women are displayed pretty much everywhere, and where we also have women and teenage girls trying some pretty sick things to conform to those impossible images. (Not everyone, of course, but many.) I see a connection.

Clearly there needs to be good parenting – but there is not enough of that. Clearly there needs to be education, but there is not enough of that. Clearly everybody ought to know that most of these images are ‘Shopped, but they don’t. So whatever is happening now, is not enough to prevent crap from happening. Whatever parents, the schools, or peer pressure should be doing, isn’t working. I ask, what next?

What I’m hearing from many (but not all) of you here, is a reiteration of things that should work, but don’t. In the absence of things that work, what do we do?

For example, we should “know” that ads are all deceptive. (Psst, not everyone knows this.) In order to let everyone know that ads are deceptive, the suggestion is to put a disclaimer on the ad, but I’m hearing this is not a good idea because everyone already knows that ads are deceptive. Do you see the feedback loop here?

It might not be the reason all of them are anorexic or bulemic. It is, however, part of what keeps feeding into the culture that makes folks sick.

So. Is the answer to my question (“In the absence of things that work, what do we do?”) pretty much “Nothing?” Because that’s what I’m hearing bubble up as a sort of consensus answer here. That having about 8 million anorexics is just the price we have to pay in order to be able to have Photoshopped ads? Totally acceptable, collateral damage?

“having about 8 million anorexics is just the price we have to pay”

That’s the same old guns kill/drugs kill argument. When in actuality, guns and drugs don’t kill. Ignorant people do. The anorexic percentage would drop dramatically if more effort was put towards education and balance of what models a healthy human form. We can do this with exposure to fine art.

The anorexic percentage would also drop dramatically if parents infused their children with healthy self esteem. When the chaos of media is allowed to overwrite the mindful attention of good parenting, many mysterious disorders will arise. Consider them cancers upon the genome of society.

As well, the women I photoshop for a living would absolutely kill me if I didn’t. And yes, aside from basic skin smoothing and blemish removal, I quite often thin them down a bit. It is how they wish to present their public image, plain and simple. The idea is to achieve your theoretical best on good day. That’s how Ford photographs their cars, Nike photographs their shoes, and McDonalds photographs their hamburgers. Have you ever gotten a hamburger that looks like the one pictured on the menu? I haven’t.

Shall we place disclaimers that the Ford you buy won’t necessarily be seen next to a sunset beach, but rather it will instead be more likely to fight off shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot?

Give people credit to separate the fantasy from the reality. Life’s too short to deny anyone their fantasy. If that fantasy consumes them, to the point of harm, then allow them to learn from their own mistakes, and use it as an educational example for others.

Awesome. How shall we educate both potential anorexics and their parents? I’m going to assume that not everyone has access to, or a taste for, fine art, and that art was cut out of their school budget long ago.

The same way all ground level education occurs. Threads like this create a meme, a thought seed is planted into the collective consciousness of society. To survive, the meme must catch on and replicate, thereby spreading throughout our culture. The goal intended for any meme is for it to grow to the point where the collective consciousness is mutated into another state.

But it’s not all black & white, on or off. As the meme spreads, it will mutate by itself. It must, for it battles against different views, which in essence agree, but only to varying degrees. So the end result will most likely be a mutated version of the model presented here. Extreme memes don’t usually survive without mutating to some degree, becoming more palatable to society.

If you don’t want to wait for the meme to infect society potential evolution, then weigh the scales in your favor by funding a public awareness advertising campaign. Just like genes, this is possible, but other resources will be lost in favor of the promotion.

Or you could just let evolution run its natural course, and let the best meme win on its own merit. Certainly some will be lost, but those losses are the bad mutations which teach the body of humanity to pursue the better meme for all.

“Threads like this create a meme, a thought seed is planted into the collective consciousness of society.”

Exactly. ;)

”...then weigh the scales in your favor by funding a public awareness advertising campaign.”

Something like the disclaimer on the ‘Shopped model pictures in France, perhaps?

“Or you could just let evolution run its natural course, and let the best meme win on its own merit. ”… without having to expend the resources necessary to run a campaign, or be perceived as morally/ethically authoritative.

Aw heck. If anyone who asserts a position is trying to be morally/ethically authoritative, I could get caught up in that hamster wheel all day. “Who is ethically authoritative here,” I would ask myself, “Me, for wanting people to think about the effects of holding women to a higher ideal than is generally humanly possible, or the people who spoke out in opposition to censorship or pro-free market/parental responsibility/education, who think I’m fulla crap?” ;)

@laureth You’re highly mistaken if you think all 8 million anorexics are the way they are because of Photoshopped ads.

“What I’m hearing from many (but not all) of you here, is a reiteration of things that should work, but don’t.”
That still doesn’t make it Photoshop’s problem.

Removing, censoring and blaming external influences is not the answer to solving eating disorders and any other major problems and trying to convince the entire advertising world to be truthful with the images in their ads is not practical. Even if it was achieved, I bet that the majority of people who allow those ads to affect them negatively are going to allow it to happen with or without a disclaimer. I think this way because of how I believe the majority of the population today already know how common the use of Photoshop is and that nobody is that perfect. You see them in magazines, but you don’t see them in person when you walk out your front door. Are they all hiding in a cave somewhere? That is why people are putting emphasis on more education and parenting, even straight down to survival of the fittest if you lack the common sense to know this.

Now, I am not necessarily opposed to disclaimers, but I don’t find your argument very consistent at all and @RealEyesRealizeRealLies and myself have already pointed out why.
I don’t think humanity is that helpless and needs to be that sheltered. You are aware of the environment you live in. As much as you think a Photoshopped image of a model can soak into our brains and take over our lives, so can the EXACT opposite even with exposure to such ads which is what it takes to educate people. People have a choice over whether or not they allow external influences to either positively or negatively consume their lives. Jesus, people need more introspection. Period.

@Vunessuh – Where did I say that all 8 million anorexics are the way they are because of Photoshopped ads?

“That having about 8 million anorexics is just the price we have to pay in order to be able to have Photoshopped ads?”

@Vunessuh – While I appreciate the effort to make my argument look like a ridiculous generalization, I’ll also point to the comment I made earlier in that same post:

What I am saying, is that we have, for whatever reason, a culture where artificially thinned images of women are displayed pretty much everywhere, and where we also have women and teenage girls trying some pretty sick things to conform to those impossible images. (Not everyone, of course, but many.) I see a connection.

Not every anorexic is that way because she saw too many Photoshopped ads. That would be stupid. However, the ‘Shopped ads are one pervasive part of a culture that expects women to look like that. The expectations are fed and watered because we’re surrounded with these images. Yes, some very strong, informed, educated people can laugh them away, and that’s great for them (and, presumably, you). Some cannot, and even for people who are not anorexic, the cultural push to be thinner, liposuctioned and remodeled to perfection, objectified, and flawless, that we are expected to meet (even by those who ought to know better) can push us into behaviours that are just as unhealthy, in their own way, as the obesity epidemic.

I don’t think I’m wrong for wanting images of healthy women to be more prevalent than images of unhealthy women.

@laureth I don’t believe you give enough credit to how many people (informed and educated or not) these ads don’t affect.

My argument boils down to responsibility. I’m not saying that if skinnier models were replaced with healthier looking one’s that I would sit and pout in a corner about it. Lawl. I’m defending the advertising world and Photoshop artists to just be able to create whatever they want.
Regarding responsibility, is it these influences that ruined your life and made you engage is such unhealthy behavior, or is it YOU that allowed them to. We as individuals have a choice in this matter and that’s what I’m getting at. I just don’t think Photoshop is responsible for that. At 23 years old, I have not been able to completely escape at some point or another self-image and self-esteem issues, but when enduring them, I placed the responsibility where it was supposed to go, while recognizing what played a part in getting me to this point so I could heal and hopefully become unsusceptible to it in the future. I don’t blame everything else for my problems and actually think that that in itself is healthy behavior.

@Vunessuh – The people who are not affected by these ads are not the ones I’m worried about. It’s the ones who are. Photoshop itself is not responsible for anything (it’s just a program, just like guns don’t shoot people). What is responsible, at least in part, for both the ads and the anorexia is the cultural expectations which feed the ads, and the ads (and the anorexics) which, perversely, feed back into the culture, giving it power. It’s a feedback loop. If I can do something to throw a block into that feedback loop and contribute, however slightly, to a more sane and healthy culture, that is worth my trouble. And people like you, who are too healthy to be affected by anything in our culture, wouldn’t be affected either way.

The way I see it, it’s like cigarettes and lung cancer. No, not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, and not everyone who gets lung cancer has been a smoker. But there’s a huge overlap, enough to make us re-think the wisdom of marketing cigarettes as (1) healthy, and (2) something children should want to do when they grow up. I’m hoping someday, we can do the same with this, and while I’d be against a law forbidding the Photoshopping, I’d like to see the idea of doing it become as repugnant as our culture-at-large thinks of cigarette smoking (even though, yes, we still have smokers, who choose to smoke anyway,despite the dangers being made abundantly clear to them).

Your mistake is thinking I’m too healthy to be affected by anything in our culture and that that’s why I have the mindset I have.

I just believe if people put more emphasis and importance on taking responsibility for our own actions, it would be a better start.

I agree about responsibility, but I also think the responsibility isn’t just on the ‘victims.’ We all live in the culture, so we all have a responsibility to give it our best efforts. And while personal responsibility is a great good, it works best in conjunction with a reduction in the availability of unhealthy things, just like medicine often works best when paired with lifestyle changes, to heal quickly.

Yes. Free speech FTW.

“We all live in the culture, so we all have a responsibility to give it our best efforts.”

Those who create the ads believe they’re giving their best effort. At least I do, at least that’s what I believe.

If I want to catch a fish, then I dress my hook with the appropriate bait. If I want to market a product to teenage boys, then I show images of large explosions and scantily clad damsels in distress. My visuals are bait. I want to stop you from doing whatever you are doing, and start doing what I want you to do. I want to control your mind.

But it’s not all that dark. Controlling your mind could be as simple as politely informing you about a new way to save money on your energy bill. If I feel that sexy costumes and flashy fireworks (the Vegas model), will best get your attention, then so be it, that’s what I’ll use to hook you.

Magazine publishers want to sell magazines. They have a responsibility to their advertisers. Though the advertisers rarely cross the line like Calvin Klein, the magazine can cross the line through editorial freedom of speech. They well know that the more controversy stirred up, the more free advertising they’ll get from it. Any press is good press, and society is fascinated by issues primed for ignorant armchair judgments. They validate our existence with every opinion formed. What better subject than the human form for expressing a personal opinion about it?

And in those opinions, there are those who truly see humanity benefitting from encouraging the slender waif-like physic. It imbibes the mind with youth, lean lifestyles, discipline, self control, and altogether a higher evolutionary standard which takes up less resources while increasing longevity. It just another opinion about the state of our human condition. It considers the accumulated knowledge of modernity, beyond the days of corn fed meat loving husky body types, or those slightly plump because of depression, lack of exercise, discipline, self control… Encouraging a lean lifestyle is good business for the fashion industry. It is not designed to make anyone sick. That would be bad business. Unfortunate for anyone to take anything to absolute extreme, or misuse/misinterpret the originally intended message of beneficial alternatives.

My job is to hook you with the appropriate bait. Your job is to discern my claims beyond the hook, and decide carefully if there is any substantial merit to what I offer you.

I may be trying to sincerely help you. I may be trying to help myself at your expense. Only you can know, sometimes through trial and error, if what I offer is for you or not.

From the beginning, I very well know that my intended market will be filled with ignorant people who are desperately trying to find purpose, meaning, fulfillment in their lives. I’ll play those heartstrings a tune they can’t resist. Those fish jump right into the boat at the beckon of a crocodile smile. They want to be in my boat. They’re drowning.

But there are also those who have learned to discern the truth from false promise. If I want them as loyal customers, then I best have some real substance to whatever I offer. Emotions are a good hook, but REASON is what they want. These discerning customers are harder to attain, but well worth the effort for long term pursuits.

Our modern era is abundant with information. We are one click away from researching user reviews and customer experiences. We can discern the truth much easier than ever before in history. If a young girl risks becoming anorexic because of perceived unattainable body type influences, then she should be encouraged to pursue the entire truth about the industry which fascinates her. She’s just a few clicks away from discovering the problems of drug addiction, promiscuity, egomaniacal personality disorders, depression and even eating disorders brought about by the influences.

Our youth should be encouraged to explore as many different experiences as they possibly can. They will learn from their own mistakes and rejoice in their own successes. As mature adult influences in their lives, we would do well to encourage them to research their pursuits vigorously. We should imbibe them with the knowledge that things are not always as they appear on the surface. We should encourage them to earn Truth, and teach them that Truth is earned. It’s also available freely to anyone who would pursuit it legitimately.

Those who pursue false truths out of a desire for egomaniacal fulfillment will ultimately find themselves on the tail end of abuse. Those who pursue genuine truths out of a desire for knowledge and understanding will ultimately find themselves on the crown of satisfaction and fulfillment. We should encourage people, especially our youth, to research all truth claims, and thereby be capable of discerning the genuine truths from the false truth claims.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies

Re: ” there are those who truly see humanity benefitting from encouraging the slender waif-like physic. It imbibes the mind with youth, lean lifestyles, discipline, self control, and altogether a higher evolutionary standard which takes up less resources while increasing longevity.”

Study: Slightly overweight live longer

What “everyone knows is true” isn’t always what actually is true. It does pay to do research into claims of truth.

However, not everyone does this. I’d prefer it if they did. But the world is full of people who take what they hear, and if it matches what they “know” is true, they run with it. If a young woman hears that waifish is healthy, see waifs in magazines, and hears her boyfriend (and every other male in her world) talk about hot waifs, it’s going to be very hard for her to do the research, even to heal herself. After all, she “knows” she should be a waif (even if her body doesn’t do that naturally). Why research what you already “know?” All the men and magazines tell her so. It must be true. Just like we know the President is a Kenyan-born Muslim Commie Socialist who hates America – because if FOX and the Right-wing echo chamber and my Tea Party friends are all I listen to, those things will soak in as truth. After all, everyone says it’s true, and it feels right in the gut, y’know? Sometimes, it’s not the easiest time in history to find Truth. Sometimes it’s the hardest.

I guess I’m asking for more than the world can give.

@laureth Your mistake is that you want to find practical solutions to the world’s problems, whereas most people just want to find rhetorical justifications for doing nothing or perpetuating harmful behavior.

“Study: Slightly overweight live longer”

So now each side of the issue begins firing volleys of evidence to suit their position. As you say ”...the world is full of people who take what they hear, and if it matches what they “know” is true, they run with it…” The battle begins, first with topical opinion, then with cites and studies and links to back up the agenda. Evidence is mistaken for truth.

In the end, we find truth exactly where we always do… right smack dab in the middle of any hotly contested issue. Each side has evidence to support their religion, but neither has a market share on the actual truth they never see.

The female form will stop being subjected to the pressures of mandatory underweight when the form is no longer desired by young males in their sexual prime. Much of this fight is genetic, and no study or research on earth will challenge a healthy mans innate sexual desire. Lust is a powerful foe.

@laureth Photoshop artists are taking responsibility, but their responsibility isn’t to nurture fragile human beings. They are fulfilling their duties by making money for themselves and the companies they work for. They are doing their job and using the tools available to them (like Photoshop) to do it. An advertising company will do whatever they think will make them the most money. They aren’t there to coddle people’s feelings. There are people who are positively affected by these ads, people who aren’t affected by these ads at all and people who are negatively affected by them. This outcome is reached through many, many things in life. In fact, it probably rings true for almost every industry, product, etc. we have. If the one and only goal of advertising companies was to make women feel like they have to live up to an unrealistic standard, everyone still has a choice whether or not to act on it. My suggestion is for people to take a look at themselves and the decisions they’re making and in control of, before blaming the mysterious disappearance of cottage cheese off of Kim Kardashian’s ass.
I understand if you only want to focus on who these ads are negatively affecting, but what should be considered is the number of people these ads aren’t affecting because I think that plays a serious role in whether or not anything should be stopped, banned, censored, punished, scolded, changed, etc. and therefore leads to my point that we have free will and while these influences will always exist, we choose whether or not we will drown in them, embrace them, avoid them or overcome them. I appreciate anyone’s fight to make this world a better place, but I just don’t agree that pushing for disclaimers and/or censorship over anything that has the potential to be considered unhealthy (which is an ungodly amount), is more important, empowering and valuable than teaching people to be responsible whether or not they’ve been affected because I can guarantee that someone being sick and hurt will only last longer if they blame and justify it with unrealistic women in a magazine. That’s not where empowerment comes from and it won’t be achieved by the latter.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Re: “Evidence is mistaken for truth”

You and I, it would seem, embrace differing definitions of the word “truth.”

Re: “The female form will stop being subjected to the pressures of mandatory underweight when the form is no longer desired by young males in their sexual prime. Much of this fight is genetic, and no study or research on earth will challenge a healthy mans innate sexual desire. Lust is a powerful foe”

It’s good to know we have our societal priorities straight. ;)

@Vunessuh – It would be silly to take the people into consideration who are not affected by this. Most people, for example, are not murdered; yet murder is still illegal because of the people it would, to put it lightly, affect.

Sarcasm does not contribute to finding the truth we disagree on. For me, truth is something that will come out in the wash, every time. We shouldn’t put so much effort into defending any one particular side of an argument. For you, what is truth?

@Vunessuh I’m curious to know if you are OK with food companies having to list their ingredients on the labels. They didn’t used to have to do that. Food companies are also in business to make money, but the government, with the the push of public interest behind them, changed those laws, because they realized that some (if not all) people would not be able to determine what is in these packages (even though, in theory everybody should know better). Some things that say chocolatey, have no chocolate. Some things say fruity, but have no fruit. They’ve also recently started (voluntarily) listing and singling out particular ingredients that are known to be allergens that cause a small percentage of the population a great deal of trouble.

Even though most people do not resort to anorexia when viewing those photoshopped photos, I don’t think it’s true that most people are not effected by those ads. Look around. You see men that have signs on the back of their cars that say NO FAT CHICKS, most men won’t date women that they perceive to be overweight based on those magazine girls. Even if the woman fits into the “normal” range for their height and weight. Young girls say disgusting things about fat women, or women that they perceive to be overweight, even if they aren’t overweight. Men and women make all sorts of horrible comments about people that don’t live up to the magazine ideals, even if they don’t become anorexic themselves. So the combination of constantly being bombarded with fake images, and then having the majority of people, men and women, around them buyng into those fake images and further spreading the idea that women should look a certain way, makes it almost impossible for a young girl/woman to have any other idea about how they should look, even if they should know better, and even if they intellectually know that those pictures are fake. Even though the pictures are fake, we, as women are still being judged by those standards.

Nobody is saying that there should be censorship, but having a warning label is not censorship. It’s just pointing out the truth in advertising, just like listing the ingredients of a food package. It should be voluntary and hopefully if one magazine or country starts doing it voluntarily, then others will follow suit, by showing real women and using designers who can make clothing that looks flattering on all body types.

We don’t live in a perfect world, and young people’s most important ideas involve trying to fit in. These magazines make fitting in almost impossible.

I’m just an average looking person, but when I look at those photos, I often feel ashamed of my body, and I’m an adult. One of my former friends, who looked a lot like Brooke Shields, tall thin and beautiful, was called fat by a few guys and it devastated her. Even she as one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen was effected, because men, women and children look at those pictures as the norm of feminine beauty, it is what we should all strive for and if you can’t do it, then you are considered fat and weak and lazy.

All we are saying is that our society would be a better place if the magazines would voluntarily do things differently. There’s plenty of money to be made, especially if they started making clothing that looked flattering on most women.

I would like to think that we as a society, instead of just throwing up our hands and saying, “That’s just the way it is, too bad!” We could stand up and ask for something better.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies- In this case, I’d say that truth is what is aligned with facts. It’s not necessarily true, for example, that the waifish figure engenders longevity. However, it’s also true that people think it does. To them, it has truthiness, but it is not, in fact, necessarily true.

It may also be true that, at this time in history, horny dudes like waifish women. And waifish images will sell to horny dudes. I’m questioning which goal is more worthy, not which one makes money.

Well hopefully this thread will provide you with more material to support your new book on the subject! Or an e-book or a blog, or whatever method you feel best could get your message out. Perhaps this discussion has given a fuller perspective on the roots of your concerns. That could only help you convey your personal philosophies more effectively. And also know your comments and concern have not gone unheard by me. There is an ethical struggle every time I pick up my graphics pen, or camera, or notebook. The over arching goal is that I never want to make someone look their best at the expense of intentionally misleading the public. I am constantly questioning where that line is drawn.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – That would be a very hard job for me. If you manage to do it and retain something of a heart, more power to you. :)

No my heart disappeared long ago.

Barely enough of a fainting shred left to give this thread the considerate attention it deserves.

@Kardamom Your comparison is apples and oranges. One is a basic human need and the other is esoteric background noise, especially in comparison to something like food. We need food to survive and we need to know what we’re ingesting, especially for cases of allergies. It’s what you’re eating. It could kill you. An image doesn’t kill you. We don’t need the media and television and magazines to survive. I won’t stress any further how important personal responsibility is for those who want to argue that Photoshopped images kill people or give them life-threatening illnesses. One is a basic human necessity, the other isn’t. That is a sloppy comparison and if a man wants to treat a woman horribly because that woman doesn’t physically depict the model in an image they saw, I don’t believe it was the image or its source sending out messages to do so. That is called a weak-minded human being and that is exactly where all of the influence comes from.
And you’re right, I would like to think that we as a society, instead of just throwing up our hands and saying, “That’s just the way it is, too bad!” could stand up and ask for something better, which is exactly what I am doing, but in a different way that I personally feel better benefits individualism.

I’m always saddened by how much power the media has over people with influence. I’m glad my dad saw right through that bullshit and taught me how to spot it.

I agree with the condemnation, if only for the good of people. I probbaly seem all high and mighty now. I’m not picking myself out as having the eye of the truth, many people may discern between reality and fantasy, not just me. But again, my dad made that line so fucking clear to me, and he insisted, to the point that I got sick of it. The distinction; it’s always been a strong issue with me. Whether that’s fictional violence or hot chicks. People need to see the reality man. People gotta learn, people gotta know.

But I think a lot of this highly depends on the intents of the person doing the Photoshop alterations. Are they artists, or are they trying to take advantage of kids who are given Doritos and a bottle of Coke for school lunches by their parents/caregivers/whatever?

But somewhere in all of this, we have a job to do, it’s not all up to some program that didn’t exist centuries before we decided that image and social status was a barometer of success.

So I’m conceited and think too much of myself. My answer on this, prolly for the best, yo.

@Kardamom GA :)

As I just read in another quip, there’s something called the CSI effect. Clearly, court shows are not real policework, everyone knows that, though, right? They watch them for fantasy, not to learn what to expect in a jury. Except… it doesn’t work that way.

Similarly, even if we “should” know that magazine pictures are fake, and people make fake magazine images in order to hook and deceive us, people buy into them anyway, the same way they “know” that things on TV are reflections of reality. We didn’t evolve in a world where most everything was fictional. We learned early on to take clues from our surroundings and act accordingly. That is why people get hooked into things, and buy from the ads.

As @Vunessuh says, “That is called a weak-minded human being and that is exactly where all of the influence comes from.” (Why should anything have influence? We should all be strong and know that images are fake, though, right?)

Also from @Vunessuh – ” I would like to think that we as a society, instead of just throwing up our hands and saying, “That’s just the way it is, too bad!” could stand up and ask for something better, which is exactly what I am doing, but in a different way that I personally feel better benefits individualism.” I agree. However, I don’t see how a “this is not reality!” label threatens individuals – especially the sort of high-minded, strong individuals who can spot every fake model in a magazine. If they’re that self-actualized, they can just skip over (or phase out) the disclaimer label, much like die-hard smokers gloss over the warning labels on their packs.

If we spent most of our lives free of media influence, I think more of us would be able to spot fake situations, theatre violence, and thinned-down models. It would look ridiculous. But we don’t – we’re saturated, plugged in. And as @RealEyesRealizeRealLies says, the ads are cunningly devised to get us to buy-in. It’s hard enough to discern reality when it’s not out to get us: how much harder when it’s designed from the get-go to reel us in?

”...the ads are cunningly devised to get us to buy-in…”

And people are cunningly wired to seek meaning for their lives. They desperately want my snake oil. They believe it will save them from a life of meaninglessness. Or better yet, they hope my snake oil will justify their psychosis as not their fault, releasing them from blame or personal responsibility. They want to be victims. They buy my fools gold and form it into idols of worship. They pray to the god I have made for them.

^ I think he’s saying that people give too much power to the media and that isn’t the media’s problem. Do we really need a warning label on everything that has been altered from its original/natural state in order to function healthily? Do we need to be warned that every advertising image we come across has the potential to not exist or not be what we asked for, like the Mcdonald’s hamburger in the picture or the bikini on the model that somehow doesn’t look as great on us?
I never said disclaimers would threaten individuals. I just don’t think a warning label on every advertisement that has been Photoshopped is going to accomplish what you think it will. The majority of people who are negatively affected by fantasy will allow themselves to be affected by it regardless of knowing that it’s fantasy. Do you honestly think that the only one’s affected are the people who, somehow, have no idea it isn’t real? A user above mentioned that even though she knows these images aren’t realistic, when she looks at them, she often feels ashamed of her body. This proves my point. How is a disclaimer telling you what you already know going to change your behavior? Photoshop and editing software tools are NOT a secret. Slap a disclaimer on them all you want, but disclaimers do not build self-respect in a human-being. I reject the premise that it is a solution or more effective than putting the focus on the individual that buys into it, rather than edited images.

@ANef_is_Enuf I’m curious whether you think that photoshopping is censorship, or if not photoshopping is censorship?

Censoring photoshopped images is censorship. We shouldn’t outlaw it in order to make people believe that images tell the truth. We should educate people so they understand that photos are not necessarily true. Be suspicious of all purported representations of a thing.

As to the question of what might help—first of all, this is not something legislation can help with. What this conversation made me think was that if everyone got to go to an advertising firm and see the ad made from step one to the end, they’d probably realize how little in the ad is the way it was when it started.

If we can’t educate everyone, then we can’t save them. No legislation is going to make up for the failings of the school system or of parents. They just won’t. Not when we are talking about how people think.

Try legislating against this. We won’t be so daft to think we can put warning labels on such stunning beauty. No photoshopping was done on these random back scene videos. The girls just look fabulous right out of the box. It’s no wonder why unsuspecting teens can get caught up in pursuing this look, and take it one step too far. I mean look at them, they look freaking great! It’s beautiful. I’m not that beautiful. I know very few who are. But that doesn’t stop me from appreciating their beauty. They’re just gorgeous women, period.

Print media requires photoshop retouching because a still image is examined much more thoroughly and scrutinized beyond any series of moving video clips.

Warning labels won’t accomplish a thing, except for adding more noise to the world. Look how many of these Create Your Toon/Avatar services that have popped up. Most people would love to be Tooned. I bet anyone would love the work I perform on them with photo shop too. If you compared the before and after, bottom dollar says you will choose the photo shopped version to keep for yourself, and share with family to friends.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Why would I try to legislate against that? (I’d rather give them a sandwich.) If it’s real, it’s not fake. And yes, I know some images, like senior class pictures, are altered to remove zits and stuff. I think that’s entirely different.

@wundayatta – I reiterate that no one is trying to censor them by law. Even I would be against that. No one is messing with anyone’s first amendment right here.

@Vunessuh – What if the voluntary rejection or warning labels were not so much just for anorexic people, but for the horny dudes who love them? Don’t they need education too?

Yeah, I know that blows the fantasy, but as you said, if some people will be affected by fantasy, they’ll be affected anyway. if they know what they’re wanking to is fake, perhaps they won’t expect so much (or so little) from real women.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies You say that people want your snake oil, and I don’t doubt it. Many people are very vulnerable. Yet why be proud of taking advantage of their vulnerability? If someone had fallen and broken a leg, making them vulnerable and unable to resist, perhaps you would also not feel bad about taking their wallet. Even if that is the case, though, why be against someone else offering them a helping hand? That’s all the disclaimers or condemnations are, after all—helping hands for someone in need.

@laureth Whoa, there. The vain men who only want to be with women who look like the ones in magazines will be douchebags even if Photoshopped is outlawed. Why would you want to be with someone like that?

@laureth Gender is irrelevant. Men walk the same Earth as women. They aren’t any less privy than we are regarding what Photoshop is, how it works and the fact that it’s used in damn near every advertisement they see. If you know or don’t know that these images are fake, it has nothing to do with your sex. Men are just as responsible for their actions. My responses have applied to everyone.

I also don’t see how masturbating to an edited image is so wrong that it warrants a disclaimer. There isn’t much of a relation between a man masturbating to a magazine and a man calling his girlfriend names because she isn’t as skinny as the Gucci model he jizzed on. Both of those actions are choices (easily made by two very different human-beings who shouldn’t even be compared to each other) and one action does not automatically lead to or is responsible for the other. Also, something tells me men don’t masturbate to those models because they think they’re real. :)

@Vunessuh Right. When we want to masturbate to something real, we use lesbian porn, WHICH IS 100% REAL.

@CunningLinguist ”...why be proud of taking advantage of their vulnerability?”

Because they don’t view their wants as a vulnerability. Who am I to judge? That’s why I didn’t. Why would you judge their wants as a vulnerability? Why make the association at all?

There is no crime in attempting to fulfill the desires of another person. Who is to blame for the drug war, the Mexican Cartel, or the US Citizen who demands the drug?

Believe me, if I felt there was a better way to give you what you think you want, then I would be obliged to offer it to you. What advantage am I taking exactly? You want it, don’t you?

Most people make the mistake of believing that I’m selling you some type of product. I’m not.

I’m selling you nothing more than fantasy fulfillment. That’s all. That’s what you want.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Sell the sizzle, not the steak?

That’s absolutely right @bob_. Not because it’s right. But just because that’s what you want.

See, with the “sizzle”, you’ve been empowered with extra knowledge that your immediate associates don’t possess. By sharing it with them at the mid day water cooler breaks, you have succeeded in convincing yourself that you’ve somehow become elevated beyond the rather dull meanderings of smaller mortal men.

Though everyone else may look upon you as a royal asshole, that pales in comparison to the glory found in spreading knowledge unknown, unsolicited, and probably more than most certainly likely, altogether useless.

I fill you with worthless fluff.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Um, yeah, you kinda lost me somewhere along the way, but I do like the idea of being looked upon as royal.

@bob_ – I don’t want to be with “someone like that,” and luckily, I’m not. But it’s more than the individual I want to mate. It’s about the society I live in.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – If they want your snake oil, why must you persuade them to buy it? If the product is good, wouldn’t they flock anyway?

@Vunessuh – Masturbating to the image isn’t wrong. It’s just fantasy, and everyone has one. It’s when you start impressing that fantasy on the real world, and expecting it to conform to standards that the vast majority of women can’t meet, that something goes awry. Yes, there are a handful of women who look like that: but how many of the fantasy wankers are going to end up with one? If they’re not lucky enough to get one of the women from Realeyes’s video, or someone who resembles them, they’ll have to either (1) be satisfied with a less-than-perfect woman (who they might criticize all the time), or (2) keep wanking.

Folks, let me ask you this. Have you ever felt, in any way, like you don’t measure up to society’s standard for your kind? Like you’re not rich enough, or your penis is too small, or maybe as a woman you’re too smart? It’s like that, except the pressure never really goes away because it’s not just from your partner, it’s from ads, and clerks, and even guys in cars who feel the need to open the windows to tell you, on the sidewalk, that you’re just a little too ugly to be considered. It’d be funny for a while, and then it’s not.

NSFW Images:
This and This – these women are considered “plus-size” nowadays. Do they seem unhealthy to you?

“If they want your snake oil, why must you persuade them to buy it? If the product is good, wouldn’t they flock anyway?”

I work freelance with a company that does trend reporting on a global scale. They get paid millions to predict the future accurately. None of their research is based upon emotion. It’s all math, statistics rule the day. They’ve predicted that trends are changing rapidly.

Our generation of baby boomers (even late ones like me) supposedly base(d) our purchasing decisions on pure emotion. We apparently seek out as many reasons to justify our purchase as possible. The advertisers empower us with the necessary information to ward off rejection. So when you ask, “Why didn’t you get the Chevy?”, I can answer, “Because the Volvo has higher safety rating”.

Get that? I didn’t really buy the Volvo because of it being safer. I bought it because I can defend my ego at dinner parties with the information provided by Volvo as to why I bought their car. The ad campaign did not sell me a safer car. It sold me justification for how I spent my money.
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But compare that to the Emo generation. They don’t want to be sold anything. They want to discover secrets. They’re very cautious about over the top advertising claims. Sure, the Volvo may have better safety rating, but the Emo’s want to research who did the testing, how were the results slanted, what environmental impact does the company produce, and how many youth labor laws were broken when stitching the Corinthian leather seats together. The more advertisers try to sell them something, the more their claims will be researched.

So advertisers have been forced to pursue an alternative plan. Now we see the rise of what’s called Advertorials, where an advertisement is disguised as an editorial. It looks like news, rather than spin. I’ve given you something to discover, beyond that which is found in the brochure. I’ll tell you just a little bad, to gain your trust, but then shower the article with glory to win you completely over.

We also see forums planted with trolls who are paid to promote products. It’s a cheap way of planting information into the Emo mindset. I’m satisfying your quest for discovery, without actually selling anything. In this way, again, the ego is satisfied.
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Alas, promoting a product or service is an absolute must. Even if it’s our little secret between friends (the most ego satisfying experience), the fact is that one of us is promoting what we’ve discovered to the other. Chances are, in todays marketplace, that chain of events began with rumors and hearsay.

The fact is, history is littered with dead products that were the best of their time, but lacked an effective marketing strategy to ensure longevity against inferior products which did take advantage of effective marketing.

Another common trick in todays marketplace is to plant a seed of negentropy into the campaign.

A negative lie can go a long way to confusing the issue.

For instance, I can tag any product with the label “No animal testing”, or “No MSG”. While those claims may be true, they land the suspicion that other companies not so ethical may in fact do animal testing and add MSG to their product, when in fact, no one does those things.

I hear ya. I see similar things in my work. In the grocery store, products that never had gluten in them ever, were suddenly labeled “Gluten-free!!” Gluten free bottled water. Yay. Similarly, in my current business, we have lots of people writing in from the public who want us to promote their product in an “editorial” – which we do not do, because we’re genuinely writing editorials, not paid adverts. Heck, as a mod, I clean that sort of thing out of Fluther almost every day.

Anyway, on a closing note, I found this article today, and I thought it would make a good bookend on this thread as it peters out.

Breaking: Models Un-Photoshopped Pretty Much Just as Hot

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Just because they don’t view their wants as a vulnerability doesn’t mean their wants aren’t a vulnerability. Indeed, half the psychology involved in advertising is taking advantage of the subconscious. Who are you to judge? You are a person who knows that you are selling an illusion, a person who can see through at least some of the smoke and mirrors.

So while there may be no crime in attempting to fulfill some desires, there is a crime in fulfilling other desires. You do not return a borrowed sword to its owner while he is sick with rage. Indeed, you owe it to him not to return it under those conditions. Similarly, the existence of a demand does not obligate anyone to meet it. Those who choose to provide bear responsibility for their own actions.

What’s more, you already know this. You know what you are doing is taking advantage. It is obvious in the way you attempt to rationalize your actions to yourself in the form of a response to other people on this thread. Your need for self-justification is palpable. Do you deny it? Do you not feel it? That’s just further proof of what I said above: people can be vulnerable without realizing it.

But that is not the way the Devil works @CunningLinguist. I am your friend, not your enemy. No one looks out for you more than I do.

I only give you what is best for you. What you think is best, and what I know is best, are not necessarily the same. We both want you to find truth, and at some point in your life, there was probably a time when you thought truth was in the bottom of a bottle, a line of cocaine, or maybe on a porn site or within an eating disorder. I, the Devil, as your closest friend, must play these silly little games with you. I know that truth won’t be found in an addiction, or a disorder… But you won’t listen, and you’re not very brigbt either.

You keep insisting that adjectives are abstract nouns. You think the fast car will make you equal to Fast incarnate. You think the beauty cream will bring you one into union with Beauty. You want to become the Logos. You wish not to have that shining star, you wish to actually be that Shining Star. You want this for you insist that by owning the physical posessions, you somehow unite with the quintessential platonic form of the Logos.

Though I know this to be false, I also know that you’d never believe me if I warned you. Your lust is too great. Lucky for you I’m here to assist you getting all the fantasy you can stand in one lifetime. Lucky for you I’m such a smart Devil. You see my friend @CunningLinguist, the sooner you discover that these fantasies I feed you with are false, then the sooner you’ll fall off your high horse face first in the horse shit. And in your moment of humiliation and shame, and after forgiving yourself and others, then and only then shall you know and become one with the truth we both cherish.

The Devil gets the dirtiest jobs. But hey, somebody’s got to burn. If you want to burn with lust and desire, then burn away burn baby burn. I certainly won’t stop you. Here, let me help you friend.

If I had to work in marketing and advertising to put a roof over my head and feed my family, I’d probably have to rationalize it to myself, too.

That is the rationalization, “the roof over my head and feeding my family”

The other stuff is just a description of the inner mechanical workings. It’s human nature. Every look of approval or disapproval from one person to another is based upon pride and ego. You’re making a judgment upon me right now by thinking I’m the Devil.

I don’t think you’re the Devil, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies. I do, however, think that I would have a hard time working in marketing. I don’t like having to deceive people, to lie, to get them to buy whatever I’m selling. (If I did, I’d start a business.) But if that were the only visible option that would allow me to pursue the goals of feeding my family and not being homeless, I’d have to tell myself some awful-sounding things like that stuff to feel good about my job, simply to be able to get up every morning and sell snake oil to vulnerable people. And if I got really, really good at marketing, my best victim would be myself, if eventually I came to believe that I, as a marketer, were a great good unto the world.

“to deceive people, to lie, to get them to buy whatever I’m selling”

How is it lying to give someone exactly what they want? People are like dogs sniffing around for a bush to pee on. People want to leave their mark. I’m just providing them the bush. If I don’t, they might pee on me.

Do you tell them the truth? Or do you bait the hook, Photoshop models, and tell them they’ll have everything they ever wanted if they buy your snake oil?

(1) I tell them exactly what they need to hear, (2) in the way they want to hear it, (3) which doesn’t always sound like what they need to hear. (3) is only an opinion from a particular perspective, similar to the source of a surely soon to come reply.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’m afraid your latest reply reads like a random string of words to me and not any sort of meaningful set of sentences. Probably my fault, though maybe you were just experimenting with rhetoric and monologue.

The Devil tells you exactly how he works, but it’s brushed aside as random meaninglessness by those he tells. Sharing the methodology does nothing to bring understanding. It won’t be heard above the noise of human lust. It is human desire which drives the marketplace. Acknowledge that, and change may come. Reject that, and watch your warning labels add to the noise, confusing the issue even more than it is.

This article reminded me of our discussion here. :)