UNATTAINABLE BEAUTY -

A glance is enough for one to note that the photo in today’s thumbnail has been altered. The young lady looks beautiful, but she hardly looks real, does she?

And that’s because she isn’t.

The image in the thumbnail has been facetuned to within an inch of its life, and then further ‘enhanced’ using Photoshop.

This is the original photo:

Or is it???

What if I told you that wasn’t the picture the photographer took, that this image had also been altered?

This is the photo we downloaded:

An absolutely stunning young lady. 🤩😍

Sadly, most people wouldn’t choose the third photo as their favorite. They would likely go for the second because this is the type of doctored image we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on social media.

But for the vast majority of us gals, the second image isn’t the one that lives in our mirrors.

No matter how incredible our makeup skills and how many ring lights we focus on ourselves when we take that photo to post to the Gram, in the backs of our minds we’re still consciously aware that we don’t look like that person when we step out of the shower with a freshly scrubbed face. So, why do we assume that others do? Why do we convince ourselves that we’re not as pretty as the girls we’re following when we subconsciously know that they don’t roll out of bed looking like the model on the cover of a fashion magazine either?

Well, it’s not really our fault.

You know those images where you stare at the dot in the center for a minute and then a woman’s face appears on your wall when you glance up? It’s sort of like that. Our brains have been exposed to so many photoshopped images that they’ve become conditioned to view this as the norm rather than the exception, so when we look in the mirror and we don’t see that expectation, we feel like we’re less than.

Consciously, we all know that skin has texture, that pimples exist, as do eyebags and dark circles and hyperpigmentation and all of the other ‘flaws’ that we meticulously edit out of our pictures. But we’ve gotten so used to them not existing in photos that it comes as a shock to our poor brains when we’re faced with them in real life.

Now, I know you’re probably wondering what prompted all of this.

And the inspiration for today’s post came via the latest episode of The Kardashians, in which the youngest sister broke down in tears over people’s mean comments on social media about her looks. Though, technically, the inspiration actually came from Entertainment Tonight’s post about the vulnerable moment, and more specifically the commenter who said “What does she expect when her family has set an unattainable beauty standard?”

But, [and I know I’ll catch some heat for this] they didn’t do that.

WE DID!

The KarJenners didn’t ask anyone to try to look more like them. In fact, I’d dare say it’s likely they weren’t exactly pleased to see so many look-alikes popping up on social media as this would obviously diminish the singularity of the aesthetic upon which their brand was built.

Rather, we were the ones who jumped on the contour train; and in more extreme cases, the BBL wagon.

Think about this for a sec: Jennifer Lopez is an undeniable beauty whose perfect posterior has been a staple in Hollywood since the 1990’s, but we didn’t all run to our neighborhood plastic surgeons asking to look more like her. In fact, back in the day, having a big butt was widely regarded as ‘a bad thing’ by a large portion of the global population. Think of all the sitcoms from way back when in which a standard jab was ‘your butt looks big’, or Snarky Susan at the start of Sir Mix-a-lot’s song who equated having a round butt with looking like a prostitute.

However, with the birth of social media, our feeds (and by extension our brains) were suddenly inundated with ‘perfect’ images of Miz Kimberly. Even if we didn’t follow her, we were being recommended videos and pictures of her because she was ‘what’s trending’ on the apps; and this continual over-exposure created a gradual shift in our collective mindset with regard to the standard of beauty, so much so that even some of her own siblings attempted to emulate her looks and figure.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming Kim for anything. She was merely going along her merry way and doing her thing to promote her show and ultimately get that bag. And let’s not forget that in the first episode of KUWTK, her own mother joked about her having some ‘junk in the trunk’, as if it were a bad thing. Little did they know at the time that her physique would eventually be the one that inspired many to either get a BBL or hit the gym to grow their glutes.

And that perception of beauty will inevitably change once more whenever someone else comes along who grabs our collective attention.

In the 1950’s, Marilyn Monroe was considered a sex symbol, and this curvy beauty was roughly a size 4-6 by today’s dress sizes. Yet a mere decade later, Twiggy’s was the body-type which many sought to emulate despite the fact that her moniker was actually derived from family and friends mocking her about her ‘twig-like figure’. And the 1970’s brought with it yet another shift in society’s perception of beauty thanks to icons like Farrah Fawcett and Angie Dickinson, who made curves popular again.

So, today I want to share a few quotes about beauty: