Photoshop community ‘fixing’ celebrities’ faces on Instagram – yay or nay? (4 of 4)

Another popular TikTok handle (@photoshoppetopia) was heavily criticized, and rightly so, for editing a photo of Zendaya, which made the actress’s lips smaller, nose a bit slimmer, and the jawline narrower. The caption of the photo read “perfect features’‘, which the photoshop community almost exclusively refers to as Eurocentric facial features. However, what’s more contrasting is the fact that there seems to be no accountability for people who run these accounts – many of them in fact declined to have a conversation in the fear that the hate they receive will only compound if they did so.

The 30-year old New York resident who runs the popular handle @just.a.tweak says that it is understandable that the way they edit their photographs with a smaller nose, bigger eyes, and narrower jawline may promote a certain kind of beauty standard, it is justified as long as people know it is a photoshopped image. However, by that time, it is way too late as the photos become a beauty ideal amongst fans by then. In fact, University of Warwick research points out that when a photo is marked as ‘enhanced’ or ‘photoshopped’, our desire to copy that look or appearance increases manifold. This widens the crevice between the real self image and the retouched one.

In fact, the very assumption that such photos are just passive content for adolescents is doing it a disservice. They are the natives in this case, where the vast majority are used to looking at themselves through the filters and photoshops. They are very well aware that such alterations are not real, it is just that it doesn’t affect them or their pursuit.

And endless comments such as “perfection” and “damn, she is super pretty” only make it clear that these young people idolize edits as if those are real pictures.

@just.a.tweak argues that people love to see the ideal beauty. However, what such accounts do not realize is that what they call art is something that is and should be considered completely irresponsible. When most of these accounts also offer retouching services to these users through DMs, it is quite evident how the beauty culture has moved far and beyond the Beverly Hills type procedures into a digital and frankly far more cyborg-ian and sinister world. What is more damaging is the belief that something is beautiful, unless it is untouchable. And if it is, then it isn’t just beautiful enough.