The Evils of Photoshop

[hepcat]

It affects young girls, the last people I would blame for it is them. Funny how the middle aged guys talk so tough, though, like it's them being threatened. Yeah, huh? And nobody answered my original question, Mike, including you.

*sigh*

My friend, I hope you can cure all the ills you see in the world while you're still young and have the ready solutions close at hand. It seems that as we age and gain experience, the world gains complexity too, and the ready solutions we once held dear no longer seem to fit.

good luck.

 

[tunalegs]

What we need is some editors to just say "don't make things looks ridiculous in photoshop". The kinds of things these people are doing to professional models who were hired because they already look better than 99% of us - is frankly idiotic.

People in this thread don't seem to understand that the problem is not thin models it's stupid A-holes who use photoshop to pinch, stretch, and deform a photographer's hard work to make thin models looks like aliens or deformed barbie dolls.

 

[Sparrow]

... or people could stop buying the magazines, and wearing the clothes?

 

[noisycheese]

It affects young girls, the last people I would blame for it is them. Funny how the middle aged guys talk so tough, though, like it's them being threatened. Yeah, huh? And nobody answered my original question, Mike, including you.

@Ranchu -
Yes, young girls are impressionable and vulernable. Grown adult women, on the other hand should know better. There is no "shame" in being less than 100% flawless and perfect. If women feel shame for being human - which means being inherently flawed in one way or another - apparently they have never evolved beyond the impressionable and vulnerable stage of childhood. My exasperation is not with young girls; it is with grown adults who think and act like spoiled, self-entitled children.

As for "the middle aged guys talk so tough, though, like it's them being threatened" - you know exactly nothing about me or my life, which makes your comment nothing but bull feces. My life has been threatened more than once in my 56 years and I'm still amongst the living. To suppose that anything anyone on this forum says is threatening is laughable.

If I have no patience for shallow, narcissistic adults who feel "shame" because they are not 100% flawless in terms of beauty, it's because I have some perspective. I used to feel depressed due to my own facial scarring caused by an autoimmune disoder that nearly killed me until I saw the man who had his face burned off in the Iraq war - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._Martinez Once I saw Mr. Martinez, I was grateful for the fact that I still have a face.

I hope you will be able to overlook my lack of patience with the shallow and narcissistic adults in our modern culture whose trauma is caused by the fact that they are not as beautiful as they think they deserve to be. To bestow perfect beauty on such a person would be an exercise in futility; all the outer beauty in the world cannot disguise the inner ugliness of a person who holds such an outlook.

 

[tunalegs]

I hope you will be able to overlook my lack of patience with the shallow and narcissistic adults in our modern culture whose trauma is caused by the fact that they are not as beautiful as they think they deserve to be.

It's not that really. It's more as though there are a small group of people who continually present something which is not real, nor even obtainable in reality as "normal" and real.

If it were simply pretty models being prettier than most - that'd be the situation you describe. But it's not that. This extends beyond simple things like smoothing skin in photoshop, it's more like literally distorting models to give them anatomically impossible proportions. I still can't imagine the point behind it except that maybe some people in the magazine industry are friends with somebody higher up and have to do something no matter how idiotic to justify getting handed money.

Somewhere out there is a video which compares the photographer's original photos to the "retouched" images printed in magazines and it ranges from the typical touch ups to completely distorted abominations. It'd be amusing if it weren't so sad to see work butchered so thoughtlessly and clumsily.

 

[Sparrow]

... and those thousands, or perhaps millions, of young people in whom this visual deceit provokes anxiety about their own bodies, sometimes to the point of starving themselves to death.

 

[Ranchu]

Just nasty.

 

[Sparrow]

In the first world we have thousands of underweight and millions of overweight people. What problem do we solve here?

... I didn't say that McDonald's advertising was any more ethical ... perhaps they're just symptoms of the same problem?

 

[Jamie123]

... I didn't say that McDonald's advertising was any more ethical ... perhaps they're just symptoms of the same problem?

Of course they're all symptoms of the same problem which I think, at the risk of sounding Marxist, is capitalist ideology. And I'm somewhat bored by the whole discussion about women's body issues as it completely ignores the fact that it's just one side of the same coin. Women are 'supposed' to be beautiful while men are 'supposed' to be confident, successful and powerful in order to be mutually desireable. The discussion about empowering women often revolves around freeing them from one set of societal pressure (beauty standards) and in turn subjecting them to another set of societal pressure (confidence, success, power). Think "Lean Forward" etc.
If you ask me both is equally harmful in the long run. Not everybody can be beautiful but not everybody can be successful either. And maybe the problem is not that people are subjected to unrealistic ideals of how or who to be in order to get what they want, but rather that they want the wrong things to begin with. Maybe it's not so much what kind of advertising we're subjected to, but rather that we're subjected to advertising all the time.

 

[hepcat]

Maybe it's not so much what kind of advertising we're subjected to, but rather that we're subjected to advertising all the time.

There is much truth here, and little truth in any advertising.

There is a reason that greed was one of the seven deadly sins. Of course, modern advertising makes appeals to and mainstreams all seven of them. Isn't that interesting? Advertising is, metaphorically, the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Eating disorders are frightening, both in toll the disorders take on the person, and the number of people who are living with them. In someone who is naturally slender, losing even a few pounds rapidly can bring on a life-threatening eating disorder. What's even more frightening is that anorexia, for example, is seen as something willful when in fact there are a complex set of hormonal and chemical changes that take place in the brain that cause physical changes in the body... which lead to a degenerating condition. There is nothing willful or voluntary about anorexia or any of the other eating disorder diagnoses for that matter.

Being 20 lbs over-weight is not life-threatening in the short term, being 20 lbs UNDER-weight for any time at all can be life-threatening.

 

[mfunnell]

Being 20 lbs over-weight is not life-threatening in the short term, being 20 lbs UNDER-weight for any time at all can be life-threatening.

A very good friend of mine has been advised by her oncologist that the more weight she puts on (as if!) or at least the less weight she loses, the longer her remaining time will be. Meanwhile her 20-something co-workers (who, to be fair, don't know of her condition) keep complimenting her on how much weight she's losing.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I'm not sure how to draw it.

...Mike

 

[hepcat]

Lest anyone believe that this discussion is inconsequential, or that eating disorders are just a small problem that affect just a few, children treated with eating disorders have risen 72% in the past ten years. I don't know what the rates are for adults, but they have to be staggering.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/anorexia-americas-hidden-epidemic-23432138

 

[tunalegs]

Lest anyone believe that this discussion is inconsequential, or that eating disorders are just a small problem that affect just a few, children treated with eating disorders have risen 72% in the past ten years. I don't know what the rates are for adults, but they have to be staggering.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/anorexia-americas-hidden-epidemic-23432138

Yes but is it an actual is cases of people with disorders, or a case of better awareness and therefore more proper diagnoses?
It sounds like the latter given that in the general population (of adults) about 1% or less are afflicted with bulimia or anorexia, and about 3% have some sort of other eating disorder. There are far more morbidly obese people than anorexic people in the U.S.

That being said there are other problems, social, psychological, etc. that are probably much more prevalent as a result of unrealistic ideas about what a human can or should look like.

 

[noisycheese]

There is much truth here, and little truth in any advertising.

There is a reason that greed was one of the seven deadly sins. Of course, modern advertising makes appeals to and mainstreams all seven of them. Isn't that interesting? Advertising is, metaphorically, the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Eating disorders are frightening, both in toll the disorders take on the person, and the number of people who are living with them. In someone who is naturally slender, losing even a few pounds rapidly can bring on a life-threatening eating disorder. What's even more frightening is that anorexia, for example, is seen as something willful when in fact there are a complex set of hormonal and chemical changes that take place in the brain that cause physical changes in the body... which lead to a degenerating condition. There is nothing willful or voluntary about anorexia or any of the other eating disorder diagnoses for that matter.

Being 20 lbs over-weight is not life-threatening in the short term, being 20 lbs UNDER-weight for any time at all can be life-threatening.

Perhaps the root problem is that since people are being bombarded with what is in essence lies and distortions 24/7/365 (AKA "advertising"), a high percentage of them cannot distinguish the distorted, fantasy world of advertising from the real world in which they live.

The message of advertising is at its core, "If your life (or your body or your career or your teeth or your hair or your car) is not exactly like what we are showing you here, there is something WRONG with you - that's where we come in; buy our crap and your life will be a neverending orgy of ecstasy and joy." What an arbitrary, laughable and contrived load of bull sh@t! 🙄

It takes at least some critical thnking ability to divine truth, fact and reality from distortions, lies and bullsh@t, though - and therein lies the rub.

The good Messr. Hicks' phrase "the hard of thinking" comes to mind, along with P.T. Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute." People who cannot think for themselves will be manipulated and taken advantage of by the dishonorable and unethical of our culture. This has been the case since the beginning of time.

 

[hepcat]

Yes but is it an actual is cases of people with disorders, or a case of better awareness and therefore more proper diagnoses?
It sounds like the latter given that in the general population (of adults) about 1% or less are afflicted with bulimia or anorexia, and about 3% have some sort of other eating disorder. There are far more morbidly obese people than anorexic people in the U.S.

That being said there are other problems, social, psychological, etc. that are probably much more prevalent as a result of unrealistic ideas about what a human can or should look like.

The fact is that no one can say for sure, but I think that publicity about eating disorder symptoms have probably done a lot for family practice physicians in diagnosing cases. Treatment, on the other hand, is still very hit and miss, expensive, and largely ineffective.

I find it interesting that most parents whose children are diagnosed with an eating disorder have no idea what's going on until the child is diagnosed though. Most of the medical community is quite clueless about eating disorders; even in "eating disorder" treatment units. Eating disorders are still seen as willful behavior by the majority of the public including many people in the medical community, and is treated with some of the same chemicals as depression; and they're seldom successful. I have to think that being morbidly obese is also the result of disordered eatin as well; it merely remains undiagnosed in those terms.

 

[hepcat]

Perhaps the root problem is that since people are being bombarded with what is in essence lies and distortions 24/7/365 (AKA "advertising"), a high percentage of them cannot distinguish the distorted, fantasy world of advertising from the real world in which they live.

The message of advertising is at its core, "If your life (or your body or your career or your teeth or your hair or your car) is not exactly like what we are showing you here, there is something WRONG with you - that's where we come in; buy our crap and your life will be a neverending orgy of ecstasy and joy." What an arbitrary, laughable and contrived load of bull sh@t! 🙄

It takes at least some critical thnking ability to divine truth, fact and reality from distortions, lies and bullsh@t, though - and therein lies the rub.

The good Messr. Hicks' phrase "the hard of thinking" comes to mind, along with P.T. Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute." People who cannot think for themselves will be manipulated and taken advantage of by the dishonorable and unethical of our culture. This has been the case since the beginning of time.

Critical thinking seems to be a thing of the past. What's even more sad is that those who stand up and say "wait a minute here..." are often shouted down by the masses who are being taken in. It is a sad state of affairs.

 

[tunalegs]

The good Messr. Hicks' phrase "the hard of thinking" comes to mind, along with P.T. Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute." People who cannot think for themselves will be manipulated and taken advantage of by the dishonorable and unethical of our culture. This has been the case since the beginning of time.

Unfortunately a lot of people are taught to learn - rather than to think.

 

[rivercityrocker]

Unfortunately a lot of people are taught to learn - rather than to think.

That's a great way of explaining the problems inherent in most of society today. People are definitely not encouraged to think for themselves.

 

[Ranchu]

Always convenient to blame the victim, really what's even better is if you can manage to generate bitterness and hatred toward them in yourself and in the people you meet. There is a sucker born every minute, you know?

"The everyday practical activity of tribesmen reproduces, or perpetuates, a
tribe. This reproduction is not merely physical, but social as well. Through
their daily activities the tribesmen do not merely reproduce a group of human
beings; they reproduce a tribe, namely a particular social form within which
this group of human beings performs specific activities in a specific manner.
The specific activities of the tribesmen are not the outcome of “natural”
characteristics of the men who perform them, the way the production of
honey is an outcome of the nature of a bee. The daily life enacted and
perpetuated by the tribesman is a specific social response to particular
material and historical conditions.

The everyday activity of slaves reproduces slavery. Through their
daily activities, slaves do not merely reproduce themselves and their masters
physically; they also reproduce the instruments with which the master
represses them, and their own habits of submission to the masterʼs authority.
To men who live in a slave society, the master-slave relation seems like a
natural and eternal relation."

www.prole.info/pamphlets/reprodaily.pdf‎

 

[hepcat]

Always convenient to blame the victim, really what's even better is if you can manage to generate bitterness and hatred toward them in yourself and in the people you meet. There is a sucker born every minute, you know?
‎

Ranchu, no one is blaming the victims... least of all me.

We're blaming a society that doesn't teach our children critical thinking skills, and then inundates them with outrageous and damaging messages. We don't teach our children and fellow citizens to evaluate the world on their own terms.

We're feeding our children and ourselves harmful chemicals (bromine, aluminum, artificial sweetners, fructose, PCBs and a host of other inorganic chemicals) and calling it food. We should congratulate ourselves on producing food that is almost devoid of nutritional value. We've been killing our children and ourselves in and with cars for nearly a hundred years. We're subjecting ourselves to unquantifiable RF radiation, air pollution, water polution, and heavy metals every day.

When something is wrong with us, rather than looking for holistic solutions we go to the doctor and either demand a drug or surgery. We subject ourselves to untold societal stresses every day. Our children are exposed to non-stop violence and sexual messages. Mental health issues are rampant, and there is no where to seek help.

Other than the general failure to be able to think critically and discern valid claims from spurious claims and to discern reality from fantasy, no one is blaming the victims of these terrible disorders. And other than that rapid weight loss in a short period of time seems to be common, at least to anorexics, no one even knows for sure what triggers an eating disorder.