I love Instagram, seeing what friends and family are up to and getting insight into people’s lives. It’s a great way to keep in touch especially now that travel is so restricted. But what happens when Instagram vs Reality photo manipulation means that what we see isn’t a true representation of someone?  

When celebrities and influencers are making, sometimes subtle sometimes not, changes to their photos how do we know we can trust what we see? Instagram vs Reality photo manipulation is shocking to see but once you see it, you can look at all posts with a critical eye. This is going to help massively with comparison, knowing that what you see on Instagram vs Reality is photo manipulation.

Pinterest leads the way

I wrote recently about Pinterest’s announcement, you can read it here, about removing all weight loss advertising, any language around body shaming or fat shaming and the move towards a more body positive and body acceptance message. This is wonderful news for many of us emotional eaters. Our own personal war against our bodies is largely due to the pervasive message that we are “not enough”. Not slim enough, not beautiful enough, not tall enough ad nauseum. The message is everywhere.

Instagram vs Reality Photo Manipulation

Luckily it doesn’t take long to call these companies out on the crappy message they send to women. Dimples ARE cute, and guess what Avon, they’re perfectly normal. Women have cellulite to help balance their hormones, that fat is healthy. Telling women that they shouldn’t have body fat is downright dangerous. I wanted to research more after seeing this photo comparison of Chrissy Teigen. 

I was so disappointed when I saw this because Chrissy is one of the few celebrities who shows up on Instagram showing flaws, and she famously showed off the stretch marks on her legs saying “hey this is normal”. It felt like a huge coup so you can imagine how disheartened I was when I saw the photo manipulation. It just proves that Instagram vs Reality is a massive problem.

Instagram Influencers

These influencers are paid, sometimes an incredible amount of money, to mention products or services. This is where it becomes troublesome. That skinny tea is not responsible for your incredibly thin thighs, nor is that face cream responsible for your flawless look. Yes they “might” do something but they are not the miracle products they proclaim to be. It’s all a scam and it needs to be stopped. 

I quickly learned just how much of a ruse it all is. Most of the photos are manipulated and I was shocked to see just how easy it was to change my photos by downloading an app. I took what I believed to be a nice photo of myself, and put it through one of these apps, you can see the results in the video. I was almost completely transformed into a glamazon version of myself that my own mother wouldn’t recognise. Watch the video below to see what I look like.

Stop Comparing

You can see just how badly represented real women are on social media and we need to stop holding ourselves up to the standards set for us by fake photos and manipulated images. They simply don’t exist and to compare ourselves to fictional women seems crazy when you think about it. Yet, for many of us, we have been doing it for a long time even though we know that the majority of brands will photoshop the images used. If you need to, take a break from social media or unfollow any accounts that use photographic manipulation.

Nobody can win the comparison game against images that aren’t real!