Why you never seem to look like your favourite influencers no matter how attractive you are

Since social media has existed, people have wanted to control their online persona to be what they want people to see them as. Whether that’s richer, funnier, more confident, or more ‘edgy’, presenting yourself in a certain way to people who will never meet you online seems like the best way for a person to reinvent themselves without being afraid of rejection or embarrass like you would in real life, because on the internet there is a community for everyone.

However as time has gone on and technology has progressed, what has gone from a few white lies about how popular someone is in real life, has turned into a full production set needed for one photo on an ‘influencers’ feed. Photoshop, video editing, and even green screen sets, are all sometimes needed to take those Insta worthy shots now. But to be fair, the majority of people know this already, so why is this still an issue?

As mentioned above, pretty much every social media user knows that influencers edit their photos. They may edit out problem features on their face, figure, or even the background. It’s also no secret that many of these people are also wearing a full face of makeup in many of these pictures, with dedicated stylists often on hand to touch up errors, and this can also give the illusion of perfection. Also, with the correct lighting and expensive cameras, pretty much anybody could look like a model. So whilst we are sitting behind our phone camera lenses in poor lighting, noticing all our flaws and imperfections are on full display even though we could swear we looked attractive in the mirror, of course social media influences end up looking more attractive, even if they’re not necessarily any more less attractive than anybody else.

Where the issues begin however is when influencers begin to lie about what has been retouched. Even at times claiming a photo has not been edited, has been edited in some way. It is extremely toxic and dangerous for an influencer to claim that a photo of them with edited out acne, facial hair, excess skin, etc. (AKA what society views as ‘unattractive’) is posted with the claim that it is all natural; and the worst part about it is many people do not realise actually quite how common this is. Many influencers even try to get around getting caught out by a) wearing a minute amount of makeup so they don’t have to edit the photo, or b) leaving out a few ‘imperfections’ during the editing process in order to maintain that ‘natural’ look. This contributes to the toxic nature of these social media photos, and not because they’re edited (editing photos is not always inherently wrong) but when those influencers claim that they haven’t edited the images, this creates a feeling of jealousy amongst followers, making them potentially question their own bodies and wonder why they don’t look like that themselves with ‘no makeup or filter’.

As a whole, we need to be more responsible about what we are putting online. On our part, we should be careful to not mislead people in a way to trick them that something fake is a reality; and also we need to accept the hard reality of the situation and realise that influences are not our friends. This does not mean they are bad people, there are many influences that are amazing people and probably do care about their followers, but even then there is a massive line between being a friend and being friendly. Influences do not talk to their followers the same way they talk to their friends, and if they do then it’s usually the exception not the rule. This would bring us one step closer to browsing social media in a safer, more comfortable way.