Today I wanna discuss the ethics of photo editing on social media.
I'm not talking about upping the brightness of a photo a little bit or turning down the contrast on the photo a little bit, or changing the temperature of the photo a little bit.
No, I'm talking about retouching the image.
I'm talking about going in and changing the image, completely smoothing out your skin, making your waist a little smaller, making your toes a little less wide, making your jawline a little sharper.
I'm talking about going in and retouching an image.
Prior to apps like Facetune, you had to know how to use a professional photo editing software like Photoshop in order to truly change an image and make it look believable.
You needed to open up your computer, open up Photoshop, and get in there.
It was not easy.
Photoshop is not easy.
I, to this day, don't know how to use Photoshop.
It is really challenging and time-consuming to use.
So I think for a while there, social media was pretty... real, right?
There wasn't really an option for the everyday person to retouch their images.
But now, with apps like Facetune, anyone can go in and make their lips bigger, make their jawline sharper, make their toes longer, smooth out their skin, do whatever they can possibly imagine to an image, and it's never been easier.
Photo editing apps in general are incredibly accessible now and incredibly easy to use.
I mean, don't get me wrong, there are some people that don't have the magic thumb when it comes to using Facetune and you can tell that they Facetune the image.
But there are some people out there that are so fucking good at it that you can't even tell they used an app like Facetune.
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I find it so fascinating how it's not just celebrities and public figures who Facetune and Photoshop their photos.
It's also the person who works next to you at work, or the person who's sitting at a traffic light next to you.
It's like anyone, and everyone can and probably is editing and retouching their photo in some way on social media.
I think it's hard to know that these editing apps exist and to not want to use them.
Because how often do you look at a photo and you're like oh, this photo is so good, except I wish my hair looked a little different, or I wish my leg looked a little different, or I wish my lips looked a little different.
Oh, I wish, you know, it happens to all of us.
But now if we want, we can secretly go and edit that little imperfection.
Imperfection is in quotes with my fingers because it's not actually an imperfection at all.
But a lot of us perceive these things as imperfections.
So you get what I'm saying.
It's so tempting to just want to go in and tweak little things about an image so that you love it and you can go and post it right.
And feel good about it.
And you don't have to just accept this thing about yourself that maybe you don't like.
I think that's why so many people nowadays use apps like Facetune to edit their photos.
Because why not?
It's available and nobody's going to know.
So why not?
I think the most dangerous part about photo editing these days is that it can be impossible to spot.
Obviously, there are times when it's obvious that a photo was edited.
You know, Snapchat filters or Instagram filters are cutesy and obvious and you can tell that there's a filter on their face.
People who aren't so savvy with photo editing apps can sometimes overdo it.
And you can sometimes tell.
You can pretty much every time tell.
If someone has a heavy hand on Facetune, it is obvious.
There are times when photo editing or filters are obvious.
Yes, the image is altered, but it's not as damaging to the viewer because it's obvious.
It's like this is an edited photo.
I would say majority of the time, though, photos are tweaked, but it's not obvious.
When we're scrolling through social media, we don't see an image and immediately start looking for where it was edited.
Unless it's obvious that the photo was edited or there's a filter on it, we're just going to immediately assume subconsciously, that this photo is accurate, right?
It's kind of similar to how we read a headline.
We see a news headline or we see an article headline and we might take that headline as fact without reading the article first.
And a lot of times when you read an article, you're like, oh wait, okay, now I see what's going on.
And it's usually a little different than what the headline was.
The headline or the title of the article is usually a bit more inflated or a bit more extreme than for clicks.
And then the actual article itself is a little different.
It's the same thing with scrolling through social media.
We look through social media and we see an image and it's like the headline.
And the fact that it's actually edited is like the rest of the article.
But we don't read the rest of the article most of the time.
And with an Instagram photo, you can't read the rest of the article.
You don't know if the photo's edited.
Sometimes it's impossible to tell.
It's like, okay, see, that's why that's a bad metaphor, right?
Because with an Instagram photo, all you get is the headline.
You actually don't get the article.
So you never even have the opportunity to find out whether or not it's real or accurate.
So luckily the conversation has become more open about photo editing.
It's like you might as well go in to using social media, just assuming that pretty much everything you see is edited in some way.
It's like, yes, deep down we know that so many people use apps like Facetune.
But when you're scrolling through and you're seeing an image that looks completely normal, like untouched, your brain is immediately just going to take it as fact regardless.
Because that's the experience I have.
Social media in general has had catastrophic effects on people's mental health.
And that's ignoring the retouching side of things.
Social media by nature breeds the best of the best.
You're not gonna post your third favorite photo of yourself.
You're gonna choose your favorite photo of yourself, where you look the best.
The environment around you looks the best, the food you're eating looks the best.
You and your significant other look the cutest.
You're always gonna choose your best image to post on social media, always.
Why would you choose your third favorite?
It just doesn't make sense.
So, by nature, social media is breeding content that is somewhat inaccurate, because a brief snapshot in time will never be able to tell the full story.
You could take a photo in a green, lush field.
And what the other side of the camera doesn't see is a big garbage dump with a bunch of trash, just the dump.
You know what I'm saying?
Like to be super corny about it, you're never getting the full picture.
But now layer on top of that, the ability to discreetly edit a photo to make it look even better.
Now you have an even more unrealistic version of reality that's going out there on the internet.
This is obviously causing a lot of psychological distress in people in general.
This constant comparing to perfect imagery is damaging.
I mean, it's obvious why, right?
I'm just not even going to get into it, okay?
But here's where our conversation is today.
Here's where the conversation is today.
I'm facing sort of a moral dilemma, like on a personal level, about photo editing, photo retouching, etc.
What I'm trying to figure out is is it ever okay to alter your appearance in imagery?
Are there exceptions?
Are there times when it's okay?
Because when I look at this dilemma at face value, I very easily come to the conclusion that yeah, we should probably avoid this at all costs.
We should probably not ever edit our appearance and imagery.
Like what is the morally right thing to do?
It's not to edit your photo under any circumstance, or even video, because nowadays you can edit your video too, which is insane to me.
Okay.
So here's how we're going to try to come to a conclusion today.
I broke this dilemma down into three arguments.
Argument number one, photo editing is okay when it's used responsibly.
Argument number two, photo editing is never okay, no questions asked.
Argument number three, photo editing is completely fine.
It's your social media.
It's your body.
You can do whatever you want with it.
So I'm going to argue from all sides here.
And maybe that will help us come to a conclusion here.
Argument number one, Photoshop is okay when used responsibly.
So this is kind of somewhere in between argument number two and argument number three.
This is like the middle ground.
You know when you look in the mirror one day and you're like, ah, I just look so good.
Today is my day.
Like I wish it was my birthday because I look so hot today.
I wish that there was something happening later.
Like I wish that it was a special occasion because I look so good today.
Okay, well that almost never happens to me.
But it has happened a few times.
So you know when you're having a day like that and then you go and take a photo.
Someone takes a photo of you.
And you see it and you're like, oh my God, that is the most hideous photo I've ever seen.
Who's lying?
The mirror or the phone?
Like something's off and someone's lying.
Something's lying.
Or does someone ever take a photo of you inside and you see it and you're like, oh, that's hideous.
But then you go outside into the good lighting and you're like wait a minute.
That photo is really good.
Like that's the best photo I've ever seen of myself.
How is that the same person?
How is this even on the same day?
You probably had these types of moments.
And The reason for that is because photos are only just a 2D snapshot in time.
They are not completely accurate and they really never can be.
The only 100% accurate representation of you is you in person.
I mean, even you looking in the mirror is a little off, because your face is reversed and you have your own preconceived idea of what you look like, and so your sort of perception of yourself isn't 100 accurate.
Pretty much the only accurate representation of you is you being perceived by another person in person.
Photos in particular, to stay on track here, are only capable of capturing so much.
I one time saw this collage on my Instagram explore page, my favorite resource for all information.
And it showed like 10 different photos of a person all using a different lens.
But the person was the same.
The lighting was the same.
The location was the same.
It was the same day.
The only thing that was different was the lens that was used on the camera to take the photo of them.
Okay.
And it was mind blowing how different the person looked in every photo just because the camera lens was changed.
I've also seen a diagram, probably from the same Instagram account, showing like 10 photos of the same person using the same camera, using the same lens, where each photo had different lighting.
And again, it was insane to see how different the person looked in every photo.
And that really opened my eyes to how unreliable photos can be.
You know, photos not only flatten your features because they're 2D, but they can also sort of distort the way you look due to certain angles or types of lighting or camera lenses or whatever.
Right.
I mean, even moving around when a photo is being taken can distort the image completely.
Photos are accurate to an extent, but there are times when photos are not completely accurate.
Right.
And this brings us to argument number one, you know, Photoshop. is okay when used responsibly.
What if Facetune Photoshop is used to make the photo look more accurate to what the human eye sees, rather than altering the reality that the image is trying to capture completely?
It's sort of like lying to tell the truth.
I mean, this saying could mean a lot of things.
Like in art, it could mean to exaggerate something that you're painting in order to convey some sort of truth or reality.
So an example of that would be let's say, you're painting a beach scene and you're painting the waves.
Let's say you're painting this painting from the perspective of a child.
When a child sees the waves, the child sees massive towering waves.
When in reality, the waves are only three or four feet.
But to a child, a wave seems massive, larger than life.
So let's say an artist decides to paint this scene of the beach from a child's perspective and decides to paint the waves massive, much larger than they are in real life, to sort of tell the truth of what it is really like to see the beach as a child.
Okay, that's sort of lying to tell the truth in art.
In a photo, it could mean photoshopping an image to better depict reality.
So let's say in person, your skin looks actually really smooth and great.
Glowy, you've been doing your skincare routine.
Not that that helps with acne.
Acne.
Listen, I'll be the first to say.
Sometimes acne just decides to be there and no skincare routine can fix it.
Okay.
I've been on Accutane, the acne medication that literally is the strongest on the market.
And that's how I got rid of my acne.
So skincare can help maintain, but that's just, that's about it.
So don't take that the wrong way because I'm defensive about that.
But let's say you're having a good skin day.
Your skin looks glowy and amazing.
But then, let's say, you take a selfie and there was a little bit of overhead light and your skin looks a bit more textured than it did in person.
And let's say you're like oh, but I really like this photo because the way that the light is reflecting out of my eyes, it looks so beautiful.
But I really don't like how my skin looks.
So let's say you go into Facetune and you smooth out your skin a little bit.
Because when you look in the mirror and when you shift around the lighting a little bit, even on your phone, you see oh, my skin doesn't really look like that.
But this one photo that you really like, something else about just happened to have bad lighting.
That wasn't flattering for your skin texture, okay.
So you go in and smooth it a little bit.
To me, I'm like, okay, that's kind of whatever because that is sort of lying to tell the truth.
I think the argument here is that this is harmless.
You know, if you want to slightly smooth out a shadow that's on your face or make teeny, teeny tweaks to parts of the image that are distorted, you know, maybe you had a hair that was out of place or maybe your eye was half shut in the photo.
So you want to kind of open, widen it a little bit.
To me, those things are kind of silly, right?
It's kind of silly to go in and do that.
But at the same time I don't know if I would consider that to be fully problematic, because you're not altering an image to a point where you're unrecognizable.
You're editing an image to make it a better representation of reality in some way.
If somebody were to see you in real life after seeing that edited photo of you, they wouldn't be like wait a minute, that's a photo of you.
They'd be like, oh, that's you.
Yeah, maybe it improved the image a little bit, but I think a lot of times with these sorts of tweaks it's like It's more of a personal thing, just perfecting the image for your own sort of satisfaction.
But the average onlooker of the photo is not even going to see anything.
I guess the argument here is that this type of editing is harmless, it's responsible and it's not changing reality in any way.
If anything, it's lying to tell the truth.
And It's not too far from the original image.
It's, you know, it's responsible photo editing.
I will say, though, there's a fine line, right?
It's like who really knows where the line is between responsible photo editing and irresponsible photo editing.
The line is blurred.
You can convince yourself that you are editing photos responsibly when in reality you're not.
And I think that's the only concern with this is saying that responsible photo editing is okay is allowing people to sort of come up with their own definition for it, which is kind of uncontrollable because everybody's definition of responsible photo editing is going to be different.
And some people might convince themselves that what they're doing is okay and responsible, when in reality it's like oh, you're kind of.
You're kind of overdoing it.
Do you know what I mean?
So that's the issue with argument number one.
The definition of responsible photo editing is not definite and it never can be, because it's sort of a vague moral concept.
But I think in theory...
Argument number one is pretty, pretty strong.
Yeah, you can Photoshop, you can edit a photo, but do it responsibly and don't change reality while you're at it, okay.
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Okay, now let's dig into argument number two.
Photoshop is never okay.
It only takes one Google search to find countless articles about how the abundance of false imagery responsibly edited or irresponsibly edited imagery has led to a jarring increase in mental health struggles.
It's no secret to anyone that social media and even marketing images from companies are that are edited, have had a negative impact on people's mental health.
It's very clear.
Some believe that Photoshop is always morally wrong.
The only accurate type of image is an accurate image that is untouched, completely raw and completely accurate.
And if you don't like a photo, then you don't use it and you find a way to take a better photo so that you don't have to go in there and start retouching it and doing all this shit.
Posting an edited image is deliberately making a choice to add to the mental health epidemic at hand.
This is argument number two, okay?
It's a lot more short and sweet, but it's basically the idea that any edited image is a form of lying.
It is a form of deceiving.
It's a form of evil, some would argue.
And the truth is bad photos happen.
Okay, bad photos happen all the time.
In order to get a good photo that is flattering and maybe aesthetically pleasing, the lighting has to be good.
The background has to be good.
The quality of the camera has to be good.
There's a lot of variables involved in taking a good photo, and even at a professional photo shoot, you will see the photographer, the lighting people, the prop people, everyone scrambling to perfect the image.
Constantly you'll see people scrambling all day making tweaks so that the photos will be better, because it's not easy to get a good photo between the variables and the 2D nature of an image.
It's not easy to get a good photo period.
It's challenging.
I've been on photo shoots really professional photo shoots where they've had to tweak the lighting for 30 minutes because it just wasn't right.
And so I think the people who are completely anti photo retouching in every way, shape or form believe, if you want to have the right to post things on social media, You shouldn't post something unless you're happy with the image as it is.
And if you go in and you edit a photo and you post it, even if you just edit it a little bit, you are deliberately adding to the false nature of social media that's harming so many people's minds.
That's an argument.
And now let's get to argument number three.
Argument number three is Photoshop is completely fine.
It's your social media that you're posting on and it's your body that you're editing.
So you can do what you want with it.
Technically, people are free to do whatever they want on social media.
I mean not free to do whatever they want, but as long as you're not a public figure selling a product, you can edit a photo however you want.
There's no rules against it.
That's sort of a right as a human being, you know?
Some would argue that you shouldn't be allowed to do that.
But at the same time I don't know if it's right to take people's right away to edit a photo however they want.
I feel like that's someone's prerogative.
If they want to do that, they should be able to do that.
Whether or not it's morally right, you know.
Probably not.
But then again, everyone's moral compass is different.
And so some people might think this is my body in my image.
If I want to edit it and I want to Photoshop it, I can do that.
And no one's allowed to say shit to me, because if they take this image too seriously or if they compare themselves to this image, that's not my responsibility.
That's theirs.
So some people might think it's morally okay to edit images of themselves because it's their image.
They're not editing an image of somebody else's body.
They're just editing themselves and their body, right?
So argument number three basically says anyone can do whatever they want with their own image.
And it's not up to anyone else what they decide to do with it.
It's no one else's business.
Argument three also states that it's your responsibility as a social media user to follow people who make you feel good.
Take every image with a grain of salt and delete a social media app if it's impacting your mental health in a negative way.
And honestly, there's some truth to that too.
I'm talking about myself personally right now.
As a social media user, I know that constantly comparing myself to perfect imagery is really hard for me and it's negative for me at times.
And when I feel myself falling into a rhythm where I feel bad about myself because I'm constantly seeing all this perfect stuff, all of these perfect things all the time, I take responsibility for my own actions.
No one's telling me that I need to be scrolling on Instagram looking at photos that make me feel bad about myself.
I'm deliberately choosing to do that as an.
I can't get mad at other people for posting what they want to post if it upsets me in some way, because I don't have to be looking at it.
I can mute people.
I can block people.
I can delete the app off my phone.
In a lot of ways, that is my responsibility.
So, whether or not it's morally right or wrong to edit your body or face in some way in a photo and post it on social media, People have that right and it is up to social media users to regulate what they look at.
Now there is a gray area here because there are young people under the age of 18 that are on social media, which is unfortunate, because I was one of those kids who grew up on social media and it affected me in a lot of ways negatively.
It is unfortunate that young people are growing up on the internet In a lot of ways.
I think in a lot of ways, it's actually really amazing.
But in a lot of ways, it's fucking awful.
And I think this is one of the reasons why it's awful.
Because a lot of young kids can't regulate their behavior as well as an adult.
They can't take responsibility for their actions as well as an adult, because they don't have a fully developed brain.
Your ability to determine what's making you feel bad about yourself when you're like 14.
That's challenging.
When I was 14, I don't even know what I thought about.
OK.
So it would have been impossible for me, as a 14 year old, to figure out.
Oh wait, when I see all of these pictures of people living what seems to be a perfect life, who look pretty all the time.
That makes me feel bad.
It would have been impossible for me to figure that out, yet that was what was happening to me even at that age.
So that's the gray area with argument number three, that it's like there's nothing wrong with it.
Ever right.
But even still, that's the responsibility of the parents to shield their children from seeing sort of inaccurate content on social media.
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Okay, so to review all of the arguments here.
Argument one photo editing is okay when used responsibly.
I would say this is the argument I'm leaning towards the most, because I am so aware of how inaccurate images can be.
And I also think there's nothing wrong really, with cleaning up an image here and there when the image is not properly depicting reality or there's something about it that's a little off and you want to just fix it.
I don't really see anything wrong or harmful about that because you're not changing reality.
But I think my one challenge with this argument is that it could be abused.
People could say I'm editing responsibly and they're not.
So argument one is my favorite, but I'm not 100% sold on it.
Argument two, photo editing is never okay.
I think that this might be a little bit too extreme.
I love the sentiment.
If you don't fucking like the image and you need to tweak something about it, take another image, because that's not the one.
Wait until you can capture an image that you're happy with, so that you can post something that's completely accurate, because that's the only way that you can ensure 100 that you're posting in good faith is if you do not edit it.
I think in theory, this makes a lot of sense.
You know, any form of photo editing is lying.
Yeah, kind of.
But going back to argument number one, sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth.
And so if you're lying to tell the truth, you're not really harming anyone.
But maybe that's just one big excuse for tweaking an image, when in reality you should just be trying harder to get a better image that you like more right.
Argument number two sounds good in theory, but I think in execution, it's just too extreme.
And it's not even really... helpful because it's just probably never going to happen.
But I think we could accomplish a lot with just argument number one.
But then argument number one has some loopholes.
And then argument number three, photo editing is completely fine.
It's your social media and it's your body, so you can do what you want with it.
I think that's true, but I can't sit here and say that I think it's morally right to completely go in and tweak your body and your face and all of this to a point where it doesn't even reflect reality anymore.
I can't say that I think that that's morally okay.
I don't think that that's a good thing at all.
I think that's a bad thing, right?
So I would say argument number three is true, that it's kind of no one else's business what someone does with their photo.
But morally, I don't align with it.
I don't align with the behavior.
Right.
So overall, here's where I stand.
A photo is too edited to, If someone would be shocked to see you in person and I know that that sounds harsh, right.
But this is incredibly common.
People editing their photos to a point where they're a different person online versus in person.
I see it all the time.
I mean, I might be particularly exposed to this because...
I live in Los Angeles, the Facetune capital of the universe, right?
You know, I see people sometimes in person where I'm like, you look amazing in person.
You probably look even better in person, but you look completely different online.
I think, if you edit yourself to a point where people would see you in person and say wait a damn minute, what?
Then you have a problem on your hands and you're probably overdoing it.
And it's your right to do that, but it's probably a sign of some issues that maybe need to be worked out in a way right.
Because if you're editing yourself that much, you might be struggling with accepting certain things, parts of yourself.
And no one in this entire world needs to facetune themselves up.
There's not one person on this planet.
Everyone can look incredible in a photo.
Everyone.
Because what is charming about a photo is...
Where someone is and whether or not they look happy or whether or not they're wearing an outfit that they think is cool, like that's what really matters.
That's a good photo.
And I don't think anyone needs to go in and reshape their whole appearance.
I don't think that that's what the tool should be used for.
Slight tweaks to make the photo a little bit cleaner and depict reality a little better.
Sure.
Sure, looking completely different in person, no one needs to be doing that.
People might think that they need to do that, but they do not.
No one needs to do that.
The problem with all of this is that it's incredibly hard to find a healthy balance.
Things like Facetune and editing apps can become addicting.
And you might start out by just making small tweaks.
It can be easy to want to go in and start tweaking other things.
That's why finding the balance is so hard.
I mean, I think in theory, everyone should just delete the apps altogether.
But I think At the same time, these tools can be incredibly helpful for going in and fixing the flaws of inaccurate cameras as well.
That's why I don't want to completely say that all face tuning, all photo editing is wrong, because I don't think I can say that in good faith either.
There are times when you just want to kind of clean up an image and you're not...
So it's confusing.
It's really confusing because the line is so fine and it's so blurred too.
And I don't think that there is a distinct answer at this point.
I think the golden rule should be to post in good faith.
You know what you're doing.
So if you go in to clean up an image and... you know, you have a little bit too much fun.
You know what you're doing.
You can lie to yourself and say, I'm being responsible.
This is responsible photo editing.
But I think deep down, we all know when it's okay and when it's not.
I think my conclusion is that I don't really have a conclusion, because all of these three arguments are fair.
What I really think it comes down to is posting in good faith.
You know what's morally right and wrong.
That doesn't mean you're always going to act on that, but you know what's right and wrong.
And if you can be honest with yourself and stick to that and fight the urge to want to go in and really tweak an image, then I think everything's going to be all right.
And also if you're finding yourself in a place where you're consuming social media and it's harming you mentally because you're being exposed to potentially edited images at all times when you're on social media.
Fuck this.
I'm done.
You know I'm deleting this, or I'm just going to look at my family and friends, social media or whatever.
Take control of your own life and, you know, take responsibility for your usage of social media, because it's also your responsibility to you know.
All you can control is what you do, what you post, what you look at.
That's all you can control.
You can't control if your favorite IG baddie smoothed out her butt or something.
You can't control that.
So you can't even be mad at it.
Why even be mad about it?
Because you can't control it.
Just don't look at it anymore.
Block them.
Never look at their page again.
But when you post, you can control whether or not you go in and start smoothing stuff.
So maybe the conclusion is only worry about what you can control and do your best to be as honest and responsible as you can.
That's all we can do.
Thanks for listening.
I have to pee so bad.
I've had to pee the whole time I've been recording this episode, but I've been holding it because I wanted to keep going.
But now I'm going to pee myself, so I'll keep this quick.
Thank you for listening, and I really appreciate you hanging out. hearing me out.
As always, let me know what you think.
You can tweet me at AG podcast or send me a message on Instagram at anything goes.
You can follow me there too.
If you want to keep up with the show, you can follow me at Emma Chamberlain to keep up with me as an individual.
You can check out my coffee company, chamberlaincoffee.com.
Right now I'm drinking some Chamberlain coffee herbal tea.
Okay?
Fun fact.
It's not just Chamberlain Coffee.
It's also Chamberlain Coffee in tea now, apparently.
You can use code AG15 on ChamberlainCoffeecom to get a little special discount for all of you who listen.
New episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday.
I truly adore hanging out with you all. twice a week.
It's just an absolute pleasure.
And I really love and appreciate all of you and I'm going to pee my pants.
So I will talk to you later. and I'll see you in the next one.
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