IDENTITY

Looking at a magazine the other day, i began to examine the pictures, in particular, the advertisements. The extent to which they were edited was incredible to me. Every single body part was tweaked, the skin corrected, and completely distorted from reality. And while i believe that these distortions may be visible to most of us, to children, a different perception is to be had. It’s true that the images we see have been altered for a very long time, with lighting, photo filters, extensive makeup, and airbrushing. But it hasn’t been until this decade that we’ve seen programs like Photoshop make picture editing simple, drastic, and believable. There is a generation of kids that have grown up seeing nothing but images that have been processed and altered to dramatic extremes, and for this generation, they have a completely off-balance sense of what reality is. Everything from photos to videos can be changed to appear seemingly “perfect.” However, i don’t foresee things changing anytime soon, and in fact, when looking at how things have progressively gotten edited more and more, the opposite is most likely true. The images of tomorrow may be somehow even more distorted than the pictures of today. The best thing i really think we can do is be who we are, and take note, always, that in our current society, believing what you see is a dangerously bad idea. The video below is a great depiction of this, watch and enjoy!

—-joe