Celebrities are often the main targets for having their pictures heavily edited and society follows suit as they often consider celebrities to be role models or a reflection of what they aspire to look like.
Is it recommended to edit photos and videos?
Marketers and Public Relations professionals will tell you, no, it is not recommended to heavily edit pictures because of the false perception it gives audiences. Slight edits that do not distort the image or video are necessary when you want to market your brand or product. Major edits cause distraction and tend to be very misleading. Misleading Photos and videos give a false perception of the brand, individual or product that is being marketed.
In fact, in some countries, it is against the law to not disclose whether or not photos or videos have been retouched or edited. For example, in Norway, they have instated a “Retouched Photo Law.”
“The new law passed by the Norwegian government requires influencers sponsored for social media posts and brands to disclose any modification on their photos using a ministry-approved label.”
Do you agree with the law instated by Norway? We certainly do!
More countries should be regulating photo and video editing to stop the negative effects it has on society and ultimately affecting our mental health.
Applications such as Adobe Photoshop and FaceTune have helped pave the way for unrealistic beauty standards, alongside other applications that have all the tools to enhance, morph, crop, and edit in any way possible.
In an article by Darcey Edkins called “The dangers of photo editing in a social media obsessed world”, an experiment was conducted by a British fashion photographer, Rankin, known as “Selfie Harm.” In this experiment, Rankin asked 15 teenagers to edit and retouch photos of themselves until they thought it was “social media ready” and apparently the results were “shocking.”
Rankin put the retouched photos alongside the ones that were “social media ready”, which showcased the difference between naturally beautiful women against “cartoonish and doll-like caricatures.”
Another example is from one of Kim Kardashian’s most recent SKIMS ad’s, where the entrepreneur had critics pointing out that her finger appeared to bend and stretch in the video. After much backlash on Tik Tok on the “photoshop fail” and the comments going viral, SKIMS removed the ad and later re-uploaded it and said it was a “glitch” that they had to fix. What is ironic about the ad and the product is that they are supposed to promote body inclusivity and diversity.
All these small and minor day-to-day touch-ups, “glitches”, including widely pronounced editing on social media, perpetuates the growing body image issues amongst young girls and teenagers.
This is something we must not let go unnoticed as it will continue to harm the mental states of society and our loved ones.
To learn more about the harms of excessive photo and video editing for not only your business but to the community as whole, and to learn how your business can avoid it with professional direction, please contact The Social Company today.