If you’re familiar with our Photoshop Fail series, or really just if you ever go on Instagram, you’re probably familiar with the time-honored Kardashian tradition of Facetuning the sh*t out of all their pictures. From slimming their waists to stretching their legs, the Kardashian-Jenners have used every editing trick in the book to convince us that they look like completely different people. And out of this whole over-smoothed family, Khloé Kardashian is the Facetune warrior at the forefront of face-changing technology.
The problem is, Khloé clearly doesn’t know where to stop when it comes to editing her photos. Over the last six months of quarantine and social distancing, we’ve all found new ways to keep our minds occupied, and lucky for us, Khloé has provided our brains with a fun logic puzzle: struggling to recognize her in every single photo she posts. This year, she’s taken the photo editing to a whole new level, so much so that when this photo popped up on my explore page last week, I actually did a double take before realizing who it was.
Yes friends, that is Khloé Kardashian, from the shoot for her new collaboration with Ipsy. I don’t know what kind of editing software they used here, but it looks like she went through some bizarre algorithm that’s supposed to make you look like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande at the same time. Who is this woman, and how did we get here?? Let’s take a walk down memory lane—or at least back to May of this year.
When Khloé posted this set of photos, the internet reaction was intense, with many people proclaiming that Khloé had gotten a “new face” in quarantine, and others pointing out anomalies like the mysteriously missing necklace chain, her eyes being too large (and uneven), her massive, extremely white teeth, and her signature beauty mark not being visible.
I always suspected that there was more editing going on here than plastic surgery, and the other shoe dropped in August, when Khloé was shown in a KUWTK confessional interview from the same day. Same outfit, same hair and makeup, but her face looks almost completely different. So, for all the guesses about her quarantine procedures, it turns out Khloé just edited the f*ck out of her photos, as usual. Did she not realize we were all going to see a video that would expose the editing?
But while her photo from May was one of the more viral instances of Khloé’s photo editing addiction, it’s far from the only face she’s introduced us to on the ‘Gram. Last September, she posted this photo that honestly makes me physically uncomfortable to look at. Not only is her skin way too smooth, but her eyes are a telltale sign of too much Facetune. No one’s eyes look like that. The whites are way too white, and the irises look like they’re glowing from the inside. Idk why people insist on doing this, because it looks unnatural AF.
In February of this year, Khloé switched things up again with this overly edited shot featuring her in a denim bodysuit and bob haircut. Her makeup looks flawless, which is probably mostly real, but KoKo’s face is just not that symmetrical, and her jaw is not that sharp. We all have eyes!
This example from August is an interesting one, because it’s a pic of Khloé with True. Thankfully, Khloé didn’t Facetune her toddler, but she was up to all her usual tricks when it came to her own appearance. It’s a grainy selfie, but she definitely still smoothed her face and enlarged her eyes. But more importantly than the technical breakdown, she just doesn’t look like herself. That’s the problem with Khloé’s Facetune usage—it’s one thing if you edit all your pictures to look like the same version of yourself. But something is wrong when I have to double check every single time that it’s actually Khloé.
And just last weekend, Khloé kept us guessing once more, with these photos featuring her in latex pants and a printed corset. She looks amazing, except for the fact that her face has been remixed yet again. She looks extra tan like in her Ipsy photo shoot, but gone are the high cheekbones and eye shape that made her look like a completely different person. In this post, she actually included videos from the shoot, which would normally be a Facetune giveaway, but there’s clearly a heavy filter over the video, so Khloé may actually be getting smarter about her tactics.
View this post on Instagram
Man this heat wave is intense!! Isn’t it October??? Lex, This ones for you 😉
The wild thing about all this is that at the end of the day, I don’t even think Khloé Kardashian has had much plastic surgery done. I’m sure she’s played around with fillers, and maybe some light procedures here and there, but for all the fuss about her getting a “new face” every couple of months, it really all comes down to editing. The issue is, we all see Khloé on TV and in photos that haven’t gone through her editing process, so she’s not actually fooling anyone! But still, I’m excited to see what new and interesting editing tactics she can come up with next.
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Images: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Abyss By Abby; khloekardashian, Ipsy / Instagram
If your Instagram feed is anything like mine, then it’s a never-ending stream of influencers frolicking on the beach, models younger than you walking in fashion week, and of course puppies, because balance is key. In the age of an overly Facetuned, filtered, and otherwise picture-perfect influencer culture, it can be easy to lose sight of what people really look like. Photoshop isn’t just for making thigh gaps and waists smaller anymore—people are also editing the sh*t out of their faces and giving themselves totally new appearances. Now, anyone with a smartphone, so literally everyone, has the ability to make their lips look bigger, their eyes wider, and their jawlines slimmer, all without going under the knife or needle. These are all things that, at a first glance, we wouldn’t automatically assume are fake. We’ve come to expect that people are “fixing” their stomachs or airbrushing their cellulite, but there is literally no limit as to what you can do to alter your face, too. And that’s where the trouble starts. Because with a steady flow of Kardashians and Kardashian-wannabes filling up our feeds, it’s no wonder we have developed an unrealistic standard for our appearances—and this standard is giving us dysmorphia.
Many of us have already heard about body dysmorphia, and now it has a new-ish, but just as scary counterpart: facial dysmorphia. Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which includes facial dysmorphia, is sadly super common: it affects 1 in 50 people, which is more than 5 million to nearly 10 million affected in the United States alone. However, a considerable number of us are reluctant to express our internal struggles, and may have no idea that this is even what we’re experiencing. This revelation seriously disturbed me, so I put on my best pair of blue light filtering glasses and got to the bottom of what facial dysmorphia really is, and how we can make it freaking stop.
Picture Perfect
Okay, first let’s break this down. WTF even is Facial Dysmorphia? Similar to body dysmorphia, which is a mental health disorder in which you are fixated on one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance, facial dysmorphia is a mental health condition where you have a warped perception of your face. Factors of facial dysmorphia commonly include distorted views of how your nose, skin, and teeth look.
I spoke with plastic surgeon Dr. Philip J. Miller who further broke down this condition by informing us that, “Facial Dysmorphia is a disorder in which patients cannot stop focusing on a perceived flaw in their appearance. The flaw is typically very minor to others.” It’s a common disorder that the majority of us suffer from to some varying degree. On a lesser end of the spectrum: you know the feeling, you spend an hour plus doing your hair and makeup just to put on a random animal filter and do your best blue steel; and then the dreaded happens—the filter flakes and you’re stuck staring at a triple-chinned, duck-lipped version of yourself. Now, all of a sudden, the hour and a half you spent getting ready means nothing, and you’re alternating between staring in the mirror and your bank account, contemplating if you can afford lip injections and rent this month. Frequently experiencing situations like this can magnify preexisting insecurities and can potentially lead to more severe cases of dysmorphia.
As if these filters weren’t enough, demonstrating what we could look like with poutier lips and perfectly placed freckles, our feeds are simultaneously bombarded with impeccably doctored pictures of Insta models and former Bachelor contestants selling skinny detox tea and obnoxiously smizing. It can be so destructive to have constant exposure to the enigma that is flawless influencer culture, where every girl has the body of Emily Ratajkowski and the face of, well, Emily Ratajkowski—when in real life, she might even have a totally different face.
A key step in battling dysmorphia is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to change the way a person behaves by challenging their beliefs and thinking. It’s crucial to acknowledge that pretty much everyone you’re jealous of on social media has edited their photos in some way or has gotten some degree of work done. They are not Beyoncé, they didn’t wake up like that. You cannot judge yourself against altered images, because it’s completely unfair to yourself. I know you can’t see me, but I’m literally putting my foot down on this. It’s like ordering an ice cream sundae that you saw a picture of and then being disappointed that the scoops weren’t perfectly round and that the nuts weren’t evenly-spaced. It was a picture that probably wasn’t even real ice cream, and those nuts were most likely glued on. The real thing is never as symmetrical or flawless as it is advertised to us, and the same goes for influencer pics—nobody is really as tan, toned, and carefree as they are on Instagram.
Life In Plastic, It’s Fantastic
Facial dysmorphia has gotten so serious that a lot of people are turning to plastic surgery in order to get the faces they see on Instagram. Dr. Miller acknowledges that he’s seen a connection between the desire for cosmetic surgery and social media trends. He says, “Often times my patients want to emulate celebrities who are most popular on social media.” For instance, he notes, “There has been a definite incline in patients wanting to accentuate their cheeks and jawlines.” Dr. Miller performs an estimated 100 non-invasive procedures a month, with a significant increase in requests for facial fillers and Botox. He also has seen an influx of younger patients, mainly aged 20-30 years old, who at that age you would think may be contemplating adding a night serum or an eye cream to their routine, not plastic surgery. In recognizing the fascination and that we have with the importance of beauty and social media, Dr. Miller has become all the more familiar with cases of facial dysmorphia and the yearn for plastic surgery, as he says, “Facial dysmorphia does not discriminate. I see patients of all ages who suffer from it. I often try to get a strong history from my patients and learn what factors are specifically motivating them to proceed with surgery.”
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with altering your appearance to make yourself happier, it is seriously important to acknowledge the real reasons you’re considering plastic surgery. Dr. Miller advises, “If you choose to go forth with plastic surgery, make sure that you are doing the surgery for yourself, and not to please others. The surgery will not land you a promotion, approval from your peers, or a new significant other.” Preach. Dr. Miller also stresses, “It is crucial that these patients have mental clarity before proceeding with surgery.”
Good Influence(r)
Nobody is immune to facial dysmorphia, and yes, that includes influencers. I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Tori Deal from MTV’s The Challenge and co-founder of Suiheart Club. Deal, who has an impressive 514K followers, is no stranger to the pressures of maintaining a perfect image on Instagram. She says, “It took me being an active Instagram user for a long time before I realized how bad the facial manipulation truly was. I would catch myself opening a photo editing app, like Facetune, and editing my eyes to be 15% bigger than a normal human size.” She goes on to say, “I would drag my ‘chin-belly’ in until I had the perfect jawline and then I’d head down to my body where I would change it so much until I basically looked like an AI sex bot.” It’s bad enough to aspire to have someone else’s edited and unrealistic body, but now we’ve started comparing our reflections to our own facetuned version of ourselves, and it’s unhealthy. As influencer Megan Gentry told Betches in January, these toxic Instagram standards created real issues that bled into her life off-screen because, as she said, “I wanted to look in real life how I looked in the Photoshop version.”
Deal also gives some much-needed insight on balancing a healthy relationship with your Instagram following, saying that, “The problem is when you hold yourself to that standard. You have to be okay with knowing that if you don’t want to get work done, you don’t have to get work done; and you have to be okay with letting other people do what they want without it being a trigger for you.” While some people (like Gentry) may choose to unfollow influencers, Deal says, “There isn’t anything wrong with following these people as long as you know it’s not a trigger for you, but the moment it becomes something negative, you have to be aware of that.” Make sure you’re checking in with yourself and your self-image. If someone you used to like following is subconsciously (or consciously) making you feel bad, hit mute or unfollow. Banish that toxicity like you did that roommate that “borrowed” your favorite jacket and then left it at some random dude’s house. To take the meme phrase literally, you don’t need that type of negativity in your life.
This commercial conveyor belt beauty is ultimately what inspired Deal to co-found a lifestyle brand, dedicated to spreading positivity and preaching self-love. “My best friend Vira and I created Suiheart Club a year and a half ago to counteract the negativity and the unreal expectations on social media. We wanted to create a platform that makes people more self-aware and optimistic in a light-hearted way. We encourage people to fill their Instagram feeds with posts that nourish the scroll!” says Deal. Trust me, following accounts like this that highlight real people and advocate for self-care practices are going to benefit you far more than staring at yet another picture of Gigi Hadid and crying. Use Instagram to uplift you, not to give you another reason to stress. And if all else fails, there’s always the memes.
For more information and resources for dysmorphia visit the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation.
Images: Alena Orezova/Shutterstock
Photo editors around the world are often guilty of a few things. Making women too thin, airbrushing every line from someone’s face, and strangely enough, pretending women don’t have armpits. I get the purpose of the first two: we, as a society, have decided looking sickly thin is most attractive and we’re currently trying to claw our way out of it, but most magazines and ads have not caught up. I blame Facetune for perpetuating this bullsh*t and making everyone think it’s okay to erase out their rib cages, too. The wrinkle erasing makes sense too because we also, as a society, are anti-aging, which is why so many people of my mother’s generation can’t move their faces. Neither can the cast of Vanderpump Rules, just because they are so afraid of aging. But like, I understand what they’re trying to do with those types of edits. They’re attempting to make everyone look young and thin. But seriously, what is the deal with the armpits?
Selena Gomez, one of the most beautiful women ever, posted some pics from her new music video:
And uh, I can’t help but notice something’s missing? Why are her arms growing directly out of her boobs? She should probably have that looked at by a doctor? I’m not sure why we’re at this point in photo editing where BASIC 👏 ANATOMY👏 RULES 👏 no longer apply, but come on, everyone has armpits, even celebrities! It’s how your arms connect to the rest of your body!
And BTW, this is not a hair removal effect. If you shave, you’ll still have follicles and pores showing. If you wax or laser and no longer have hair in the follicle, you still have creases and pits because that is how your arm attaches to the rest of you. I did laser hair removal, and I assure you, it does not laser off the entire armpit. This edit just makes you wonder, if they’re going so far to erase out something as basic as armpits, what else did they edit?
The second photo in the carousel shows that she kind of has real person armpits, but it’s a weird angle:
So I did some detective work to show you that this is not a real thing. But guess what?
There was more of this sh*t! Does Selena ask them to remove her armpits in every photo or is this just so widespread literally everyone does it now?
This one is a little better;
I mean, there’s at least a crease but it’s still smoothed out like she’s a Barbie doll!
It took me digging until 2015 to find a photo with Selena’s actual armpits still intact.
And it still totally looks like she got laser hair removal, btw. I would know, I am also pale with dark hair and you can see your follicles under the skin unless you wax/laser. But here is your proof! Selena Gomez DOES in fact have armpits. Like a real person! Celebrities, they’re just like us!
Case closed.
Now, if only we knew why they are constantly airbrushed out for no apparent reason? Do you guys notice when you see things like this airbrushed on celebrities? Do you think it’s creepy or that it actually looks better? How do you feel about women not being allowed to have armpits anymore to be considered attractive? What’s the weirdest airbrush job you’ve seen? LMK!
Giphy: Instagram (@selenagomez); Giphy
I talk a lot about Photoshop and Facetune fails, but let me make one thing clear. I’m not against photo editing. It’s hard to take the perfect photo, even if you’re super skilled at it (which, I definitely am not). Sometimes there’s too much clutter in the background, the shadows are weird, or some dumbass walked behind your picture at the worst possible moment. There are plenty of reasons to edit a photo. What I consider a fail, though, is when people alter their photos to the point of giving themselves a different face, body, or exaggerating features to an insane level (Facetune huge alien eyes, I’m looking at you). Not only does it not even look like you, in which case, why are you even posting a photo, but it also contributes to the very toxic and unrealistic standard our society places on what we should look like. It’s bad enough with everyone trying to look like a supermodel, when they’re all Amazonian and weigh seven pounds. Must we now remove ribs via photo editing to create an even more impossible standard?
So, this is of course just my opinion. You can do whatever the f*ck you want in your photos: super skinny waist, bug eyes, I don’t really actually care. But I definitely will point out to anyone who will listen that that sh*t is not reality, especially if you’re a celebrity and role model. That said, here’s what I think is considered totally acceptable editing.
Filters/Lighting
In approximately 99% of photos, your lighting is not going to be perfect. That’s because it’s hard to coordinate real life to work with your angles unless you’re in a photoshoot space with perfect lighting and those things that bounce light and whatnot. Can you tell I don’t know anything about photography? Anyway. Sometimes the lighting is too dark, your eyes look like black holes, or your face is too bleached and you’re noseless like all of our old Myspace pictures. Filters or lighting changes don’t change your actual face (although some celebs like to pretend it’s just the lighting that caused them to suddenly have no wrinkles. Sure, Jan). Since filters still look like you, I think using them is fun and can enhance your pictures. I don’t use Snapchat, but even the filters that change your face don’t bother me because they’re obviously a joke. Although a LOT of girls who used the flower crown one and tried to crop it so you couldn’t see the filter, didn’t seem to realize that’s not what actual people look like. But overall, filters are okay.
Skin Problems
Listen, I’ve had cystic acne for my entire life. I’ve had backne, assne, chestne, and everywhere else. I don’t really care now that I’m old, but in high school I thought everyone was staring at my horrible skin all the time. So, I get it. When it comes to skin problems—acne, redness, bruising, sunburn, etc.—I don’t mind if they’re edited out. If you’re airbrushing every wrinkle to the point where you look like your skin is made of plastic, that’s another issue. Acne comes and goes, but your face still looks like your face—pretending to be 30 years younger, not so much. However, unless it’s in really important photos (for like, a wedding or event or a magazine), I really appreciate when people leave their skin untouched. We all have scars, zits, stretch marks, and cellulite, and it’s cool when people embrace it. Like when Kylie showed her big scar on her GQ cover. More of that, please.
Hair Problems
Unless I get a professional blowout, my hair never does what it’s supposed to do. If you take a photo and you have flyaway hairs all over the place, hair sticking up in the back, wind blowing it in a crazy way, whatever—fine, just fix it. Again, fixing minor things like that don’t change you into a different person or project a social media lie. If you’re having a bad hair day but love the picture, touch it up if you feel that insecure about it. You can bet if my brightly colored hair is badly faded and I need a cute picture, I will totally color it back in with editing. Hey, that’s what it’s supposed to look like, I just didn’t get to redo it yet! Fixing your hair is just not the same thing to me as giving yourself a scary skinny waist, so again, it’s kosher in my book.
Fabric Laying
Much like hair, sometimes clothes just don’t look right in the photo. My friend took a photo of me once wearing this super cute orange jumpsuit that, for some reason when I was sitting down, bunched up and made me look pregnant. Not just a little pregnant, but extremely pregnant. We just cropped that part out. If you’ve got a strange crease, your shirt tag is hanging out, something is laying weird on your body, or you have camel toe, fixing it is totally reasonable. This is different than being a size 8 and Photoshopping yourself into size 0 jeans. That would be categorized under “toxic” for me. But anything else doesn’t change what you really look like, so I’m all for it.
Environmental Editing
You can’t always control your background. This is probably the edit I do most often. You take the perfect selfie and then you realize you can totally see your stack of Amazon boxes you’ve been meaning to take out to the recycling for two weeks in the back. Ughhh. If your background sucks or someone accidentally photobombed you, edit them out. Your background doesn’t present a false image to anyone or create unhealthy standards, so do whatever the hell you want with it.
Do you agree with my acceptable edits? What else you consider a normal use of editing? Where’s the line for when things become toxic? Let me know in the comments!
Images: Amanda Vick / Unsplash; Giphy (6)
Bella Hadid is one of the biggest supermodels of our generation. Personally, I love her and Gigi. I hope we’ll continue to move away from using only the super tall, super thin, super conventionally beautiful body type as models, but in terms of their careers, the Hadids are killing it. Bella’s had a good week in general too, because she was just announced as the most beautiful woman in the world, according to science. I mean, I think beauty is subjective, and I’m super confused that this is the science we’re reading about instead of, you know, tackling global warming, but okay. She is definitely one of the most beautiful women, without a doubt. However, somehow, being the most beautiful woman still does not spare you from the siren call of Facetune.
Bella’s been caught editing a few times in the past, especially her body (which I don’t understand at all, but k). Like, if someone that thin thinks her body needs to be edited, imagine, just IMAGINE, what she’d do to a pic of my size 8 ass. She’d probably just have to throw the whole pic away. But I wanted to take a look at what regular, run-of-the-mill selfie editing Bella does on the reg. If I were the most beautiful woman in the world, I would do none. I already do none because it’s honestly too much work and I don’t care. But models are just like us, and they also have insecurities. I don’t agree with using Facetune to hide them, especially as public figures (of beauty, no less), since it creates a very toxic standard for what women are supposed to look like. But until Bella gives me control of her phone, this is just the reality we live in. That said, I will definitely continue to call it out so people can understand that it’s not real, and nothing to aspire to.
So here is Bella, looking like the most beautiful woman in the world, in a regular selfie:
Like, she’s just stunning.
And here she is in a paparazzi pic that is (to my knowledge) unedited:
Also stunning.
But there are definitely a few differences I noticed right off the bat. Aside from just the basic, she has a tan, her hair color (which is dyed and not Facetuned), the amount of makeup she’s wearing, the thing that jumped out most to me was her face/jawline. Bella has a clean strong jaw, which I actually always thought was a good thing? Maybe I don’t know what’s cool with the youths now? But in her own pic, her face is really, really thin and much softer. She looks like she’s wearing less makeup in the selfie, but somehow her nose bridge is completely blended out/gone, and her nose looks smaller. Proportionately, her eyes do look bigger, although it could just be makeup/angle differences. And her lips look bigger, but still the same shape. But the pics are at different angles so it’s hard to tell.
So I moved it.
Even I was surprised when I made this GIF. Her face is basically half the size in her own selfie. But like…why though? She already apparently has the most beautiful face in the world? Her lips are made a lot bigger and her nose was definitely smoothed. It does look like the eyes are made bigger, too. One thing I will say is that it doesn’t look like she airbrushed her skin at all besides the nose, so Bella must just have perfect skin a good dermatologist. I like when we can actually see celebs with pores instead of the scary plastic-y skin they’re all so fond of.
So there you you have it. The most beautiful woman in the world and she still can’t take a selfie unedited because of the crazy standards we put on women as a society. Bella, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, you really don’t need the editing, I promise you.
Have you seen some of Bella’s other Photoshop Fails? Do you think it’s crazy that these insanely perfect women still do this shit? Let me know!
Images: Getty Images; bellahadid / Instagram
I usually try to avoid using Kardashian/Jenner photo editing fails because honestly, this entire series could be about them alone. But alas, they keep giving me material, so here we are. And this one is so, so bad. You would think being super young, beautiful, a billionaire, having chefs and personal trainers, and having your entire body and face augmented by the best surgeons in the world would mean that you can just post your banging body without editing, right? YOU WOULD THINK. It’s like LuAnn says, guys. Money can’t buy you class, and it definitely cannot buy you self-esteem. Here is what Kylie posted earlier this week:
Apparently she and Travis (?) are doing Playboy. Which, honestly, I didn’t know Playboy was still a thing. Like, Playboy was really cool when I was 14 and I’d carry around a cheesy Playboy Bunny embellished bag that looked like a bad Chanel from that one weird store in the mall where everything was inexplicably $12. You know the store. Anyway, I thought Playboy was dead and buried where it belonged. Especially after finding out how creepy it was behind the scenes.
SOOOO this photo. The airbrushing is hideous. It’s like they just used the paint can tool and filled her in with beige. Also, there’s something weird going on with Travis’s left elbow. But that aside. Kylie looks amazing, sure, but her proportions just aren’t believable to me. Especially because we know what Kylie used to look like.
But you could argue this is from surgery for sure. That said, unfortunately for Playboy, the background is the true giveaway that some really bad editing took place.
Let’s do a quick little lesson in foliage, shall we? Even the most perfectly groomed hedges will have rough lines, because individual leaves stick out. I taught painting for many years, I am a “creating realistic foliage” expert. In example:
The top of the hedges:
Leaves sticking out irregularly. Looks good to me.
The side of the hedges:
Irregular lines. These look real. It checks out.
The bottom of the hedges:
Uneven lines, these are real leaves.
But then.
The leaves near Kylie Jenner’s ass crack:
In case you need help:
What a coincidence! Once again, the vortex that is a Kardashian/Jenner ass has pulled the world around them straight into its gravitational pull! Funny how this always only happens near the waist area. Also, can I just say I’m really glad I work from home because if I was in an office zooming in on Kylie’s literal asshole I feel like that would violate some kind of company policy?
The only explanation for a natural element to suddenly be sharp and even, is because they pushed in Kylie’s waist to make it teensy, and the result screwed up the background. So then the geniuses over at Playboy decided to just paint it black to hide the distorted leaves. Great work, everyone. Here’s a tip: next time use the clone tool to stamp leaves from the many other real hedges and hide your tracks.
I also don’t see the point of featuring someone naked in your magazine if you need to give them a fake body to seem desirable. Like, if people want to see Kylie’s naked body, they want to see her actual body, no? I also don’t get why Kylie would even want to do Playboy. She’s a billionaire. She doesn’t need the publicity. She isn’t Kim circa 2007, posing for dog magazines and trying to be relevant. What’s the point of doing Playboy, since it’s fallen from grace now that we know it really IS just about a creepy old man manipulating and abusing his power over desperate women, à la Harvey Weinstein? Like, if I were Kylie, I’d just lie around and count my money. Are you really not getting enough attention that you need to do Playboy? How much attention do you people really need?
I’m fine with light photo editing, but it’s complete bullsh*t to pose nude for a magazine and then completely edit the crap out of it. If these are the rules, my grandmother could also pose for Playboy, and she’s 88 years old. But hey, with Photoshop, she has Kylie’s curves too! In fact, we all do! Because they are pretend!
Calm down, Kylie, plenty of people think you’re hot. You can relax now. Even though we remember what you looked like before you became an Illuminati clone.
Did you guys notice the fail immediately? Do you think Kylie’s real proportions would look so much better in a Playboy feature? Are you as grossed out by Playboy as I am? Did you also have that little black and white knockoff Chanel Playboy Bunny bag? LMK.
Images: Instagram (@kyliejenner); Giphy (3)
For this week’s edition of Photoshop Fail, I was submitted this photo by a reader (@maggievoelzke). And it’s pretty funny because it’s one of those pics where you’re like, “What? This is totally normal”…until you see it. The Photoshop Fail this week features someone I never wanted to have to come for. Sadly, it’s the ones we love and think are least problematic who end up hurting us the most. I think. Sarah Michelle Gellar was a pillar of 90s teen fandom. My 7th grade crush told me she was the hottest girl alive. This was soul-crushing, because we could not have been further apart in appearance. She was like twenty-something, blonde (at the time), gorgeous hair, perfect body, etc.
Meanwhile, I was like 12, somehow chubby and gangly at the same time, and brunette with tragic chunky pink highlights like Aria in Pretty Little Liars. l didn’t know how to straighten my hair correctly, so it was straight only in the front and had weird ridges in the back. It also felt and looked like straw because I got it chemically straightened (it did not work except for frying my hair—good times). It was also the time of super low-rise huge pants and baby tees. So I was constantly pulling my humongous pants up, and my teeny top down. Oh, and I had a retainer. I could not have been further from SMG. It was the worst. Honestly I can’t believe I’m telling any of you this because it just serves as material for future blackmail.
So anyway, SMG has failed to age in the 15 or so years since ruining my life—or at least, the 7th grade dance. She still is the blonde bombshell that could seriously still pass for a twenty-something in a teen movie. So because we know she’s still super fit, beautiful, etc., when she posted this picture, it’s entirely believable.
She’s not giving herself a totally new face. She doesn’t look super airbrushed. I very much believe she looks pretty much exactly the same IRL. But then. Do you see it?
Do you SEE IT?
SMG has one really big arm. Like, her other arm looks almost unnaturally thin, but she is super thin and it’s angled out in classic Skinny Arm (TM) pose. But then…what happened to the right arm? It’s literally double the size of the other arm, and maybe half of her waist? And if you’re thinking, “it could be the perspective of the camera”—okay, so why is her bicep the same size as the other arm, but her forearm is massive?
She’s legit Quagmire in that episode of Family Guy where he discovers internet porn.
Sooooo, how does this happen? I mean, either she masturbates A LOT, or there is some *poorly done* Facetune to blame. You can stretch an arm like that, particularly if you’re trying to make your waist look smaller. You push the waist in, and the arm goes with it. Here’s a more extreme version just to show you:
I didn’t clean it up or anything, but just so you can see, as I dragged the sidewalk into SMG’s waist to make it even smaller, the arm went with it, making it larger. A retoucher who knows what they’re doing would go in and erase out the arm to the original size. BUT, then they’d be left with the task of redrawing the arm to connect with the new hand placement and fixing up the background. This is more complicated, so I can see why SMG just left it. But what I don’t understand is why she’d edit herself in the first place. She is like the poster child for aging gracefully!! Ugh.
If you still can’t see the problem with the arm, maybe this will help you. I sized the giant forearm to match the arm on the other side:
These are the correct proportions, assuming her arms are really that thin IRL and weren’t also edited (I have my suspicions). Also, I didn’t bother fixing the hand so yeah, it’s a little anatomically wonky. But do you see the difference? THAT IS A HUGE ARM. It’s also very suspicious that stretched arms often go with manipulated waists (as seen above).
And again, I would believe it was a perspective thing, except the bicep is the same size as the Skinny Arm™, and also, the only way it could appear so much bigger is if it was coming toward us. Like if she was putting her arm out toward the camera, then that would justify the big size. But like, that forearm is attached to the elbow, meaning it’s kinda locked in on the same plane as the shoulder and rest of her body, none of which is warped. She also is not thrusting her shoulder forward. There is just no justification for that huge arm except lies, deceit, and tampering. Oh, except masturbation, I guess we can go back to that.
SMG, you’re still hotter than me even though you’re 42 years old. You don’t need to edit your waist down. NOBODY NEEDS TO EDIT THEIR WAIST DOWN! I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall with these columns.
Did you spot the fail immediately in this photo? Do you think it’s a freak perspective thing or that SMG messed with her waist? Let me know and keep submitting your fails!
Images: Giphy (2); Instagram (@sarahmgellar)
Look, I didn’t really think I’d spend my morning analyzing photos of Kim Kardashian’s toes, but yet here I am. In my defense, though, I didn’t just wake up thinking this would be a fun activity to start my day (although, I’ll admit, it’s been fairly entertaining so far). I’m doing it because Demi from Bachelor in Paradise has oh so kindly pointed out that Kim Kardashian, the closest thing to AI human perfection, may have a sixth toe. And I’ll be damned if that kind of statement is made on my watch without further investigation. This is the life of an entertainment journalist, y’all, and I’m just living it.
It all started with this tweet from Demi.
I found ze 6 toed bandit #bachelorinparadise pic.twitter.com/wuTwP9PXAv
— Demi Burnett (@demi_burnett) August 19, 2019
The photo in question is from Kim’s fragrance collaboration with Kylie Jenner, and it looks like we have some damning evidence here. In the zoomed in pic of Kim’s feet, you can clearly count six toes (I know that because I’ve done it while squinting roughly 17 times).
Dun,dun,dun #extremecloseup pic.twitter.com/Io958x3sSJ
— Ginger (@whatasheila) August 19, 2019
Whether they are her actual toes or just the side effects of some botched Photoshop, I’m not sure. But I’m going to find out…
Which brings me to our next photo of our sweet little Kimberly showing off ALL SIX OF HER TOES (???!!!) in a pair of flip flops.
6!! ? pic.twitter.com/NsbbarijGo
— Letisha Huertas (@316Letty) August 19, 2019
You’d think if she actually was rocking an extra toe, she’d opt for a less revealing shoe, but we all know Kim, she’s all about embracing her flaws. That’s why she’s completely natural and never edits her pics! JK, but you would think that if this were true, she would definitely Photoshop that out. Like, having any visible pores is a no-no, but an extra digit is? Weird place to draw the line, Kim.
Just when I thought I had everything figured out about Kim’s toe count, I stumbled upon this random photo from 2018. Sadly for us six-toe hopefuls, you can see she has five toes on each foot. You can see she’s lifting her feet up, almost as if she’s saying, “Just five toes. Nothing to see here.” A little preemptive strike, I dig it.
View this post on Instagram
Is it just me or is there a slight indent where the sixth toe has appeared in the other photos? Could it be that since this is an up close and personal pic of Kim’s toes (totally normal), lucky number six might’ve been conveniently Photoshopped out?
That wasn’t the first time Kim gave fans an inside look at her feet. Back in 2013 when she was pregnant with her daughter North, she shared this gem. After getting past the fact that her feet are swollen as f*ck, I invite you to join me in counting her toes. One, two, three, four, FIVE ON EACH.
So what the hell is going on here? Well, I’ve crunched the numbers and analyzed the data and came to the following conclusions. It’s possible that Kim just sucks at Photoshop (which we know to be true) and is just giving herself extra digits. (Khloé has done it before.)
However, the more likely option is that there’s a good chance she just has a bunion on her foot which masquerades as a sixth toe, depending on the angle you’re looking from. As one Twitter user pointed out with this photo of Kim on a jet ski, you can see five toes with toenails followed by a nail-less bulge on the side of her foot.
??? pic.twitter.com/99zF2GAyhx
— morgan (@morgannnnlynch) August 19, 2019
So there you have it, guys. Five toes. One bunion. Countless bad Photoshop jobs. My work here is done. If anyone needs me, I’ll be analyzing photos of Kendall Jenner’s belly button.
Images: kimkardashian / Instagram; demi_burnett, morgannnlynch, 316Letty, whatasheila / Twitter
