Let me ask you something: how many times do you scroll through your Instagram feed each day, huh? I bet it’s a lot. So throughout that time, I’m sure you have stumbled upon tons of pictures showing people posing in the best possible way.
That’s the tone social media has taken on over the years. But there are still genuine people who want to show the real side of themselves, and they even make a point of it like this one blogger. Check her story out below.
Georgie Clarke is a different kind of blogger.
She has struggled with body image problems for a while but finally turned a corner. These days, instead of body shaming, she has learned to accept and appreciate herself. And she wants to instill that in other people.
So she started a series of split-screen pictures on Instagram.
The posts consist of two side-by-side pictures snapped just a few minutes apart. In both, Georgie is wearing the same outfits, and the same makeup (or lack thereof), but she’s striking a different pose.
One photo was taken while she was trying to look her best.
While the other is as if she was just recording a memory of a moment in time. The difference between these two shots is quite striking. Why? Because it just goes to show you that the styled picture is the new norm.
Aha! You see what I mean here.
She’s trying to remind people not to believe everything they see on social media. So many of the shots we see on Instagram are heavily posed, filtered, and even photoshopped. That’s the unfortunate nature of this medium.
Many of Clarke’s split-screen photos show two realities.
Check the example below. In the first photo, she’s clearly sucking in her stomach to make it look flawless. Yet underneath it all, there’s some loose skin that the first picture doesn’t show.
It’s so easy to fool the eye, no?
All you have to do is show the best side of yourself, quite literally sometimes. If you pose on similar to the photo on the left, it makes you look skinnier. Did you know that? I’ve noticed that after taking a ton of pictures of myself for Instagram.
There are also camera angles and lighting.
Some of the most popular Instagram influencers have a camera crew behind them. Oh, yeah, I’m not kidding. Those shots you see of them casually strolling on the streets of New York or Paris have been researched and styled to perfection.
Even those gym photos are staged.
Sometimes all it takes is a clever pose to make yourself look leaner. There are tricks for every picture, I’m sure. Georgina is shedding some light on the mechanics of such photoshoots. Once you learn a few tricks, you can even accomplish them on your own, but Georgie wants you to know that both shots are beautiful.
So, what’s your take on this blogger’s social media approach?
Do you enjoy looking at “Instagram vs. Reality” type photos? You should know that Marika Tiggemann and Isabella Anderberg’s study looked at such pictures and determined that they had the power to limit the negative impact social media has on people’s mental health . Can you believe that? Wow, that’s definitely a step in the right direction. Am I right?
