I’m Done With People Calling Out Influencers for Photoshopping

As if print media never retouched a single blemish

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

I’m going to go right ahead and say it: social media has been demonized by everyone. It’s popular nowadays to do social media cleanses, to hate on influencers, to even go analog and get rid of screens entirely. It’s in vogue to bash how fake vloggers are, note how artificial their lives are, how artfully constructed their realities seem.

And you know what, I’m done.

I’m not saying these people are wrong. I do believe that social media has harmful effects, especially on younger kids who are exposed to it without restriction. I know I’m prone to letting my mood swing low when I compare myself to the perfectly toned bodies that flood my screen.

I’m just saying it’s ridiculous to believe that the market of fake lives and perfect people sprang into being in 2010. We’ve long been invested in buying up the enhanced and retouched lifestyles, and it didn’t start with Instagram.

So when yet another influencer “scandal” broke, this time accusing a travel blogger of photoshopping the same clouds into all her travel pics, I read the article with mounting annoyance. Not at the influencer, who readily admitted to adding the same cloud to all her skies because she liked…