The problem is that we are all victims of the capitalist system which exists to make the rich, richer by taking from the poor and the gullible.

Most people spend their lives as producers and consumers, nothing more. What a wonderful achievement.

In fashion and beauty, billions of dollars are made by entreating women (and now men) to seek perfection. Of course, this perfection is an illusion. Take breast implants. They feel like hard-boiled emu eggs!

I agree with the author. We need to embrace reality. We need to scrap the perfection industry and the superficial types who rule it.

Let's be what we are: flawed, mortal and, at times, disgusting!

We need to scrap the perfection industry and the superficial types who rule it.
What a spot-on statement. Yesterdays TV on wedding business & fashion industry were a prime example of out-of-hand frivolity.

“the UK report suggests, solid social support”

Sound like someone is trying to create a job for themselves.

Much easier to have a code of practice that requires the advertisements to display a sign of “Photos have been altered”

Also am intrigued by the way so many academics place the word “men” in brackets, as in “(and men)”.

This seems to occur in every article written by an academic that mentions the word "men".

Most people employed in the media have come from universities, which doesn’t say much for the universities.

Most people who place the word "men" in brackets have also come from universities, which doesn’t say much for the universities.

I used to think that the proliferation of "reality" shows on TV was a sign of the imminent collapse of our civilization. When ordinary people can get emotional - for weeks on end - about other ordinary people cooking, or dancing, or being run ragged in order to lose weight, or being told how to "look ten years younger", or making flower beds, or re-painting the ceiling etc.

They all struck me as being a substitute - and a poor one at that - for actually living a life of one's own. Taken to the obvious limit...

However, I am now being swayed toward the opinion that our civilization will ultimately collapse under the sheer deadweight of the mass of do-gooders, who would protect us from ourselves by every means possible.

I mean, really... an article, apparently a serious one, about the dangers of... airbrushing photographs?

Whatever next?

I mean, really... an article, apparently a serious one, about the dangers of... airbrushing photographs?
Pericles,
I know what you mean BUT, when you really look at the situation it's all about deception upon deception. It brings home the sad fact that people simply do not wish to accept reality. They do wish to show reality because it obviously isn't as appealing as the fake world hence worth less money. Why can't we accept reality ? Have we really gone that far down the shute ? Why base so much of our existence on fake ?

I watched the film Surrogates yesterday. Some interesting commentary on a similar topic. For those who've not seen it most people in the film live out their lives via robotic surrogates which are almost always substantially more physically attractive than the real person.

R0bert

As I think I have said here before, I am constantly amazed at the way advertising influences people. It obviously works otherwise companies wouldn't do it to sell their products.

However, constant advertising has irritated me so much for so long, that I have successfully trained myself to either switch off, or if it is too hard to ignore, remind myself that all it is doing is increasing the price of the product to pay for it. I always have my finger on the remote mute button on the odd occasion I watch anything on commercial TV and never look at any advertisement in the printed medium.

Rarely does advertising inform. Mostly it makes claims that I choose not to believe as they are usually couched in language that is designed to pander to emotional and psychological qualities. Admittedly it is hard to avoid, but ask yourself the question, would I still buy this product if the name was not constantly flashed in front of me ? Personally I tend to avoid it if at all possible when it is, because it is always "airbrushed" whether metaphorically or literally

Oh I have to bite at these things.

The words 'Media Studies' and 'Social Commentator' are born of 'Airbrushing Reality'.

I see no problem, no matter how many 'social commentators' 'discover' this issue.

People in the end compare themselves to other people they see in their everyday lives. Any artificial image seen on a TV or in a magazine is known to be just that.

I think the criticisms of media today are born out of people struggling to adjust to the new reality. And those people are actually the older people, not the younger people who are supposedly damned.

Young people design their 'Facebook pose' photos for maximum distortion of the outward reality. They are engulfed in the new realer than real world and understand much better than those that claim to be studying it. They use all the tools and publish airbrushed images of themselves, and pose for each and every photo. They watch amazing computer generated scenes and characters that are richer (visually) than they can ever encounter in real life. The colour on every photo is saturated, the branding is crisp and the lines are clean and they're in a world of greater visual quality than people even 30 years go could have dreamed.

Life is now a David Lynch movie. The tools for imagination and expression have created a generation of people loose on authentic visuals. It's the fretful dinosaurs that are wandering around in the dark looking for 'reality'. Hell even the themes are interlaced, full of irony and spin and delicious disingenuous-ness. The medium is the message is the medium.

Embrace it. Fock off down to Harvey Norman and get a 3D TV.

The limitations of the physical world are coming about the time humans find it a poor substitute for what can be artificially created. We're destined to be lining up to join the matrix in a Huxly-esque orgy of the senses.

'The feelies' is the peak of human existence.

Interesting.

"The problem is that we are all victims of the capitalist system which exists to make the rich, richer by taking from the poor and the gullible."

Most people spend their lives as producers and consumers, nothing more. What a wonderful achievement.

Yes the battle between the ugly and the naturally born pretty people, which the capitalist,s have enjoyed exploiting for quite sometime with the money wheel, which has unfortunately, got some nasty side affects.

Changing your bodies to the extremism for other peoples expectations(WTF), may I suggest theropy for you that you may obviously need if you fit this bill.

Be happy with yourselves, and don't give a toss what people say, its your face, and its fine the way it is, unless you have a disfigurement which makes you standout, that I can understand.

But bigger breast,s coz your friends have them......... USA does it again, and hello dolly patron and Co. I wonder where woman get the bad messages from.mmmmmmmmm I wonder.

Here comes the generation of want-to-be look-likes, but at what cost?

TTM