The internet is a weird place. It talks about body confidence on one hand and is flooded with picture perfect Instagram models on the other hand. Funnily enough, all those instagram models with hairless bodies and washboard abs talk about loving yourself.
Not everything you see on the internet is true, dear readers.
A page on Instagram by the name WELCOME TO REALITY, carefully details all Hollywood celebrity images which have been edited to show them having thinner waists, sharper features and sometimes lighter skin tones. Some classic examples on the page are:
Model and wife of singer Justin Beiber, Hailey Baldwin’s paparazzi picture vs the actual shoot picture
Supermodel Bella Hadid on ramp/shoots vs Bella on her own Instagram
The iconic Beyoncé made it to the page too
And so did all these other celebs
Breaking these hard-to-keep-up-with-standards are a few Instagram pages who like their followers to see what reality really looks like. It is not uncommon for people to feel FOMO (fear of missing out), self pity, insecurity and anxiety seeing other people excel, enjoy, do well and look good on Instagram. However, no one is posting about their struggles.
This is where the ‘Instagram vs Reality’ section of social media comes in.
Sarah Puhto, a 23-year-old Finnish girl started posting photos of her workout routines and fitness progress in 2015. She told a leading online daily that she found herself revealing only her “best angles” to the camera and flexing muscles. Which she decided to change when she noticed that fitness influencers’ posts focused only on working out.
Since she felt insecure comparing her body to the toner versions of it on the internet, she realised maybe her posts were making others feel bad too. Then in October 2016 she changed her content plan, it was all about body positivity and didn’t care about lighting, correct angles, flexing or holding in her tummy for a picture.
Since Puhto started posting her side by side images of posed and non-posed pictures, several other accounts have started to pick on the body positivity trend too.
Malin Bjork, a body positive influencer is using her pregnancy to show the real “she”
Vanja Wikström, a mommy, an entrepreneur and an influencer
Chessie King is here to “break up your perfect feed”
Karina Irby doesn’t need to photoshop her butt-dimples or tummy rolls for you
Not everything is always pretty in the pretty town when Rianne Meijer is here
We have played along with the ‘paper challenge’ where we take pride in the fact that we can hide out tummy’s behind A-4 sized sheets or other such skinny challenges to prove how thin we are. High time we discard such beauty standards which instill insecurity amongst a certain section of people regarding their weight. Honest body positive “influencers” are the kind of influence the society needs.
