If you visited any magazine stand at the height of the noughties it would have been impossible to avoid the tabloids with body-shaming messages splashed across their covers. “STARS FATTEN UP” read one cover of Heat in 2006. Another, from Star Magazine read: “STARS LOSE THE FIGHT WITH CELLULITE”. The now-defunct Now once ran a cover with a headline which read “21 SHOCKING bodies that will make you feel normal” – the ‘shocking’ bodies in question called out for “veins” and “flab”.
More than a decade on, the appetite for seeing celebrities looking ‘imperfect’ is alive and well, only now, it’s consumed on social media – and often framed as a matter of justice. For years, accounts such as @CelebFace, @ProblematicFame, and @s0cialmediavsreality have made it their mission to ‘expose’ celebrities by removing photoshop, comparing their appearances before and after surgery and zooming in on wrinkles and acne. More recently, TikTok videos which reveal the photoshopping process, analyse celebrity surgeries, or show compilations of unedited bikini photos are amassing millions of views on the app. But who is this content really serving, and should improving our self-esteem rely on seeing these kinds of images of celebrities?
Unsurprisingly, the people behind these accounts are often adamant that realistic photos of celebrities are not just viral fodder, but in fact serve an important purpose. Many post under the banner of body positivity, and claim to want to “spread awareness”. Among them is Mitchell, whose TikToks recording his photoshopping process have been viewed millions of times. In one video, Mitchell applies photoshop to show “how professional retouchers make celebrities look perfect”, while other viral clips imagine what Gwen Stefani and Madonna might have looked like if they aged naturally. “I’ve always been a bit fascinated with how some stars never seem to age, and others have managed to totally transform themselves over the years, so I started undoing what I suspect to be plastic surgery, and age-progressing younger celebs to see what they’d look like later in life,” he says of his videos.
Naturally, the Kardashians feature heavily on his account. “They’re a big contributor to the unrealistic beauty standards we see today, and I like to remind people that so much of what we see is smoke and mirrors (and surgery),” says Mitchell. “It’s refreshing to remember what natural features look like in this landscape of Facetune and filters.” He says the responses he receives are largely positive, with people commenting “This makes me feel so much better about myself”, and “I don’t feel so ugly anymore”.
Similarly, Diana, the admin behind @s0cialmediavsreality, says she created the account as a result of her own struggles as a teenager growing up in the mid-2000s. “All the fashion magazines and commercials at the time showed very skinny models, which led me to develop body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. Now that I’m better, I want to help girls who’ve also gotten to that point begin to heal,” she says. Her content usually consists of two side-by-side images, with captions which read “can you spot the photoshop” or “before and after breast enhancement”. She rejects the idea that pointing out these flaws could feed into some people’s insecurities. “The only people who feel insecure from my content are the celebrities themselves,” she says. “A lot of them have blocked me.”
It’s of course hardly news to anyone that social media is having a devastating impact on people’s body image and self-esteem. “There’s no doubt that exposure to so-called ‘perfect’ images increases the dissatisfaction that women feel about themselves, and that can lead to disordered eating and body image problems,” says Jennifer S. Mills, a researcher and co-author of Beauty, Body Image, and the Media. This problem pre-dates social media of course, but has been exacerbated by the frequency of the content we’re exposed to on platforms which consistently put profit before people’s mental well-being.
While it is of course important that people are exposed to diverse bodies, context matters. Reddit user u/Aurylya summed up part of the problem in a post describing why she decided to leave r/InstagramReality – a subreddit devoted to exposing Facetune and photoshop on social media. “The sub basically acknowledges the almost universal beauty standards. They just want to show that this particular body shape is photoshopped,” it reads. “They always try to dispute one particular body shape and it makes me think the opposite of the intended goal of that subreddit: that there is only one body type that is ideal, that no one would feel inferior looking at someone with my body type […] So basically still reinforcing my insecurities.” In this sense, these spaces are likely just going to perpetuate the same culture they claim to want to overcome.
Jennifer Mills agrees that accounts exposing celebrity photoshop and surgery have the capacity to do more harm than good. She likens it to the use of disclaimers which have been used in some countries to flag when an image has been photoshopped. (Politicians in the UK, for instance, are currently calling to introduce a photoshop law). Do these disclaimers make women less likely to compare themselves and favourably to the celebrity because they know it’s not real? According to Jennifer Mills, “The short answer is no, they don’t work.”
In fact, she says they can sometimes make things worse by drawing attention to aspects of the photo that have been altered, particularly if the disclaimer is more specific – for example, flagging that legs have been enlongated. “The imagery still gets internalised as being desirable,” she explains. “It doesn’t make people want to look any less like that, even though they know that it’s been manipulated.” She adds that while media literacy around the unrealistic nature of social media images is undoubtedly a good thing, research has shown there isn’t a link between awareness of this kind of image manipulation and actually improving people’s well-being in a long-term sense.
Petya Eckler, a researcher focusing on social media and body image, agrees that knowing an image has been doctored, or that a celebrity has had surgery, doesn’t make the end results less desirable for the person consuming the content. “The nature of these comparisons – before and after the surgery or photoshop – is that the photoshop or the surgery the picture normally looks better.” Indeed, it’s usually the case that the more dramatic the before and after, the more likely the post is to go viral. “So that may actually be convincing people to go with the photoshop, or the surgery.”
While many of these accounts implore people to love their bodies, we should also question how useful this is. “Research shows that excessive focus on the body – even if the focus is in a positive light – is damaging,” says Petya. “Complimenting people’s bodies can also be damaging: it might make someone more competitive to try to keep that ‘perfect’ body.” Consequently she believes we should strive instead towards ‘body neutrality’ – which focuses on acceptance as opposed to loving one’s body. These accounts which scrutinise and objectify every inch of someone’s appearance likely don’t create the conditions for achieving this neutrality.
The desire to hold celebrities who are complicit in upholding punishingly narrow beauty standards to account is understandable. But while these accounts might offer some an immediate sense of relief, fixating on others’ perceived ‘imperfections’ is likely just to fuel a culture which sees beauty as sovereign.