I’ve been resisting writing this blog post for many months now, but the time has come and it has forced itself out. What is wrong with the world when we think we have a right to dictate what sort of profile picture a person has on their social media accounts?
Someone my daughter knows had a rant about this back in January, claiming any of us that use the snapchat filters to enhance our photos in any way are misleading people. When she wrote that I sat and pondered it for a good while and the more I pondered it the more I wondered why she even cared.
Part of her argument was that woman were misleading men when it came to posting profile pictures of themselves on to dating sites. Yes, she has a point there. What is the point of posting a pic of yourself looking like a sensational hottie when in reality you look nothing like that?
That isn’t to say you are ugly. That isn’t my point, I’m sure you’re not. If we constantly mislead people into believing we look like a supermodel then we are lying not only to them but most importantly to ourselves. I get what my daughter’s friend was trying to say in regards to dating site profile pics, but for those of us who upload filtered pics of ourselves on our social media sites, who are we really hurting?
I’m all for being myself, but I love using the filters from snapchat to enhance my pics, not because I am unhappy with how I look, but because I think it’s fun. The majority of people on my Facebook have met me or at least seen a real life photo of me so they know what my true image looks like. I don’t pretend that I am really the airbrushed portrait – besides, most of the pics I use have teddy bear ears or the like, clearly I do not have them!
There are plenty of real-life photos of me on my social media accounts that show my true self and I am happy enough with this. There are also plenty of photos of me with filtered extras, such as cute teddy bear ears, and I am happy enough with that too.
To accuse someone of being fake just because they have used a filtered photo of themselves is just silly. Plenty of people upload photos of their kids, pets, cars, flowers and so on and nobody accuses them of pretending to be any of that. So why do we get all het up over filtered pics?
Does this mean my daughter’s friend is unhappy with her own looks, or jealous of other women? I don’t think it does. I think she had been having this very discussion with her boyfriend and he had given his opinion and she had used it as an excuse to have a sly pop at some people she knew who were using filtered pics of themselves.
It’s a very similar argument to the whole women wearing make-up debate. Why does it even matter? It shouldn’t matter. Sure, there’ll be a handful of men piping up about make-up wearing women, but generally, it is other women picking fault with how a woman looks.
It shouldn’t matter how a person looks, what should matter is their conduct. The manner in which they treat people and act themselves is far more worthy of consideration, not whether they have make-up on or not. Or whether they use a regular photo of themselves or not on social media.
Some parts of society seem to care more about how a person looks than how they behave. Quite frankly if a two-headed man approached me at a party wanting a chinwag I would see no issue with him. If a regular looking guy approaches me at a party and acts like a complete jerk then he’s going to be sent packing.
Looks are superficial. Behaviour and conduct is everything. If you look like Brad Pitt but act like a jerk I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you. Looking drop-dead gorgeous is meaningless if you are ugly on the inside.
Life Through My Lens. 