The vimeo description says it best:
"This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty."
"I was watching TV one sleepless night and stumbled upon an infomercial for some beauty product. The commercial showed before and after portraits that, to my eye, looked like the same photo just photoshopped. I laughed to myself. Then I made this video," filmmaker Jesse Rosten said of his Fotoshop creation.
Fotoshop may not be real, but Photoshop is. And it's everywhere.
There's a louder-than-ever movement against the unrealistic images that bombard us.
At Dartmouth College, image-forensics researchers developed a tool to identify Photoshop-like modifications to photos, exposing the adjustments that ultimately market false ideals of beauty.
Taylor Swift's CoverGirl campaign was recently banned because her lashes in the mascara-shilling ads were "enhanced in post-production."
Websites routinely expose Photoshop disasters, mocking the beauty industry's non-human standards.
PLUS Model Magazine made recent headlines with a bold photo shoot contrasting a gorgeous plus-sized model's body with a runway model's, claiming that most runway models meet the Body Mass Index physical criteria for anorexia.
"Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8 per cent less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23 per cent less," one caption read.
Rosten says his Fotoshop video, while primarily intended to make people laugh, is a reminder that "it's okay to look like a human."
"I opted to keep it simple and focused on women since they suffer the most with societal expectations of beauty. This is a complex issue and I don't pretend to have the answer, but as the incidents of eating disorders and anorexia among American women continue to rise, I think it's important to keep the discussion alive," Rosten told Bella Sugar.
All right, then. Let's keep that discussion alive: What role does the media play when you look at yourself in the mirror? And should Photoshop-users be forced to use the tool more responsibly?
LAURA KNIGHT-JADCZYK AND JOE QUINN
Since the 9/11 attacks, no book has provided a satisfactory answer as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately responsible for carrying them out - until now.
The air-brush was invented in 1876. Advertising has always used post-production techniques, always used the "hyperreal" to supplant the real. It's not just about so-called 'beauty". That's just a small part of the pic. For example: In the U.K. the way to sell products to men is to promote the idea that it's the coolest and most endearing thing in the world to a woman that a man should be a half-daft, immobile semi-disabled lard-arse, incapable of mentation, organisation, taking care of financial necessities, getting out of his armchair, doing the washing up etc.