Photoshopped Confidence
Biography
The purpose of this biography isn’t to show off that I model, but to instead bring attention to the negative undertones of modeling.
“You’re a model. There’s no way you’re insecure.” “Please, you know you’re pretty, you don’t really think that.” “You get paid for people taking pictures of you, what could you possibly be insecure about?” Easily said by people whose jobs aren’t solely dependent on their look. “Your nose is too big.” “Your neck is too long.” “127 pounds is a little on the heavier side.” “Your skin condition is going to make you less marketable.” That’s more like it. It’s easy to feel confident when you feed off people’s Instagram/Facebook comments on edited pictures. In looking at the attached pictures, the second picture is unedited and my legs are covered with scars from adventures and folliculitis, my skin condition. The edit in the first picture has smoothed and erased those scars and slimmed my waist. It’s easy to fall into a state of insecurity when you see characteristics that others think should be modified.
As a model, I have some confidence, but that confidence is just as photoshopped as my pictures. I became confident in a version of myself that didn’t actually exist. I know that’s not the real me, but it’s the me that social media likes the most. It’s this mentality that resulted in me editing any picture I took. I sometimes fix my nose and waist, but I always fixed my skin, just as the photographers do. For those who don’t know, folliculitis is a condition where your hair follicles are prone to inflammation, which then leads to scarring. When I first began modeling a few years ago, my legs broke out horribly. From a modeling stand point, these scars are ugly and undesirable, but I had to learn to realize that my scars are a part of what makes me different from someone else. They’re a part of my story and of who I am. Society is so quick to hyperbolize “perfection” in the edits placed on models. It’s these models who girls look up to, but they’re looking up to an edit of a person. Bodies are slimmed and imperfections are perfected. Natural beauty in today’s society has become very artificial.
I’ve taken a break from modeling for the past several months and I’ve been able to start accepting the person in the mirror, instead of the person in the picture. The real version.
