Why Teenage Girls Feel Ugly

(while I’m on the subject of teenage girls)
Something that has been doing the rounds in the last couple days…. a photo retouch service, with some incredible comparisons of photos of film stars before and after retouching. You see the beautiful, smooth, magazine-cover image, and then when you mouse-over, it changes to the untouched version. You can wiggle the mouse back and forth on the edge and see the images switch back and forth. Watch boobs get bigger and smaller! Watch wrinkles appear and disappear! Watch waists and arms get thinner! etc. But there are also a bunch of less obvious changes – the way brightness and contrast are enhanced, in particular, has a crazy impact on how we see them.
I would say checking this out is required for anyone operating in the early 21st-century media environment. We’re being bombarded with these images – a quick look at these will give you a bit of mental shielding you don’t even know you need.
To view, follow this link, and click on “Portfolio”. There’s an array of little thumbnail photos there – click on any one and the big image will appear.
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Today I met my artist for coffee. Can I say “my” artist? She’s drawing the comic I’ve written. It’s quite cool. I looked at her latest page breakdowns and handed over some more script. We’re not working at full-speed smooth-collaboration level yet, because we’re both still just starting to feel our way through the whole comic-making process, but signs are very positive. Yays.