Much has been said in the adult world about the effects of Photoshop on young women. There have been plenty of arguments that Photoshopped models can cause teens to have unrealistic body expectations, and some countries have even banned ads they consider harmful. But what do actual teen girls think about the magazine shots being presented to them? If it’s any indication, one 13-year-old agrees with the anti-Photoshop hype, and is starting a petition to stop the editing.
Seventeen reader Julia Bluhm is asking for 15,000 signatures on a petition for the magazine to run one “unaltered” photo shoot per month. Her petition letter describes the pressures that Photoshopping puts on young women, and issues a call for, “regular girls that look like me in a magazine that’s supposed to be for me.” Bluhm already has a whopping 11,000 signatures so far, and you can help her reach the 15,000 mark by signing the petition here. [via Jezebel]
What do you think of Julia’s petition? Did you sign it?
guest
That’s cool… but the one unaltered photo shoot per month thing won’t show up on the covers of magazines anyway. Oh a spread, never mind. HMMM I don’t know :/
guest
I agree with her cause and think it’s great that she is confident enough to do something like this at such a young age. The “one shoot a month” thing obviously isn’t ideal but it’s a good place to start.
guest
im for it totally,
gosh i wish they had this when we were younger. It was always such a struggle to be a beautiful 17 girl, and i never quite fit the profile. Now that I am older I look back and realize half the women in this magazine aren’t even teenagers, and here I am trying to grow up too quickly and look like them. Now im at a comfortable age to really appreciate who I am.
orchid / 177 posts
This isn’t one of my proudest comments to make, but I honestly don’t understand how photoshop bothers people. I remember an article on Lovelyish a while ago asking how far photoshop should go. I think I said something along the lines of, if you’re going to ask a real person to model, respect their wishes and don’t chop off whole arms and make it a fail. In Seventeen, of course serious photoshopping (besides the couture section in the very last pages) isn’t a good idea, KNOWING tons of young girl will read it and (somehow?) feel insecure and wonder why they don’t look like that all of the time.
Again, this isn’t my proudest moment, but if your child is honestly confused about things like this, it’s your job to better teach them that they’re not fat and ugly and that they don’t need to look like a PHOTOGRAPH. They should know that not even unaltered photos look the same as reality.
Definitely signing the petition, though.