10 years ago, it might have been startling to see heavily edited photos on Instagram, but over time, they have become almost impossible to avoid. Most of the photos celebrities share have been curated to look a certain way, and even your friends who don’t have a large following online or use Instagram for their careers might be avid users of Facetune and loads of filters. Lots of followers emulate what they see shared by the Kardashians and influencers of the world, and unfortunately, that has created an endless cycle of fake photos that are begging to be called out.

The Instagram Reality subreddit was started in 2017, and it currently has 1.1 million members. It’s not surprising how popular it has become though, as there is unlimited content being shared on the app constantly that members can roast with one another. Some of the most popular topics in the subreddit are “Uncanny Valley”, “Warped Fail”, “Close Friends Only Post”, “Skin Texture? Never Heard Of It…” and “Not Instagram But…”, and they are all full of photos that are painfully obviously fake. Yet somehow, they still made it onto the internet. 

To gain some insight from an expert on this topic, we reached out to award-winning professor of psychology and author of the book Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln. When asked why our Instagram feeds are so heavily edited, Dr. Engeln says it comes down to a couple of reasons. "The first is because they’re looking for a self-esteem boost. You wouldn’t edit an image of yourself unless you believed it would make you more attractive, and people want to post attractive photos of themselves because these photos draw praise and attention from others," she told Bored Panda. "Of course, these super-perfected posts often draw annoyance as well. But basic politeness prevents most people from commenting, 'I wish you’d stop editing your photos and just be yourself.' Instead, these edited photos tend to prompt comments like, 'So beautiful!' followed by whatever the popular 'you’re so sexy' emoji of the day is."

"The second reason people post these types of photos is because they believe doing so will help them make money," Dr. Engeln explained. "Not everyone is out to be an influencer, of course. But attractive photos draw more followers, which can bring more offers for paid endorsements or other money-making opportunities. If you’re trying to turn social media semi-fame into an income stream, of course you’ll edit the hell out of your photos. It’s part of the game and everyone knows it."

We also asked if she believes these people think they are fooling anyone with their heavy Photoshop hands. "Are you fooling anyone with those too-perfect photos? You probably fool some people who are less experienced users of social media. But in the end it doesn’t matter if you’re fooling people," Dr. Engeln says. "Fake hot is still hot when it comes to how media images are perceived. If knowing images were edited to the point of absurdity really bothered people that much, why would the Kardashians have so many followers?"

When it comes to the effects these types of photos can have, Dr. Engeln says, "These posts aren’t good for the mental health of the people who post them or the people who consume them. Consumers of these images end up comparing their own (real) appearance to the fake appearance presented in edited photos. And that happens whether you know a photo is edited or not. These comparisons are quick, automatic, and very difficult to stop."

"Almost 20 years ago, I conducted a study in which young women looked at magazine images of models," Dr. Engeln told Bored Panda. "One young woman in the study wrote, 'I wish my shoulders looked like her airbrushed ones.' I think about that quote all the time. It’s a great reminder that knowing something is fake doesn’t stop us from wanting it. It’s also in line with the substantial amount of research data showing that warning people that an image of a model is retouched does nothing to reduce the body dissatisfaction looking at that image can cause." Dr. Engeln also shared links to some of her relevant writing on this topic here and here.

"People who post these heavily retouched images of themselves can end up feeling dissatisfied or ashamed in response to their real physical appearance," she explained. "How can you feel okay about what you see in the mirror if it looks nothing like the images of you that generate so much praise on social media? It’s hard enough to compare yourself to images of models or celebrities. Think about how bad it feels to fall short when you compare your real self to the self you’ve created for social media consumption. Retouching images before posting them also contributes to a type of photo-editing arms race. If everyone else is editing their photos, your photos will look worse in comparison if you don’t edit them. So there’s a lot of subtle pressure to join in."

Finally, we asked Dr. Engeln if she believes there is a solution to all the rampant Facetuning and photo editing online. "The fake-looking photos on Instagram are a symptom of a bigger problem, which is our culture’s complete obsession with how people – especially women – look," she says. "It’s totally normal for people to care about how they look and to notice how others look. But modern media culture has nudged this emphasis into truly unhealthy territory for a lot of people."

"What I suggest for people who want to push back against an appearance-obsessed culture is to take some time to think about what your values are. What matters to you? What’s really important to you? Then make small changes to how you spend your time and emotional energy to bring your life more into alignment with those values. Those small changes might include rethinking what you post and consume on social media."

If you'd like to delve deeper into this topic and hear more expertise from Dr. Engeln, you can find her book Beauty Sick right here.

As hilarious as it is to see photos that look like they have been mangled in Photoshop by a child, we can’t discuss the topic of Instagram vs. reality without addressing the elephant in the room: body dysmorphia. Obviously, if someone feels the need to contort their body beyond recognition and change all of their facial features to feel confident enough to share a photo online, they might have some self-esteem issues. I don’t necessarily see a problem with editing a photo for the sake of making the lighting look nicer or removing a pimple here or there (I’m definitely guilty of that one!). But there have to be limits.

When a person goes out of their way to share a photo that looks nothing like them, they are, albeit maybe subconsciously, saying that they wish they looked differently. If they were truly confident and loved and accepted their body and their appearance, they would feel no need to try to portray themselves differently online. It is sad to think about how many people so desperately want to be perceived as ‘beautiful’ or ‘skinny’ or whatever else the current trend is. But these insecurities rarely pop up out of nowhere. They are likely a response to societal pressure.   

If we did not see airbrushed and ‘perfected’ photos of celebrities and if we had no knowledge of apps like Facetune, would we still feel the desire to manipulate our bodies in photos? I’m not so sure. I remember noticing wrinkles on my face in middle school and feeling insecure about them, but I didn’t feel the need to minimize their appearance in photos. And I know for a fact that the idea that “wrinkles are bad” was not an original thought I had. It came from magazine covers, makeup advertisements and Real Housewives I had seen on TV.

However, apps and filters can and have had a very real impact on many people’s self-esteem. One 28-year-old opened up to Vox about how she began using Facetune to minimize a few wrinkles on her forehead, and it soon snowballed into her making appointments for Botox. “If I already have an indent in my forehead [now], how bad is it going to be when I’m 60?” she wondered. Since then, she has started getting injections every nine months, has had her lips filled and her skin lasered “because it didn’t look pretty on camera". 

DC-based dermatologist Noëlle Sherber says there is a new wave of plastic surgery inspired by apps and filters. “I have a lot of millennials as part of my practice,” she told Vox. “Most of the time, they want to talk about how they appear in their edited photos. And they are looking to explore options of how to translate that into reality.” Common alterations patients ask Sherber for are fuller lips, thinner noses, brighter skin, or even enlarged eyes and changes to the proportions of their face. “Some of the changes they are making to their faces are not achievable,” she noted. “We can’t do that in real life. And if they really can’t be made to match that, they will be inherently disappointed.”