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Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by ncmncm on Sunday October 04, 2020 @05:21PM (#24682338)
Retouching is Women's magazines' stock in trade.

They actively seek to make women insecure about their appearance, and collect advertising from outfits that promise to correct it.

One of the promoted tropes is that overspending on a putative remedy is giving yourself a treat, rather than giving the vendor a treat.

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by userbinator on Sunday October 04, 2020 @08:13PM (#24683337)
giving yourself a treat, rather than giving the vendor a treat

That applies to... 100% of all marketing. Not just the cosmetics industry.

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by ncmncm on Monday October 05, 2020 @02:32PM (#24690553)
No. There are plenty of products marketed on the proposition that they provide as much or more value than you pay.

Selling 5 cents' worth of scented lanolin for $20, which no one can tell you used, is not even the sort of "price-signaling" that usually motivates absurd overpayment. That it succeeds indicates deep pathology.

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by nicbou on Monday October 05, 2020 @03:58AM (#24685546)
I'm still amazed that they managed to spin self-care into another consumerist rat race.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by dehrmann on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:42AM (#24684850)
It probably plays out like that, but I'm sure someone initially just saw it as a way to drum up magazine sales.

A less publicized example of this is what's done in music production. Most people aren't singers, so it's not as obvious, but the perfection you hear in any track produced in the last 20 years sets pretty unrealistic ideals for even a trained voice.

Unlike the magazine example, there isn't a compelling ulterior motive. They just wanted to sell more CDs.

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by esperent on Sunday October 04, 2020 @05:59PM (#24682592)
I don't think magazines are at fault here. It's social media where most of these photos will end up and be judged.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by srtjstjsj on Sunday October 04, 2020 @06:14PM (#24682682)
Social media is this generation's magazines.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by dylan604 on Sunday October 04, 2020 @08:25PM (#24683410)
Social Media is worse with its instantaneous feedback factor.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by asdfasgasdgasdg on Sunday October 04, 2020 @07:19PM (#24683042)
You're giving them way too much credit. There's no strategem or design to hurt women's self esteem. They sell what people want to buy.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by dylan604 on Sunday October 04, 2020 @08:24PM (#24683408)
I think you have that backwards. They sell what they've made people want to buy with their advertising.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by lotsofpulp on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:49PM (#24683858)
People will always want to better themselves versus another, it’s part of the mating process. If it’s not appearance, something else will be used to signal rank.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by npunt on Sunday October 04, 2020 @10:11PM (#24683941)
This is a variant of the "if I don't do it, someone else will (and things will be the same)" hypothesis, which... you might want to question.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by PeterStuer on Monday October 05, 2020 @02:26AM (#24685081)
I think you are both correct. It is push and pull.
Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by fortran77 on Sunday October 04, 2020 @07:42PM (#24683147)
And the men in "Men's Health" magazine aren't retouched? Are men not affected (or does Google not care about men)?

https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/

I am skeptical about this. I'm co-owner of a gym and I don't think the people there--men or women--who care a lot about how they look, are depressed or insecure at all when they see Instagram photos. And many of them spend a lot of time building an Instagram brand.

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by dane-pgp on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:12PM (#24684233)
> I'm co-owner of a gym and I don't think the people there ... are depressed or insecure at all

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

Re:Face retouching settings should be off by default by ncmncm on Sunday October 04, 2020 @07:58PM (#24683241)
I have no experience of "men's health" magazines. No doubt they are an attempt to rope men onto the same treadmill.