#top ten posts that tell you i looked up cosplay photos in pintrest for posing ideas

[squeakadeeks]

i hope this statement isnt unknowingly swinging a bat at a wasp’s nest but man no matter how much time passes i always get such a weird feeling looking at cosplay selfies that are extremely edited in terms of the facial features. 

photo editing obviously has its place in photoshoot/display photos (especially for effects but i feel like thats an entirely different topic) and i stand firm that theres nothing inherently wrong with editing cosplay photos, but looking at ones where theres maybe a grand total of 5 pixels left unedited or I have to double-take to realize its a photo and not a drawing makes me get a bit of a knot in my stomach. to be clear i dont mean like “airbrush out eyebags” or “slight skin smoothing/boosting the lighting” i mean extreme distortion of facial features and heavy airbrushing. 

i see both sides: on one hand with cosplay its a different medium to display art and where most often main vehicle of which you share it is photos, and why not make the photo look as polished as possible? after all, its how you’re sharing the artform, photo manipulation is no secret, and if you worked hard on something it makes sense to want to make it look nice and eye-catching when presented. 

but then again its not just photos, its photos of faces, bodies, and people, and even after knowing something is edited its so deeply ingrained in our social programing to see something and attempt to mirror it in ourselves that dysmorphia is almost always along for the ride. which leads into the issue of community norms and standards; for a long time now heavy editing has been the standard- but the downside of it being so standardized is if you dont want to participate, you can be punished. this may be shocking coming from someone who almost died from an ED, but i dont take behaviors that can trigger dysmorphia lightly and dont feel comfortable editing my photos in that way, but i’ve had my work cross-compared to people who do by people outside the cosplay sphere, and when you dont do above and beyond editing, your work will look lackluster and dull in comparison. 

part of me is tempted to just say “people do what people do, just mind your business and present your work according to your values” but again, sharing things- especially images of faces/bodies absolutely does not exist in a vacuum and one person’s decision to edit themselves in an extreme manner can have significant negative consequences not just as a result of that singular image, but how it can reinforce harmful norms...which in turn leads into a pandora’s box senario (ie once the standard gets updated to extreme disfiguration it will be difficult/damn near impossible to return to the way things were before)