THE EVIL OF PHOTOSHOP

These days, everyone can be gorgeous and beautiful. Everyone can now have perfect face, svelte, fat-free figure, tantalizing, eyebag-free eyes, gorgeous smooth hair and flawless, glowing skin and underarms that are as shiny as the sun without going to the doctor or buying those expensive beauty products.

Yes, everyone can be a goddess or godlike when it comes to their appearance. At least, on the pages of those glossy magazines and on billboards and calendars.

Photoshop is the word.

A friend of mine, Dingdong (not his real name) used to regularly buy FHM magazines and the likes but when he noticed that the models’ photos were starting to be heavily doctored and photoshopped (to the point that the models looked deformed and their bodies not proportionate), he stopped buying it. “Fantasizing to a doctored photo is downright cheap and degrading,” my principled friend declared. “They’re giving us fake photos, we might as well pay them fake money.” My friend did just that but was promptly arrested by the bookstore’s security guard. I helped him put up his bail.

Almost every magazine is guilty of it now, digitally enhancing the features of their models. Even Madam Auring or Pokwang can now grace the pages of these magazines and appear salacious and droolworthy. Now, you don’t put salacious and drool-worthy and Madam Auring in one sentence unless it is truly an emergency. It could signal the end of the world. The last time a writer put Regine Velasquez and genuine body parts in one sentence, Mt. Pinatubo erupted. So photoshoppers, beware. Do not attempt to put someone as tall as Mahal on your magazine’s cover and make her look like a statuesque model. Hitler might rise from his grave and start another holocaust, with photoshoppers as his victims.

What prompted this article? Actually, my friend Dingdong adored Marian Rivera. “Believe me, pre,” he'd always tell me, “Marian owns the most dazzling and the sunshiniest armpits in the world. And they're genuine.” He’d always show me the picture below as a proof. I almost had to cover my eyes while looking at her armpits so I would not go blind.


My friend adored Marian Rivera’s underarms, the reason he was shocked when he saw this Marian Rivera picture a few days ago while he was surfing the internet for some religious articles.


"Oh, my God, h-her a-armpits," Dingdong stammered while looking at the picture. "I-It's not as shiny as the..." He felt dizzy and collapsed before he could finish what he was saying. My friend is now devastated, everyday, he cries, he won’t speak to anyone and refuses to look at anyone's armpits. How could he be so naive, refusing to believe then that photoshop had really conquered everything, including Marian's armpits? He is planning to consult a psychiatrist to help him get back on track.

A doctored photo ruined his life.

I wish him well.