There is no doubt that the pressure of the public eye weighs heavily on celebrities and social media influencers. However, despite having notable access to designer makeup and a glam squad, celebrities still feel obligated to fulfill unrealistic beauty standards. 

Khloe Kardashian specifically has been repetitively accused of incorrectly photoshopping and editing her physical appearance throughout Instagram. Although the Kardashian and Jenner family’s show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” has been amusing, many fans noticed that Khloe’s body did not match the production of their reality TV show in comparison to her Instagram feed. 

Within May of 2020, accusations of going under the knife for cosmetic procedures arose dramatically. When Kardashian first posted an edited image, critics speculated a slimmer nose and botched lip fillers. Because she was practically unrecognizable, her family lawyer and legal team sent out legal threats to take down the picture from the internet, as it was posted without her permission. Fortunately, her unedited appearance was widely sent and shared throughout various platforms of social media, and ultimately opened the eyes of many to realize nobody is as perfect as they seem. 

“I remember going on Tik Tok and seeing Khloe’s unedited picture. It made me realize that the entertainment industry expects perfection from people such as herself all of the time. It is sickening to be honest,” said Anna Schmitz (‘21).

After previously denying cosmetic procedures it is apparent that whether or not she has been under the knife, she is editing her pictures quite heavily. After her legal action failed to remove the unedited bikini picture, Kardashian released a statement via Instagram. 

An opinion regarding celebrity photoshop

As social media advances and grows more and more, users all over the world join different social outlets to see their favorite celebrities and connect with friends. We see celebrities looking perfect and having luxury lifestyles all over social media. 

At times I feel concerned with seeing this because it gives a completely spewed view on reality. Most of the time these celebrities use photoshop, filters, and plastic surgery to look perfect in their social media posts. This just isn’t real life because the average person doesn’t have access to these. It’s also concerning because many young people see these celebrities and compare themselves to them at a young age. This is just extremely sad because these kids begin to get this extreme jealousy and self hatred for themselves because they don’t look like the person in the photo. And the thing is that the person in the photo is photoshopped and not real. 

It’s so incredibly damaging for people to compare themselves to celebrities on social media. Every single human being is different and instead of being ashamed of that, we all should promote that. 

Seeing a celebrity like Khloe Kardashian always looking ‘perfect’ on her social networks, and then a ‘not so flattering’ picture getting released is comforting and sad at the same time. Khloe looked amazing in the leaked picture, she looked like a real human being and it’s sad sometimes to see that she feels the need to photoshop many of her pictures.

“Seeing celebrities online with perfect bodies and perfect lives sometimes is kinda hard to see because I know I don’t have what they have. At times I see myself comparing myself to them, which I know isn’t good but it’s hard not to when I see them everywhere. This year I’m gonna focus on portraying my true self online,” said Maddie Burke (‘21). 

This year I feel like social media users should really focus on portraying their true selves on social media. If we could all portray our real selves it would give teens and adults a new sense of confidence because they will begin to see people online who actually look like real people. Hopefully this would stop a lot of body image issues and make others confident and happy.