By Lorrine Dodds
If you use social media you’ll see how it has allowed us to create fake lives, personalities and appearances. This is well known and many celebrities have spoken out about taking advantage of editing, including Khloé Kardashian.
An unauthorised image of Khloé in a bikini by a pool recently circulated the web. Instead of completely removing an unedited reflection of herself from social media, Khloé let her fans see her in an untouched light that she wants to be presented to the world. Disregarding some negative backlash Khloé faced, stories like this make room to remind impressionable young girls that just because it’s on social media doesn’t mean it’s real. The image reminds girls that you can look how Khloé looked by the pool and also how she does in more edited posts. Bodies change daily and with the help of lighting, angles and editing you’ll never be able to tell how someone looks from behind the camera. The overall reaction to the image was positive, her natural body was supported and complemented over social media:
Khloé’s response was quick, she went live on Instagram to her followers and posted a video of her showing herself unaltered. This allowed the celebrity to own her genuine authenticity by letting her fans to see her in an unedited light. Additionally, Khloé also released a four paged statement discussing the image in question. The star highlights how she’s always been referred to as the ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ sister. Khloé agrees that ‘the photo that was posted this week is beautiful’ but expressed how ‘you never quite get used to being judged and pulled apart and told how unattractive one is.’. Khloé concluded; ‘my body, my image and how I choose to look and what I want to share is my choice. It’s not for anyone to decide or judge what is acceptable or not anymore.’ Writer for Cosmopolitan, Dusty Baxter-Wright has said, “to be fair to the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, we've all asked friends to delete a photo we don't like now and again; it's maybe just harder to do when you're famous.” This leaked image has been in circulation since April 4th. Chief marketing officer for KKW, Tracy Romulus, comments on the leakage “The colour edited photo was taken of Khloé during a private family gathering and posted to social media without permission by mistake by an assistant.” Romulus responded to Page Six the following day, “Khloé looks beautiful, but it is within the right of the copyright owner to not want an image not intended to be published taken down.” At some point, nearly everyone has seen a picture of themselves that they didn’t like. I conducted an Instagram poll which discovered 98% of people had experienced this. 59% of these agreed that they’d ask for the image to be deleted. I understood that this was a lower percentage due to people wanting to keep them as memories, even though they didn't like their appearance. Not only did 62% of responders claim they’d be annoyed if someone posted a photo of them they didn’t like to social media, 79% revealed they’d ask them to delete the post. After speaking to a Leeds student Lucy Ormond, 22, it became apparent that many of us have been in similar situations. She told a similar story which had happened to her, “I have had a friend post a bad photo of me before and have asked them to remove it simply because I didn’t like the way that I looked.... of course my friends listened to me and deleted the picture, or took another one that I was happy with.” The same should be allowed for any celebrity, especially for those who continue to find other ways of showing themselves unedited. When asked if Khloé is wrong for wanting the image removed, Jack Toulson, 22, professes that “she is not [wrong]. I feel that anyone regardless of age, celebrity status etc. that you are more than obliged to have an image removed from social media if you’d like to.” After speaking to Olivia Tansley, a Trinity Student in Leeds, she shared her views on the situation. “People, the media especially, are so quick to just assume that it’s about the way she looks since the media have bullied her looks before”, rather than understanding it’s not about how she looks in the picture, it’s the lack of authorisation towards it being posted. Many understand that the woman in the bikini picture by the pool and the woman shown on the Instagram live are the same person, but after a body pump and dimmed lighting. It’s not necessary for Khloé to show herself in an unedited natural way but she continues to release glimpses of real life through social media outlooks. She’s honest about her previous editing and is comfortable enough to show her fans a natural representation of herself. In February she posted an image of her stretch marks with the caption; ‘I love my stripes.’ Khloé is trying to show herself in different lights so that her large following realise the Kardashians have stretch marks too.
Requesting the photo to be removed might have seemed to some that she was going against setting natural beauty standards disregarding the fact she posted additional unedited footage, and has posted her stretch marks still unbothered that they’re considered a flaw by some. We have to appreciate the things people do rather than what they don’t.
Celebrities such as Ashley Graham and Serena Williams may have an easier time posting images that show cellulite and stretch marks. As Brittany Wong, reporter for HuffPost, puts it - it’s ‘heart-warming’ that these women are comfortable enough in their own skin to post images showing their imperfections.
Nevertheless, each celebrity is entitled to show off themselves however they desire. Furthermore, if this includes doing a live stream on Instagram to show a realistic representation of their physique rather than an unauthorised bikini picture being leaked then so be it.
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