Trigger warning for fat and body shaming.
Just read a blog post with “tips” for always looking “good” in photos. Do you like my scare quotes? I will be applying them liberally in this tumblr post.
Apparently double chins always look “yucky” in photos so one must angle one’s chin upwards instead of tucking it in… you know, in stark contrast to everything physios have ever told me about good posture. As a teen I was so self conscious about my chin I developed what the physio called “A Hell Of A Chin-Poke”, meaning I’d always stick my chin out and now I have huge amounts of shoulder and posture pain.
And never mind people who always have a double chin, no matter what. We’ll never look “good” in a photo apparently.
This advice is harmful on a few levels (mental and physical for starters!) and doesn’t help anyone feel truly good about how they look in photos. My advice is to take lots of photos of yourself if you can. And then take more photos. Find blogs with photos of people who’ve got similar bodies to yours. Take more photos.
And then repeat.
Cultural messages about looking good are always embedded with body shaming, even so-called “helpful advice”. This shit is insidious. If you want to look great in a photo, don’t feel under pressure to pose a particular way or contort yourself into whatever angle magazines and blogs tell you is “flattering” (I fucking hate that word). Show how you really feel in the body that you really have. Your photos will be captivating every time.