{"id":13,"date":"2014-08-19T03:42:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T01:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/?p=13"},"modified":"2014-08-19T03:42:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T01:42:21","slug":"meet-dana-suchow-the-fashion-blogger-who-decided-to-come-clean-about-photoshopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/2014\/08\/19\/meet-dana-suchow-the-fashion-blogger-who-decided-to-come-clean-about-photoshopping\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Dana Suchow, the Fashion Blogger Who Decided to Come Clean About Photoshopping"},"content":{"rendered":"

I Photoshopped the images in the first place because that\u2019s what you do\u2014that\u2019s what bloggers do; that\u2019s what fashion does. When I first started the blog, I thought, \u2018I want to make so much money, I\u2019m going to become a famous fashion blogger, I\u2019m going to go to all the fashion weeks.\u2019 Now that\u2019s not what I want to do.<\/p>\n

But no one\u2019s going to want to advertise on a girl who has acne, or a fupa. That\u2019s not the ideal body. So [I thought] unless I have an ideal body, my blog is not going to make money, not going to attract readership, and I\u2019m not going to have 10,000 Instagram followers liking my selfie. Then, when my ideals and values started shifting towards why I wanted to do the blog in the first place and what message I wanted to put out, Photoshopping my body to make me look different was not in line with what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gone in the direction of having my blog be more of a place for women\u2013even in the comments section\u2014to air out the things that they’re feeling about their bodies. One thing that I\u2019ve noticed with my readers is that they’re very open with me. And someone had commented on an old post saying something like, \u2018You\u2019re so beautiful,\u2019 and I thought, even if it\u2019s a two inch line [I’ve retouched], I still don\u2019t feel like I was 100 percent honest.<\/p>\n

It took me a few months to actually put this post out\u2014I had to gain the courage to do it. I’ve said before to other people, my skin and my stomach are huge insecurities for me. I\u2019ve had acne all my life\u2014even having people see me in the morning without makeup is scary, let alone the whole world seeing me without Photoshop. But I felt like I had to do it and be honest with my readers\u2014and better late than never.<\/p>\n

\"\"Also, I was tired. If I was going to shoot for the blog on a Saturday, I would spend three hours at the gym on Friday night trying to work out, pushing myself to exhaustion, so that I would look good for a shoot the next day. I finally thought, ’I can\u2019t have this ruining my life anymore.’ It\u2019s scary to be putting myself out there, but if this is what I\u2019m doing, if I\u2019m killing myself and getting injuries at the gym, just for this blog, then the blog isn\u2019t worth it.<\/p>\n

The response has been overwhelming, but I\u2019ve just been trying to stay above water and all the positive responses have been keeping me going. The craziest thing I\u2019ve received is e-mails from parents saying that their daughters are depressed, and they don\u2019t have any tools to show them about body image. So they\u2019re like, ’Thank you for putting yourself out there, I\u2019m showing this to my daughter.’ So [going forward], I have to be honest now\u2014I can\u2019t lie to these people who trust me.<\/p>\n

Before this all went viral, it was a little more personal\u2014just comments from the people who \u201cknow me\u201d or know what I’m about online. So it was 100% supportive. I cried when I read some of the responses\u2014I had friends texting me, telling me they could really relate to it and that they were proud of me. A lot of people said they were really proud of me, and that meant a lot.<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s gone viral, I\u2019ve been trying not to read too many of the comments. A lot of people say it\u2019s just a skinny girl or a perfect girl trying to show us how perfect she is without Photoshop. If they only knew how upset I was about my body when I saw the un-Photopped photos on those posts. You know, in one of them I was in tears, thinking, ’I can\u2019t believe my stomach bulges out that much, I\u2019m hideous, I have to retouch this.’ I just wish people would know the insecurity I felt and how common it is with women. I want these people in the end to realize they\u2019re attacking the very thing that I\u2019m trying to say don\u2019t attack.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing this because I wish that when I was going through the worst parts of my self-esteem issues, I had something like this to look at.<\/p>\n

[Photoshoping] is the norm\u2014and it\u2019s crazy because I\u2019m getting these e-mails from readers saying \u2018I had no idea.\u2019 It’s not common knowledge at all\u2014which I think is why my story has been so big, even though my Photoshopping isn\u2019t that drastic. I think it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh my god these people who claim they\u2019re regular people don\u2019t really look like that?\u2019 They\u2019re setting the bar so high that even regular people can\u2019t look regular.<\/p>\n

I think that fashion bloggers are the end result\u2014I\u2019m not going to shame a blogger for Photoshopping him or herself. I think that we have to look at the bigger picture of why they\u2019re doing it\u2014why they feel the need to do it. There\u2019s so much pressure in society for people to be perfect\u2014especially online\u2014any sort of celebrity or public persona. I\u2019ve actually had a couple fashion bloggers respond to me saying, ’Hey, we want to work on a project together or raise awareness for this or if we Photoshop our photos, including a disclaimer\u2014being more transparent.’ It\u2019s really inspiring.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not shaming models or skinny women, I\u2019m just saying there\u2019s a whole spectrum of people on this planet who aren\u2019t being utilized or shown to the public. It\u2019s a very narrow view of what is perfect. It\u2019s in all the magazine and advertisements and it\u2019s scary\u2014and even scarier when I get these e-mails from parents saying their kids don\u2019t fit into that norm. It just breaks my heart.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that fashion is wrong or that Photoshop is a terrible program. I\u2019m just saying nothing is real\u2014nothing that you see in an advertisement or on TV is real. Your body is real. So all that energy you\u2019re spending [worrying]\u2014all those hours I spent at the gym on Friday nights, I could have written a novel. But I\u2019m so thankful that I\u2019m now at the point where I\u2019ve realized it and I\u2019ve come out a stronger person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Photoshopped the images in the first place because that\u2019s what you do\u2014that\u2019s what bloggers do; that\u2019s what fashion does. When I first started the blog, I thought, \u2018I want to make so much money, I\u2019m going to become a famous fashion blogger, I\u2019m going to go to all the fashion weeks.\u2019 Now that\u2019s not … L\u00e4s mer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9333,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2,8],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fashion-2","tag-fashion","tag-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/carpenterfall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}