Social media is all smoke and mirrors — just ask Australian swimsuit designer Karina Irby. “The girls I follow that portray these images have big followings, often hundreds of thousands of young girls looking up to them as role models,” the 27-year-old Moana Bikini CEO began in an Instagram post post on Monday, September 4. “As I scroll through the comments I find young girls tagging their friends ‘GOALS’ and ‘OMG WHY DONT I LOOK LIKE THIS. The truth is girls don’t look like this. They look like you, like everyone.”
To prove her point, Irby shared side-by-side photos with her 650,000 followers. In both pictures, the stunning entrepreneur poses on the beach in a revealing two-piece design. But there is one major difference: Irby gave the image on the right what she dubs “the classic Insta Girl edit” using a Photoshop app. Irby then detailed the 10 changes she made: “Full body skin smooth. Enlarged my booty. Sucked in my tummy. Sucked in my back. Thinned out my arms. Thinned out my quads. Made my neck a tad skinner. Got rid of my scars and cellulite. Made my breast rounder. Lifted my booty.”
“After all these little tweaks, can you notice how my horizon is warped?” she continued. “So many girls are so into how their Insta image is going to be portrayed that they don’t even notice they have warped the background! Look out for the signs of the ‘Insta Girl Edit’ and don’t take social media too seriously. Let’s get real.”
Irby’s message struck a chord with many women as she racked up more than 23,000 likes in 24 hours. “What a gem you are for preaching reality and self-love. I often find myself getting stuck in the ‘why don’t i look like that’ self-loathing state of mind and have to snap myself out of it,” wrote one person. Added another: “I’m a guy and I think this post is perfect. I’m tired of hearing friends compare themselves to these women on here.”
