Primus loves chatting on Google Hangouts with her friends. They mostly talk about Voltron, or whatever their newest obsession is, and shard silly memes. She was so entertained and just had to show me when someone shared a video that had a tripod from War of the Worlds photoshopped into a view of Hurricane Irma in Florida.
This led to a conversation with her about how amazingly talented some people are with photoshop and that you have to be skeptical and not assume everything you see on the internet is true. My friend, and Primus' best friend's mother, is on their chat and often says sarcastically there, "Oh, it's real. It's on the internet."
Then that led to a discussion about how extensively photoshop is used in magazines and advertisements. I shared with her the fact that studies have shown that the more girls read such magazines, the more they hate their own bodies. As I put it to her, some women come to desire to look like what they see in the magazine, but what they see is fiction and not physically possible. So that leads to poor self esteem and feelings of inadequacy.
I plan to show her some videos of photoshopping in progress. During our brief conversation, however, I gave her just a few examples of the kinds of things on a woman's body that a photoshopper would change such as making hair fuller, erasing knee caps, shaving arm width, etc. She suggested that they might erase freckles. When I confirmed that she was absolutely right, she was horrified! "I love my freckles!" she emphatically declared as she grabbed her nose.
I'm so glad that she seems to have such a good head on her shoulders and that she is comfortable in her own skin. She's in sixth grade. I was in sixth grade when I finally really became aware of my own appearance, and I did not like what I saw. I hope that she never loses her confidence and knowledge that she is a beautiful and unique daughter of God.
I'm so grateful for the teaching opportunity that a silly Youtube video provided for us!
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