WHY DO WE EDIT PHOTOS OF OURSELVES?

WHY DO WE EDIT PHOTOS OF OURSELVES?

We know everyone knows we don't look like this.

You know everyone knows you don't look like that.

So who exactly are we editing ourselves for?

Welcome to the new #seen.

Less “here are some social media updates you probably already saw.” More conversations, people and weird things happening on the internet that we can't stop thinking about.

WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE?

Taking a flattering photo doesn't feel like editing. Neither does choosing the best one from the 30 sitting in your camera roll.

Changing the brightness probably doesn't either.

What about removing a pimple? Whitening your teeth? Smoothing your skin? Fixing your hair? Making your jaw a little more jaw-y?

At some point, choosing the version of yourself you like most becomes creating a version of yourself that doesn't really exist.

The weird part is that none of us seem to agree on where that point is.

So we're curious…

What's the furthest you'd go editing a photo of yourself?

Tell us anonymously → here.

WE'RE ALL EDITING OURSELVES.

This is where our conversation went somewhere I wasn't expecting.

Hana sends photos to a friend who knows her way around the editing apps. Gabby doesn't edit hers, but admitted she feels uncomfortable appearing on camera for work without makeup. I've never really FaceTuned myself, but I did once put a surfboard and guitar on my Tinder profile despite being able to do neither.

It sounds like three completely different behaviours.

I'm not sure they are.

We're all deciding which version of ourselves other people get to see.

We choose one photo and delete the other 29. We clean the room before turning the camera on. We put makeup on. We crop the mess out. We rewrite a LinkedIn post until we sound smarter. Even when we're trying to look raw and unfiltered, we're still deciding which bits of raw and unfiltered make the cut.

Hana said something during the conversation that stuck with me:

“There will always be that level of editing or some sort of curation.”

I EDITED ONE OF THE BEST TRIPS OF MY LIFE.

Years ago I went to Canada and had one of the best trips of my life.

At the time I was obsessed with this filter that made everything look slightly cartoonish. Naturally, I put it over heaps of the photos.

Then I lost the phone with the originals.

So now some of the only photos I have from one of my favourite periods of my life aren't actually what it looked like. They're the version 20-something-year-old me thought looked better on Instagram.

I always thought editing photos was about changing what other people see.

I hadn't really thought about the fact that we're also editing what we'll remember.

MAYBE “UNEDITED” DOESN'T EXIST.

We're probably always going to curate ourselves a little.

That's not necessarily fake. It's human. We dress differently for a wedding than we do sitting on the couch. We speak differently to our mates than we do in a meeting. We choose what we show people.

But technology is making the distance between presenting yourself and inventing yourself increasingly difficult to see.

So maybe “do you edit your photos?” isn't actually the interesting question.

How much can you edit before it stops being you?

That's where our first ‘Group Chat’ podcast episode ended up.

It doesn't officially drop until next week.

But you read #seen, so you get it early.

WATCH THE FIRST ‘GROUP CHAT’ EARLY → here.

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THE RECEIPTS

Three things from the internet we haven't stopped thinking about.

01. YOUR CONTENT CALENDAR WANTS TO BE A TV NETWORK.

TikTok and Amplify launched The Next Episode, encouraging brands to develop creator-led micro-dramas, interviews, game shows, docuseries and reality formats rather than relying only on individual short-form posts.

What we saw: We're slowly moving from “What should we post Tuesday?” toward “What show do we own?”

Why it matters: Recurring formats build anticipation and familiarity in a way another disconnected Reel doesn't.

02. KFC HAS DECIDED PICKLES ARE A FASHION MOVEMENT.

KFC Australia's Picklecore campaign didn't just launch pickle menu items. It built a deliberately ridiculous fashion/lifestyle world around them: pickle perfume, earrings, lipstick and sunglasses, borrowing the language of aesthetics like Gorpcore.

What we saw: They didn't advertise a pickle burger. They created a tiny cultural universe around liking pickles.

Why it matters: Products give you something to sell. Worlds give people something to participate in.

03. 121,000 PEOPLE WANT TO READ ABOUT WORKING IN SOCIAL.

Link in Bio is Rachel Karten's newsletter about what it's actually like to work in social media. More than 121,000 people subscribe.

What we saw: It's not built around telling you what Instagram changed this week. It's interested in the people, decisions and creative thinking behind the work.

Why it matters: Maybe social people don't need more social news. Maybe they want more stuff that understands what it's actually like to do the job.

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CLOSE FRIENDS: ELKE WESTERVELD

Coffee order: Double-shot latte.
Comfort food: Mum's spaghetti.
Show she could watch forever: Friends.
Pet peeve: Loud sneeze-coughers.

Elke's agency got better when she started saying no.

Social & Staple used to do a bit of everything: photography, video, websites, TikTok, email and social. Then Elke narrowed the agency to three core services and got much clearer about the customers she actually wanted.

The counterintuitive bit? Doing less helped them build a better business.

Her other lesson: “The cheaper I was, the more the clients wanted.”

Listen to the #seen podcast with Elke → here.

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THAT'S #SEEN.

Maybe “unedited” doesn't really exist.

The interesting bit is figuring out how far from ourselves we're comfortable going.

See you in two weeks,

Lach

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You made it this far, so we should probably introduce ourselves.

#seen is made by the people at Sked Social.

We make social management software for people who care way too much about social.

TRY SKED FREE → here.

P.S. Want to hang out IRL? We're doing our second Melbourne Coffee Catch Up with our good friends at Sticki.

Thursday Oct 8 @ Niccolo, Cremorne → RSVP here.