Keeping it very unreal

12 April 2012

It's not, as Ali G might say, keeping it real. Instead, more and more images on the Internet are taking on a distinctly surreal flavour.

Image deception is the latest craze to sweep the Web and has even spawned a new word: photoshopping (after Adobe's Photoshop, the major imaging software package).

Popular altered images include Sesame Street's Bert peeking over Osama Bin Laden's shoulder, slim film stars, such as Jennifer Lopez, made to look fat and an Ali G-like Blair hanging out with the US President. Enthusiasts of photoshopping have even hailed the depictions as modern art.

London-based site b3ta.com hosts a weekly image-manipulation contest, just one of dozens to have sprouted on the Web in recent months. Like others, it posts images for people to download, almost becoming the computer's version of a weekly cartoon.

Rob Manuel, one of the group of designers behind b3ta, blames boredom among Web designers. Forced to take on dull corporate work during the economic downturn, they turn to image manipulation for fun.

'They know they're doing really boring stuff. We're trying to give people a playground to do fun stuff,' Manuel said.

One site which exclusively produces fat pictures of the thin and famous, gets about 400,000 hits a month. The popularity of photoshopping is attributed to ever faster Internet connections which allow image posting to be quick and easy. Also more and more people own digital cameras and have image-manipulation software on their computers.

It's also an easy outlet. While there was little mainstream humour in the days following the September 11 attacks, the Web flourished with doctored images of George Bush and Osama Bin Laden. It was seen as a way of people coping with their shock over the attacks, and was even given its own directory with online encyclopedia About.com. 'I think it's a way of expression that people don't necessarily get a chance to do. I can't draw. A lot of people can't write either,' explained Drew Curtis, founder of Fark, another image manipulation site.

'Some people can see a message. Myself, I do it because it's fun and because I like to take these pictures of celebrities, stand them on their head, and satirise what I see to be a trend in society that I'm not really fond of: that people need to change themselves to be beautiful,' said Webb.

b3ta.com

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in