Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. The photo that prompts random strangers to click on your profile like a hook with a tasty bait. The photo that gets them interested enough to strike a conversation. I'm referring to any dating site and social networking site.
When I first read this
post from Grizzly7718@xanga, I thought it was pretty funny and sent it out to a few of my male friends to see how they felt about it. Some agreed and some just didn't care as long as they were getting some. Since we were on the topic of deception at first sight, my guy friend Brad told me nothing is worst than the profile pic deception which he calls "photo entrapment".
He told me that he saw this girl online who was pretty cute with a great smile. She didn't have any physical stats but did have some hobbies which consisted of fun outdoors activities. So he starts messaging her and sooner or later, they exchange phone numbers and ends up agreeing to meet on a date. When he got there, he walked right by her because according to him, that photo has been photoshopped the shit out of. She still had the physical features that initially caught his eye but she was also 5x the size from the photo. He went through with the date and immediately transferred his flirty chats as friendliness to make her feel that she's great to hang out with and she's cool to chill with. In fact, he even casually joked around about guy-watching with her, sort of like being her wing-man, therefore, putting her in the friend zone.
Of course, as a girl, I called him an asshole but I can understand why he did it. The same thing happened to me once where this guy found me on myspace, starting chatting with me and I thought he wasn't bad looking and had a pretty buff hot body. When I first saw him though, I had to tell myself to get rid of the deer in headlight look and to keep a smile on my face. He looked like a ghetto smurf. He was really short and skinny. Gone was the buff body which I found out his profile pic was from 10 years ago. I'm a short girl. I'm only 5'3 and I normally wear 3" heels which puts me at 5'6. He was barely breaking 5'4 and standing next to him while he tried to hug me kept putting a mental image of my friend's dog trying to hump my leg. I also went through with the date and was very polite throughout but I also made sure I didn't send any wrong signals to him suggesting further interest.
I do understand that some people are more photogenic so they look better in photos than in person. But when it's an outright deception where it's been retouched or something that's older than 10 years than you currently look? That's not cool.
So with that said, how many of you have encounter something like this before? How many of you have a photo like that for your profile pic? Since I know people will ask me, I'll go first. My profile pic is 3 yrs old and I look the same except I have short hair now.
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Comments (254)
I don't think I've ever photoshopped a picture, apart from, say, setting it to black and white or cropping for stylistic reasons.
But then, I was in elementary school ten years ago, so I don't think pictures of me from 2000 would be very alluring xD
yeah, profile deception will get you past the first test, but when you see through it, how much farther can you get?
I change my profile pics randomly, none of them make me look that different from IRL. I have random web cam pics to prove it! Lol...
all of the pictures i have on like here, facebook, whatever are pretty recent. i don't think i'm very photogenic, so it's hard to find one that i like. haha, but it's always me.. the picture i have now is from november, i think.
I only change pictures like, photoshopping pretty colours :) But I wouldn't put something that was years old or edit it so much, I had a completely different body shape. That's just deceiving!
I don't photoshop my pictures but I look like a different person picture to picture ! It makes no sense; I'll go from looking beautiful to hideous in a set of pictures taken by the same camera on the same day... It's really frustrating because I don't even know what I look like anymore..
I have never photoshopped a picture of mine, mainly because I don't know how to. My profile pic on myspace is only a year old at most, and I look a bit different, my hair is shorter (though in my picture I have my friend's hat on) and I lost thirty pounds. I have older pictures in my albums, and sometimes I will put pictures up that are two or three years old, but I don't look much different
LOL. I've never been in that sort of situation, but I'd probably have fun with it at their expense. I took my profile pic like two weeks ago and haven't done anything to it other than resize it. =]
Obviously my profile pic is not a personal photograph but a drawing. I choose not to put my picture on here for many reasons. However, I don't use Xanga as a dating site and if I should find someone that I was interested in meeting I would be sure to send a recent full length photo. I don't like surprises and I don't want to surprise anyone else. It doesn't do either any good to do that.
Nope, I actually look like my photo. It was taken last week sometime.
my picture was taken when i had lots of makeup on (which usually isnt the case)
and yah i always think that people might be disappointed when they see me in person.. so i don't photoshop my pictures anymore cept like changing the colour of the picture, just in case.I took my profile pic with my cell phone randomly a couple weeks ago. All I did to it was like brighten the colors since my cell phone camera is HORRIBLE with lighting. Anyone with an LG Voyager would know exactly what I mean lol. Besides that, I love my prof pic and wasn't trying to impress anybody :).
I usually alter the lighting in my pictures because I always look so pale. Other than that, I leave them as is, though I'm not photogenic at all unless I get a candid shot where I'm laughing or smiling in a way that's actually real and not posed. I can't stand there and fake a smile.
If I photo-edit/manipulate a picture of myself (Unless its minor changes like light interference or dreaded red-eyes) I make sure in those nifty captions it says editted. Deception is not cool in any shape or form. :]
I don't know how to edit a photo. I always think I look better in person...I get some really good photos though...my profile is a pretty good example.
My profile picture was taken less than a week ago. If I ever use an earlier picture I will look like a middle-school student or an early high-school student.Well if someone manipulates a picture (especially to the degree that they look totally different) or uses a very old picture that doesn't look like them anymore it could/would tell quite a bit about the person.
Mine is two years old, although not much has changed since then. I'm now brunette and less tan (I'm tan during the summer, not so much during the rest of the year). I look horrible in pictures, so if I find a good profile picture, I keep it up for a bit (as long as it still looks like me and isn't completely off base). And I never edit my photos. I look way, way better in person anyway.
It's not only profile pictures. If you look at people's fb pictures, a lot of them are pretty deceiving. I've learned not to judge a person's appearance by looking at their pictures alone.
i've never photoshoped a picture... i have run one through MS paint though ^.^ gave myself devil horns, obviously fake. :P
anyway some time ya just can't change your profile picture. like the on on this account was taken when i was 12. i'm 20 now, needless to say, i've changed.
and since i can only upload pic as non-profile here on xanga... that is the only thing i do. but i don't view it to be misleading, cause if asked i will tell...
... i'm not hiding anything, just don't feel like hacking and 'patching' xanga. partially cause i might break it for everyone else.
I don't know what you're talking about.
<<--- That's really me.
Jk, but I don't put pictures of me as my profile picture on Xanga. I do have pictures of myself in my photo section on here though. I just don't want anyone who knows me (personally) finding me. o.O
I don't photoshop my pictures either, I'm naturally that ugly, and the oldest one on here is probably about 5 months ago. Oh wait, I do have one where I changed the color of my eyes to look like a Cullen from Twilight. Don't hate.
yeah i cant lie... i wear makeup to cover up my freckles.. i have a ton of freckles for an asian girl.. ahaha.. thats all i really hide.. i pretty much look the same in photos and in real life..
The most I do to my photos on Facebook and such is doing things like turning it to black and white and then putting the color back in parts of it. I definitely don't make myself look slimmer or anything.
I wouldn't go on a blind date with someone like that unless I really knew what they looked like. "Take a picture with yourself with today's newspaper."
@AngelStarr@xanga - o_O Freckles are cute though...