All they’ve got are lies and illusions to prop up their poor self-image. Trump has set the standard for all Republican candidates.
Screenshot
Is anyone fooled by Photoshop anymore?
Pathetic pretense
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
There’s a parody version of that going around where Mike looks like Mister Hyde from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Notice that the photoshopped image also cuts out the non-white person from the background, in addition to looking absurdly fake.
The fascistic ideation of their notion of bodily perfection. Look at all the ridiculous muscled-up versions of AI trump illustrations they promulgate. The “Fitness” and “Wellness” to right-wing pipeline is real.
The inclination to worship perceived “Health,” “Purity,” and bodily perfection is a fascist impulse. It aligns with eugenics and eliminationist rhetoric against the disabled.
I no longer trust any of the imagery on the Internet because of the power of these photomanipulative apps. I can take a picture from the gallery on my iPhone, delete parts of the background and add differential movement of the foreground and background to create a quasi-3D effect with just a few taps and swipes of my fingers. It’s fun but it’s frightening when you think about it because you can’t tell it’s been doctored unless you have the original to compare it with,
So the message from the Rogers campaign is that they expect their voters to vote based on physical appearance. Happy High School Days, I guess!
Robert Westbrook @3
I would stop well short of saying just anyone who is into fitness or wellness is on a right wing pipeline or exhibits fascist tendencies or promotes eugenics. Or is ableist.
I am VERY ANNOYED that so very many “pictures” in this age prompt me to “count their fingers”.
“My name is Snarki. You killed my trust. Prepare to die”
We truly are living in a “post-truth society.”
As with others, the sheer childishness of it gets me. He’s like a kid in a muscle shirt and Hulk Hands.
Is anyone fooled by Photoshop anymore?
Of course not!
We’re all fooled by AI graphics anymore.
Yet some people say there is no such thing as progress!
Baldrick: “Well, Your Majesty, I just thought – this Welliton bloke’s been in Europe for years. You don’t know what he looks like. He don’t know what you looks like. So why don’t you get someone else to fight the duel instead of you?”
Prince Regent: “But I’m the Prince Regent! My portrait hangs on every wall!”
Edmund: “Answer that, Baldrick.”
Bladrick: “Well my cousin Bert Baldrick, Mr Gainsborough’s butler’s dogsbody, says that he’s heard that all portraits look the same these days, ’cause they’re painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosycratic facial qualities of the person in question.”
Edmund: (impressed) “Your cousin Bert obviously has a larger vocabulary than you do, Baldrick.”
–Blackadder III, Episode 6 – Duel and Duality
Wow that is cringe.
It would take someone several years of intense workouts, radical dieting, heavy roid and HGH abuse, and resulting shrunken testicles and skull anomalies to get that jacked. Stolen valor!
the implied violence is what I find most disturbing besides the cringe inducing fakery of course.
re microraptor@2: I don’t think that was intentional. If you compare the two pics, the muscle version is zoomed slightly closer, so cropping the pic to the same size does the work of cutting the person out.
The cropping may not have been intentional, but there it is.
I myself notice the vanishing of the obvious singlet under the shirt, though.
Hemidactylus @#9
It’s a good thing I didn’t say that, then.
@14 When it happens over and over and over again, it’s intentional. Otherwise, ooof, What a clown.
Hemidactylus@9–
Backing up Robert Westbrook here. I did not read his comment as being dismissive of fitness/wellness. He was referring to the well-documented fascist tendency to equate athletic appearance with moral purity.
One can be fit and well without cartoonish muscles. This strikes me more as a “vote for me because I could beat up the other guy” thing. Republicans venerate their bullies.