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Woman’s Posed Vs. Unposed Pics Expose How Fake Social Media Can Be

I think that by now we all know social media is a bit of a con; your friends aren’t posing in crystalline lakes for the majority of their day-to-day life.

Moreover, there are so many tools to airbrush, lift, and tone bodies (and let’s be real: female bodies) that we can barely trust that the person in the photo looks like the person posting it.

Sara Puhto is a Finnish content creator who has taken that idea and run with it; she has a huge following of nearly 400,000 people who like to see how fake pictures and social really are.

Instagram: @saggysara

She posts a series of Posed v. Unposed photos of herself in a natural, relaxed state and in a heavily curated version. She does so to discourage people from comparing themselves to others online; after all, Sarah’s pose and the reality are different!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcQbPl6M53Q/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=aac2aba7-9eff-4cdf-b5a2-fb818b0b84ac

The series came to Sara, who spoke to BuzzFeed, back in 2016.

She says she was looking at other peoples’ photos for inspiration in a fitness journey. “I initially got the idea to post posed vs. not posed photos [when] I was looking at photos of people on Instagram.”

“I felt like I was the only one constantly looking at images on Instagram and feeling like I was never good enough, as I was comparing my body to all the ‘perfect’ pictures,” she continued. “But I started realizing I wasn’t the only one, and I didn’t want others to keep feeling the way I did — being obsessed with this idea of having to look ‘Instagram worthy’ all the time. So I started posting photos of what the reality is behind my Instagram photos.”

So now Sara spends her days exposing her own reality. Flexed and unflexed…

Instagram: @saggysara
Instagram: @saggysara

Hip dips

Instagram: @saggysara

BREATHE.

Instagram: @saggysara

Different poses.

Sara hopes that people understand that “the people in these seemingly ‘perfect’ photos don’t look like that all the time.”

“This perfection [some people are] chasing doesn’t actually exist, and therefore we shouldn’t stress so much over it, and [instead] learn to start appreciating ourselves how we are naturally,” she continued. “We need to realize that these images we see daily can be edited, posed, etc., and are not always a realistic depiction of bodies and the diversity of people in society. We all come in different shapes and sizes, and it’s impossible for us all to conform to a certain body shape. Your uniqueness makes you special. It makes us beautiful, and we shouldn’t need to change ourselves to accept ourselves.”

@saggysara / Instagram

She notes that “[Sharing these photos] helps me as well, on days where I don’t feel well — either mentally or emotionally — about my body. It helps having a platform to be like, ‘Hey, it’s OK to not be OK; we can embrace that as well!'”

“I just want to highlight the importance of the non-linearity of self-acceptance and body acceptance,” Sara concluded. “It’s completely normal and human to have ‘bad body image’ days. We can’t expect to love and be happy with ourselves 24/7; it’s completely human for emotions to change as life goes on. And therefore we shouldn’t be too self-critical or hard on ourselves when these days do come about.”