Following our super fun faux fashion show demonstration asking Teen Vogue to pledge in the pages of their magazine never to alter models’ faces or bodies, we had a meeting with them. And sadly, it didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. But we’re not giving up! 

The SPARK representatives–petition starters Carina and Emma alongside our Executive Director Dana Edell–met the staff the magazine for less than five minutes, and the staff made no mention of the campaign or the magazine’s photoshoot process. Instead, they gave Emma and Carina copies of Teen Vogue and told them to use it to “learn about the magazine,” as though we didn’t already know about it–I’m a Teen Vogue subscriber!

This was obviously disappointing to us, but we will still continue on our mission to get Teen Vogue to stop altering the appearances of the girls in their magazine. Teen Vogue has an incredibly large readership that supports them immensely, and now it’s time for the magazine to do the same for their readership. Teen Vogue has the power to change how girls feel about their bodies when they read their magazine, and they can lead other publications to do the same. People (including you, reader!) can continue to support our cause to help teen girls everywhere by signing our petition to have Teen Voguemake a commitment in the pages of their magazine to never altering models’ bodies or faces. We want people to stand up for teen girls and help us get Teen Vogue to do the right thing; they affect the lives of their readership in so many ways, and we want them to use this ability in a good way. They have the choice to be the heroes in this story; help them make that decision.

After a wildly successful Day 1 of the Keep It Real Challenge asking magazines to drop idealized image editing—both Lucky Mag and Marie Claire publicly showed support!—it’s time for Day 2: blog-o-rama!

We have three written pieces & several vlogs going up today about image retouching, body image, magazines, and media, and we want YOU to contribute! Submit posts to us, send us the link to a post or video you’ve posted elsewhere, or tag your related tumblr posts with #keepitreal & we’ll reblog and tweet about your pieces. You can also post your pieces in the Facebook event!

Join us!

JOIN US in the #KeepItReal Challenge!

Today SPARK went to Seventeen Magazine headquarters to deliver over 24,000 signatures asking Seventeen to start running at least one un-retouched photo spread per issue. (Since this morning, the petition has gotten up to 32,500 and rapidly growing!) Excuse me while I clutch this photo to my chest and sob with joy at how amazing our group of young activists is. Julia, the girl who started the petition (second from the right in that killer ballet stance) is only 14! We’re so proud of her and what she’s started—including what looks like is going to be a fantastic ongoing conversation with Seventeen about how to support and represent girls!

This has been a busy week here at SPARK! Hot on the heels of our fantastic meeting with LEGO is a new petition (gotta love ‘em) started by SPARKteam girl activist Julia Bluhm. This fab 14 year old is calling out Seventeen Magazine on their overwhelming usage of photoshop. Julia is asking the magazine to commit to one photoshop free spread per month to celebrate real girls, because we all want to see regular girls that look like us in a magazine that’s supposed to be for us.

And (what a shock) we’re not the only ones who think like that! Julia’s petition has 13,000+ signatures already and it’s moving fast! How’s that for girl power?!

The petition has raced past every goal we’ve set and the press is taking notice (Huffington Post & The Daily Mail, anyone?!)

But we’re not stopping there. Once again, SPARK has started something amazing! We’ve got our bold, girl-supporting partners standing with us. We’re going to make sure Seventeen Magazine listens to us and we need your help!

Here’s what you can do:

First, if you haven’t signed the petition, get to it! Then ask all your friends, family members and obscure, distant relatives to sign it too. Tweet it, Facebook it, share it on Tumblr, the whole shebang. If you want more info on Seventeen Magazine, check out this blog by SPARKteam-er Izzy Labbe.

Next, head on over to our fantastic partner, Powered By Girl, to spoof this month’s Seventeen Magazine cover. Download your spoof to the PBG gallery and share it on Facebook. Don’t forget to tag SPARK Summit, so we can admire your culture jamming skills.

Then, check out our You’ve Been SPARK’d post-it action. Grab your post-its, a marker, and let Seventeen know what you think. Don’t forget to take a picture and post it to our Facebook page! The more images they see and voices they hear the better!  Love this action?  Please support our Indiegogo You’ve Been SPARK’d campaign!  Donate, donate, donate!  We can’t continue to do this work without your support. There are some awesome prizes up for grabs, so check it out!

Last but not least, for all you New Yorkers, or dedicated road-trippers, come join us and Julia as we visit Seventeen Magazine headquarters and demand that they listen to our request. We’ll be there at 11 o’clock, Wednesday morning May 2nd.  The more the merrier!

As Julia says, “For the sake of all the struggling girls all over America, who read Seventeen and think these fake images are what they should be, I’m stepping up.” So are we. Join us!

Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images of Real Girls!

Girls want to be accepted, appreciated, and liked. And when they don’t fit the criteria, some girls try to “fix” themselves. This can lead to eating disorders, dieting, depression, and low self esteem.

I’m in a ballet class with a bunch of high-school girls. On a daily basis I hear comments like: “It’s a fat day,” and “I ate well today, but I still feel fat.” Ballet dancers do get a lot of flack about their bodies, but it’s not just ballet dancers who feel the pressure to be “pretty”. It’s everyone. To girls today, the word “pretty” means skinny and blemish-free. Why is that, when so few girls actually fit into such a narrow category? It’s because the media tells us that “pretty” girls are impossibly thin with perfect skin.

Here’s what lots of girls don’t know. Those “pretty women” that we see in magazines are fake.They’re often photoshopped, air-brushed, edited to look thinner, and to appear like they have perfect skin. A girl you see in a magazine probably looks a lot different in real life.

That’s why I’m asking Seventeen Magazine to commit to printing one unaltered — real — photo spread per month. I want to see regular girls that look like me in a magazine that’s supposed to be for me.

For the sake of all the struggling girls all over America, who read Seventeen and think these fake images are what they should be, I’m stepping up. I know how hurtful these photoshopped images can be. I’m a teenage girl, and I don’t like what I see. None of us do. Will you join us by signing this petition and asking Seventeen to take a stand as well and commit to one unaltered photo spread a month?

Must-watch: “Fotoshop by Adobé”

H&M is taking Photoshop to a whole ‘nother level

If H&M wanted to give consumers a virtual template for putting clothes on, why create one identical and unrealistically proportioned model? Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to make (or, I don’t know, hire) a group of models with diverse body shapes and sizes to give girls a real idea of how their clothes will fit?

One argument in favor of the virtually created models seems to be that they are no different than store mannequins and “it’s not that big of a deal.” Except for the fact that they are completely different from store mannequins. Store mannequins are plastic, often headless and don’t resemble real human people. No one is going to confuse the body of a mannequin with a living person.

These pictures are different, and that difference is insidious. The bodies of these models look like real, airbrushed women, which means the implicit message is that real women and girls can and should strive to look like them. Few girls are going to aspire to look like a store mannequin. Plenty of girls and women want to be models, and draw inspiration from pictures of models found in magazines and online. The virtual nature of these bodies is disguised, making them seem more attainable, even though they’re not.

Sign our petition demanding that H&M either end this practice or expand it to include customizable body types—a tool that they USED to have and that’s easily attainable through this technology. 

H&M puts real model heads on fake bodies. via Jezebel:

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. For now — in the future, even models’ faces won’t be considered perfect enough for online fast fashion, and we’ll buy all of our clothing from cyborgs. (This news sort of explains this.) But man, isn’t looking at the four identical bodies with different heads so uncanny? Duly noted that H&M made one of the fake bodies black. You can’t say that the fictional, Photoshopped, mismatched-head future of catalog modeling isn’t racially diverse. 

eta that literally no one will see: we’ve started a petition on Change.org asking H&M to either end this practice or expand it to include customizable body types—a tool they USED to have and that’s easily attainable through this technology.