Julia Bluhm, Seventeen Reader, Petitions Magazine To Feature Non-Airbrushed Photos

[ScreamingMeemie]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/julia-bluhm-seventeen-petition_n_1464445.html

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13-year-old Julia Bluhm submitted a petition through Change.org entitled "Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images of Real Girls!" Bluhm, a middle school student from Maine, writes that the constant ambush of overly Photoshopped images has caused her and her peers to develop low self-esteem about their own bodies:

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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.

-snip

Here's the petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/seventeen-magazine-give-girls-images-of-real-girls

[Scout]

1. good luck to her. n/t

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Apparently they are demonstrating outside of Seventeen's offices today.

I wish them well too!

[Wait Wut]

3. Kids today...I swear.

They just have no respect for all the hard work us graphic artists put into making people look plastic.

/sigh I guess I'm just stuck with being proud of our new generation.

[CrispyQ]

8. You'll love this:

[PoliticAverse]

10. That's pretty good. n/t

[loyalsister]

4. + 100000!

The beauty culture that came out of the 80s did some serious damage to many of today's moms. These are some amazing young women!

[PoliticAverse]

5. How long until all print models are just completely computer generated? n/t

[angstlessk]

6. I remember when I was a kid...13? 14? I shaved my arms

cause all the models had no hair on their arms...who knew about airbrushing back then..the early 60's?

[joeybee12]

7. How many actresses would refuse to be on 17 if this went into effect?

I'm thinking 99%, although that might be a tad low.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Good, I am sick and tired of this culture of youth and beauty

the kids, it seems, are as well.

[redqueen]

11. And the sadly unsurprising result.

http://jezebel.com/5907397/seventeen-says-thanks-but-no-thanks-to-teens-photoshop-petition?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Seventeen Says Thanks But No Thanks To Teen’s Photoshop Petition

Seventeen editor Ann Shoket met yesterday with Julia Bluhm, the 14-year-old reader who started anonline petition to askthe magazine to curb its use of Photoshop. Although the magazine accepted the petition and its nearly 25,000 signatures when Bluhm went to deliver it in person yesterday,it appears Seventeen has no plans to take Bluhm's suggestion and start publishing just one non-Photoshopped spread per issue.

(snip)

Bluhm, an 8th grader who lives in Maine, said this morning via a spokesperson that she was nonetheless happy to have had the opportunity to meet with Shoket. "The fact that Seventeen's editor-in-chief met with me in person provesthat the voices of teen girls everywhere are getting through," said Bluhm. "While I would stillchange some of the ways Seventeen portrays girls,I'm encouraged that they're willing to listen to me and the 30,000 people who've signed my petition. Seventeen's invited me to work with them on this issue, which meanswe girls— Seventeen's readers — are finally being heard loud and clear. It'sreally exciting."

Bluhm's media blitzhas certainly been felt online: traffic spikes made the Web site of SPARK,the feminist organization Bluhm is involved in, inaccessible for most of yesterday afternoon,and Bluhm's petitionhas now been signed by over 45,000 people and is still growing.