To think that men believe everything on IG/Tiktok is real

[Maria971]

It takes seconds for influencers to edit/facetune their body, making waist narrower skin smoother etc, eyes bigger nose smaller etc…. It’s just as easy to edit videos as images.

But there are so many men who seem to simp over TikTok influencers when it’s not even the ‘real’ them… do these men really believe what they’re seeing is, well, real?

I'm 68. It's immaterial. My point is that you are generalising about men. As I say, I know none who do this and all the men I know are not in my age group by any means. I just don't spend my time with idiots I guess.

I thought that. You sound incredibly bitter @Maria971

It's the insistent repetition of the word 'simp'. OP has got it into her head for some reason and I also wonder if it's one that got thrown about in a break up argument.

Don't be daft. Of course men (and women) know full well that what they're looking at when they follow models and influencers is a fantasy.

FWIW, this isn't just a social media thing. Looking at hot people on Instagram is no different from looking at filtered photos of hot people in a magazine (which, I can assure you, people did plenty of before social media and the internet.

You sound like you're massively projecting your own insecurities and jealousies here.

However stupid it is to believe that these pictures and effects are real, it doesn’t hold a candle to the immense stupidity of having injections or surgery to imitate the look of these faces and bodies.

Can’t remember if it was last year or 2023, when some woman died after going abroad and paying some crackpot doctor to try and make her arse bigger after being “influenced” into thinking that it was a good lock.

The vast majority of men don’t bother with Instagram or TikTok!

You must be joking.
The only flat-earther I know is a woman.

I can't say I care what muggy blokes choose to wank over. Of course they don't give a fuck whether they're real or not, just that they're hot and 'appear' flirty and sexually up for it.

I wouldn't date a man who looked at and commented on stuff like that. I prefer intellectual types who see women as equal, and genuinely like women in their natural state. Anyone who's into anything fake looking is not going to be on my radar.

I think a lot of men just love to look at it even if they understand the images aren’t entirely real. Otherwise women wouldn’t do it and online porn and OF wouldn’t be so popular. If you don’t have that kind of look, it’s pretty obvious that men will tell you that they don’t like it and it’s fake and of course they prefer us without make up and our natural bums over one someone has paid a plastic surgeon £££££ to make aesthetically perfect. My own dh comes out with the same stuff. But if a 25 year old with a very “done”, immaculate aesthetic walked past him in the street he would still pay more attention than to a classic looking, classily dressed woman with her own natural features because the former look is more attracting of attention.

Does it matter what they think? If they sit there thinking that's the ideal woman, women out there exist and I'm going to get me one, all that will happen is that they'll be in for an almighty shock, and have to adjust their expectations or stay single. If they have a partner and start making her feel inadequate because of their stupidity, then hopefully she will leave them for being thick as a brick and a sexist fool, so again, they lose. The most important thing is that women don't fall into the trap of thinking that because some men want what they see in those images then they should try their best to deliver them in real life.

You are complaining that men see stuff on Instagram and tick tock and they think it represents real-life.

But you are looking at comments left on these accounts, and you think that represents men's real-life opinions.

Those comments are just as fake and un-representative as the influencer's eyebrows. Half of those comments are probably from bots which are working to optimise the influencers ratings in the algorithms. The other half of the comments are definitely not representative of what men actually think.

I also don't know what "simping" means.

@Poppyseeds79 You’re right about the pin-up girls, men haven’t changes, but I thin Playboy (or earlier Playboy at least) was quite a bit different to Social Media, which lots (most) milleniums/Gen Z scroll though daily…

And Playboy wouldn’t have been the photoshopped… just flattering posing and lighting.

Maybe men over the age of 35? 95% of Gen Z/milleniums are on both. Lots of men follow thousands of influencers’… I’ve seen quite a lot of 40, 50 something men doing this too 😅

@ByTealStork True, but even these artificiel influencers don’t look the same (face or body) in real life 😂But the men will never see them in real life.

@Telemicus Simping is writing lots of over the top fawning comments, ie ‘oh my god perfection….goddess… 10/10… future wife’. 😂

I think that actually it's women who are more prone to believe these heavily-manipulated images are reality than men are. In my experience men don't actually like the identikit "fish-face pout" pose with ridiculous fake tan and bizarre eyebrows that many women seem to aspire towards.

A lot of the hostility men direct towards women make themselves up in this way is caused (not that it's justified) by how ludicrously artificial they make themselves appear. Put another way, if a man sees a woman degrading herself, he thinks less of her. If he sees large numbers of women degrading themselves, he thinks less of women as a whole. It doesn't excuse abusive behaviour or misogyny - I just believe it explains a lot of these attitudes, not that it excuses them.

Edit: Also don't forget that the proportion of people who are idiots increases in relation to how much time they spend on Tik Tok, so it's logical that you will find more gullible and generally dim people commenting.

Many of the comments will be by bots, paid for my the model with the aim of increasing visibility and income.

Essentially, almost everything on these women's Instagram accounts will be fake or altered. Only a fool would think otherwise

It's why we now need to teach social media literacy to our dc so they can spot and disregard the bullshit

You need to stop saying simping, it's seriously annoying.

I think you're putting too much thought into this stuff, are you insecure about it? Social media is full of cretinous men and women who love all that crap, but a vast amount of the comments you're seeing will also be bots all blathering away to each other into the social media void.

Almost all the men I know who are on insta or tiktok don't follow influencers
Whatever age they are they follow daft stuff like pandas and cats or ridiculous memes.

Clearly enough men do like this look for billions to be made in its sales to them. If what they really liked was a completely different look then that's what would be made available. If any further evidence is needed, consider the 'trophy wife', the sort of woman many men in a position to have their pick go for. Its not often an apple shaped natural looking brunette in minimal make up, is it?
I also disagree about the reasons for the hostility from men towards women with the look. Often its purely performative. They know that typically women want them to scorn it, so they do so to stay in their good books. Sometimes they are hostile because they know the women wouldn't look at them twice. Sometimes they do indeed think its OTT and ludicrous, but that's about poor execution, not about an aversion to full lipped, large breasted, tiny waisted young blondes.

@ghostyslovesheets I see the point about Hollywood stars, but even they don’t look like influencers in real life. Professional photos of them in magazines are airbrushed, but candid paparazzi photos less so..

@5128gap Yes, I think lots of men c’early do like this look even if it is artificial. The version of themselves these women present online isn’t how these women look without all that. Anyone can be slim and ok shape, some slim women do have naturally large breasts, but their online content is still edited. Even beautiful Hollywood celebrities, like Scarlett Johansson for example, doesn’t look like a TikTok video in candid paparazzi photos.

I’ll see older TikTok videos of a woman where has a really straight body, then all of a sudden, new photos have this synched in waist and hips which obviously is not really her body… your skeletal structure doesn’t just change like that 😂And of course the filter changing eyes noses etc…

To be honest though, I don’t think men really care about the waist shape, just as long as she’s thin and big boobs.

Almost all of the big lips are fake, but again I don’t think this bothers men.

In short, I think social media and the fake et has changed peoples’ tastes; people like enhanced reality, whether or not they know it’s enhanced.

@5128gap Agree about men lying about their preferences, but when we’re talking about the world’s richest men, many of them are not married to the classic ´Playboy’ look. Footballers tend to do that.

Sienna Miller is (or was) dating a billionaire, and she’s quite a natural looking celebrity

I think you’re oversimplifying things by saying all men. Jeff Bezos has picked a fiancée like you describe but in my experience of being older than you, men like all sorts of women- big boobs, small boobs, muscular, blonde, brunette, red head, fake tan, pale English rose…

I think that women are affected more by manipulated imagery because they are more likely to be watching content of other women doing their makeup, at the gym, doing shopping hauls…

You are also assuming that the “men” are real and not paid bots trying to boost an influencer’s profile by interacting. If men are in relationships and want to look at insta models then they wouldn’t make it obvious by liking and commenting.

Of course. Not all men like the look, but some people are suggesting most prefer the natural look. Which is a bit daft when you think of all the wealthy sort after men, like footballers, who could have their choice of natural or not, and often don't choose natural. Even SM is not 'natural' as in your average woman. She's very slim, wears a lot of make up, has dyed blonde 'done' hair and wears very glam clothes.