When we see models strutting on runways and living it up on their Instagram accounts, they tend to look enviably impeccable. But the appearance of perfection in photos is, more often than not, just a veneer. To show what's really going on behind the surface, London-based model Jazz Egger changed the captions of her Instagram photos to reflect the far less glamorous aspects of her job and her life.
Her descriptions, accompanied by the hashtag #truthbehindthisshot, describe the criticism she faces at work. The revealing commentary also delves into her body insecurities and the enormous amount of effort that goes into crafting her image.
"My agency told me on that day that my hips were way too wide and that I needed to lose weight in order to have a chance at London Fashion Week," she captioned a shot of herself in lacy underwear. "I already was underweight so I decided to not lose any weight. I still got confirmed for LFW."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"This took me like 15 min to take, and I was close to falling off my bed because I had to make my legs look slim," Egger wrote on a mirror selfie. (A much-needed dose of reality about the unglamorous process behind the most effortless-looking shots, right?)
"I spent about an hour thinking about whether I should post this or not because my nose makes me feel uncomfortable," she admitted in the caption on an outtake from a photo shoot.
Egger's frank annotations show that the tendency to be hyper-critical — you know, the sort of "if it's not one thing, it's another" mentality — is a very real thing. And that models certainly aren't immune to nitpicking. "My teeth were edited because they’re usually uneven and I felt like it’s distracting," says another caption.
While there's nothing wrong with trying to look good on social media, Egger's tweaked captions are an important reminder that a lot of work goes into getting a "perfect" Instagram shot. Just because someone looks polished in a picture definitely doesn't mean they always do in person. It certainly doesn't mean someone's life is as flawless as their social media-worthy photos look — and that's completely okay.