LOL

You guys, I was laughing so hard the other day my tummy started to hurt, and then my heart did too! So, you know, I have an older sister, right? She's like, an actress and a model and all that stuff. She does all these endless commercials, movies, music videos. She has a zillion online things – websites, social media accounts, tons of channels. She keeps running them, and then BAM! She gets into a fight with all her followers. Someone says something she doesn't like, and she deletes all her stuff. Then she cools down and starts new ones. She's a girl with fire, that one! And celebrities have their own ways to get their audiences going.

Anyway, I was reading a comment on one of her pictures, and that's when I really started to giggle. This follower wrote, "I've been a fan of yours for ages and have been following your journey almost from the very beginning..." I thought, "Wow, that's a great start! You can really connect with someone who's been with us from the ground up". But then he just went on and on, spinning this whole tale. He said that the "girl" who's running these social media accounts now isn't really my sister (meaning, not the actress he's been watching grow) but just some other girl who looks like her. He even brought up pictures, pointing out things like moles and birthmarks, saying even a tattoo wasn't quite right... It was a whole page of descriptions! And I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, "Wait, is my sister my sister, or is she actually not my sister anymore? Maybe she's a clone?" And where's the real one? Did aliens abduct her, haha! But the end of his whole revelation was the absolute best. Apparently, that model is already dead, and my sister stole her identity! Oh my gosh, that's when I fell right off my bed. Seriously, I was rolling on the floor laughing that hard.

So, you guys are really something else! I've got an idea for an experiment we can do right here, right now. What we'll need is:

- A basic point-and-shoot camera, or just your phone's camera.
- A Sony Alpha 7 IV camera.
- A model (a super pretty girl... or boy, I guess).

Next, we'll take a close-up photo of our model's face with that simple camera. Let's look at the result. I can practically read your minds: "Whoa, I thought she was so pretty... Did I go blind?"

Now, take a photo of the exact same thing with the Sony camera, making sure to turn on the skin smoothing feature. (On the Sony Alpha 7 IV, it's called the "Smooth Skin Effect").

Take a look. Do you feel the difference? Yeah, it's like night and day. Even more than that!

And you know what else? Of course, we edit our photos before we post them. Sometimes, one picture used to take so, so many hours. That was until we figured out how to make scripts that automate the whole process.

So, dear followers, don't bother yourselves with silly things. The people in the photos we post? That's us. If it's someone else, we'll put a note.


Stephaniia

*This picture here? That's my sister-not-sister, lol.

**Whew, almost made it before class started! The teacher's running late, and we're literally bouncing off the walls here. I'm just finishing up posting this note for you all. Gotta go hit the books – see ya!