This page about retouching photographs of children is making the rounds, but it's fine Infocult material.
This is about professional services which retouch and/or Photoshop photos in order to make the depicted children look better. Or "better", if you find the changes disturbing.
On one level such recrafting of images triggers serious uncanny valley reactions in many people. It's a bit like Little Talking Tina cosplay, or forcing one's child into that play. It's not when inanimate objects display human attributes, but the reverse, humans being dehumanized in representation. Some of you may recall a scene in Švankmajer's Faust, where the main character gets subsumed into a puppet.
On another level this phenomenon - both the practice and the horrified reactions - offers a different aspect of the fearsome internet memeplex. It's an example of anxieties about digital media manipulation, where a tool (Photoshop, here, and most commonly) alters a presumably reliable depiction of reality in a malign way.
There's an additional theme in play, too, which is class. Check the comments stream from the article, where some accuse participants of being white trash. What kind of class anxieties does this elicit? Perhaps it can be compared to dana boyd's analysis of Facebook vs MySpace.
(thanks to saramin)
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