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This essential photography lesson shows how selfies distort what we really look like

Don't be fooled!

selfie, image, focal length, dysmorphia
Evey Winters/Facebook, Vox/YouTube

What you look like in a selfie camera isn't really what you look like in real life.

We've all done it: You snap a selfie, look at it, say, "OMG is my nose swollen?" then try again from a different angle. "Wait, now my forehead looks weird. And what's up with my chin?" You keep trying various angles and distances, trying to get a picture that looks like how you remember yourself looking. Whether you finally land on one or not, you walk away from the experience wondering which photo actually looks like the "real" you.

I do this, even as a 40-something-year-old who is quite comfortable with the face I see in the mirror. So, it makes me cringe imagining a tween or teen, who likely take a lot more selfies than I do, questioning their facial features based on those snapshots. When I'm wondering why my facial features look weird in selfies it's because I know my face well enough to know that's not what it looks like. However, when a young person whose face is changing rapidly sees their facial features distorted in a photo, they may come to all kinds of wrong conclusions about what they actually look like.

Not that it should matter, of course. But we're talking about people living in a society obsessed with personal appearance. It's going to matter to a lot of people, and if they get the wrong impression of their face, some people will go to all sorts of lengths to change it. That's why understanding a bit about how focal lengths on cameras can impact what we see in photographs is vital.

Writer Evey Winters shared some of that education in a post on Facebook. She writes about this topic through a trans and dysmorphia lens, but it applies to everyone.

Winters points out that if someone is thinking of doing surgery to change their bodies, they should seek sources outside of themselves and a cellphone camera.

"I have dysmorphia and recognize that in myself," she wrote, "but even if I didn’t, there’s not a selfie I’ve ever taken that would accurately help me make choices about my face. Mirrors are slightly better only for their minimal distortions."

"If you want the best chance at getting good feedback pre-op about what you might want to change," she added, "I’d recommend a skilled photographer take a series of photos of you at different focal lengths and even then none of these will be entirely accurate as none of these employ humans binocular vision and filtering."

Winters shared a collage of photos of the same girl's face at different focal lengths to show the significant difference it makes. "Notice how in different photos this child’s eyes may appear to be slightly hooded," she wrote. "The nose appears enlarged disproportionately. Hairline seems to shift with every snap. So does jaw shape, face shape, and even the width and size of the ears."

The difference between each of these photos is significant, but the difference between the first and the last is stunning. Cellphone selfie cameras usually have an even smaller focal length than the 40 mm shown here (Winters points out that the iPhone 13 Pro Max selfie camera has the equivalent of a 23 mm focal length), so they distort facial features even more. It also depends on how far away from the camera you are—the closer you are, the more distortion you'll see. Lighting matters, too, but even the best lighting can't cancel out what the focal length is doing.

Vox shared a video specifically about the "big nose" phenomenon with selfies, showing how drastic the distortion can be.

As a parent of two teens and a young adult, I find these photos to be fantastic tools for teaching my kids not to put too much stock in what they see in a selfie. Far too many people are increasingly seeking out plastic surgery to change a nose or a forehead or a jawline that doesn't even really exist. Imagine looking in a funhouse mirror and thinking you need to do something to change how you look. Selfie cameras are basically mini funhouse mirrors. Smartphones and apps are getting better at making filters that adjust for those distortions, but none of us should be relying on selfies of any kind to see what we really look like, much less taking major measures to alter our appearance based on what we see in them.

Even if you have some physical feature you simply can't accept and want to change, make sure you get a skilled photographer to give you the most accurate picture of what it actually looks like. As Winters concluded at the end of her post: "Make sure you’re not reshaping your body for a you that only exists in selfie cams."

Thank you for the reminder, Ms. Winters.


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Too young to be a Boomer, too old to be Gen X: Meet the microgeneration 'Generation Jones'

Generation Jones is made up of people born from 1954 to 1965.

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

Generation Jones is the microgeneration of people born from 1954 to 1965.

Generational labels have become cultural identifiers. These include Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha. And each of these generations is defined by its unique characteristics, personalities and experiences that set them apart from other generations.

But in-between these generational categories are "microgenerations", who straddle the generation before and after them. For example, "Xennial" is the microgeneration name for those who fall on the cusp of Gen X and Millennials.

And there is also a microgeneration between Baby Boomers and Gen X called Generation Jones, which is made up of people born from 1954 to 1965. But what exactly differentiates Gen Jones from the Boomers and Gen Xers that flank it?

- YouTube www.youtube.com

What is Generation Jones?

"Generation Jones" was coined by writer, television producer and social commentator Jonathan Pontell to describe the decade of Americans who grew up in the '60s and '70s. As Pontell wrote of Gen Jonesers in Politico:

"We fill the space between Woodstock and Lollapalooza, between the Paris student riots and the anti-globalisation protests, and between Dylan going electric and Nirvana going unplugged. Jonesers have a unique identity separate from Boomers and GenXers. An avalanche of attitudinal and behavioural data corroborates this distinction."

Pontell describes Jonesers as "practical idealists" who were "forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part." They are the younger siblings of the boomer civil rights and anti-war activists who grew up witnessing and being moved by the passion of those movements but were met with a fatigued culture by the time they themselves came of age. Sometimes, they're described as the cool older siblings of Gen X. Unlike their older boomer counterparts, most Jonesers were not raised by WWII veteran fathers and were too young to be drafted into Vietnam, leaving them in between on military experience.

How did Generation Jones get its name?

generation jones, gen jones, gen jones teen, generation jones teenager, what is generation jones A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons

Gen Jones gets its name from the competitive "keeping up with the Joneses" spirit that spawned during their populous birth years, but also from the term "jonesin'," meaning an intense craving, that they coined—a drug reference but also a reflection of the yearning to make a difference that their "unrequited idealism" left them with. According to Pontell, their competitiveness and identity as a "generation aching to act" may make Jonesers particularly effective leaders:

"What makes us Jonesers also makes us uniquely positioned to bring about a new era in international affairs. Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead."

@grownupdish

Are you Generation Jones? Definitive Guide to Generation Jones https://grownupdish.com/the-definitive-guide-to-generation-jones/ #greenscreen #generationjones #babyboomer #generationx #GenX #over50 #over60 #1970s #midlife #middleage #midlifewomen #grownupdish #over50tiktok #over60women #over60tiktok #over60club

However, generations aren't just calculated by birth year but by a person's cultural reality. Some on the cusp may find themselves identifying more with one generation than the other, such as being culturally more Gen X than boomer. And, of course, not everyone fits into whatever generality they happened to be born into, so stereotyping someone based on their birth year isn't a wise practice. Knowing about these microgenerational differences, however, can help us understand certain sociological realities better as well as help people feel like they have a "home" in the generational discourse.

As many Gen Jonesers have commented, it's nice to "find your people" when you haven't felt like you've fit into the generation you fall into by age. Perhaps in our fast-paced, ever-shifting, interconnected world where culture shifts so swiftly, we need to break generations into 10 year increments instead of 20 to 30 to give everyone a generation that better suits their sensibilities.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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Employee's 'power-tripping' boss kept scheduling lunch meetings. The payback was brilliant.

"Well, we all have to make sacrifices sometimes."

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via Canva/Photos and Heather/Flickr

A boss is fed up with his employee's antics.

One of the most frequently debated topics in professional etiquette is which foods are appropriate to eat in the office. People often take offense when others cook smelly foods, such as fish or broccoli, in a shared microwave. It can also be rude to bring a bag of snacks into a meeting as a lot of folks don't want to hear chewing while they're trying to think.

When it comes to remote workers, people are even less sure about proper eating etiquette. Is it okay to eat a large meal during an all-hands meeting? One remote worker recently claimed they pushed those boundaries to the limit when their boss allegedly did something most employees would find rude: He scheduled meetings during lunchtime and showed zero interest in apologizing for it.

office, office kitchen, office fridge, workers, employees An office kitchen.via Canva/Photos

"I used to take my lunch break at the same time every day - 12 to 1. I don't eat breakfast (just coffee and lots of water), so my lunch is essential, and I can't just skip it," a Redditor wrote. "My calendar was blocked, but my boss (newly promoted, power-tripping) started scheduling meetings right in the middle of it."

At first, it wasn't a problem, but it became a habit. "The first couple of times, I let it slide," the employee continued. "Figured maybe it was urgent. But then it became a pattern. I pushed back and reminded him that it was during my break, and he said, 'Well, we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.'"

spaghetti, mean spaghetti, pasta, italian food, lunch An angry man eating spaghetti.via Canva/Photos

Sometimes? That would make sense if the boss only occasionally scheduled lunchtime meetings, but this was becoming a regular thing. So, the employee decided they wouldn't skip lunch and would make the meeting as uncomfortable as possible.

"Next meeting, I showed up with a full plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Had my camera on and mic unmuted, slurping and chewing, occasionally gave thumbs up while mid-bite," they wrote. "A few days later, it repeated, so I brought sticky wings. Last week on Thursday, it happened again, glad I still had my pizza."

"We all have to make sacrifices sometimes"

After the boss started noticing a trend, he spoke up: "Do you have to eat during the meeting?" The employee had the perfect response: "I smiled and said, 'We all have to make sacrifices sometimes.'" During the following week, the boss didn't schedule any lunch meetings.

The post went viral. After receiving countless awards from readers, the poster joked about new and inventive ways they could get back at their boss, including dressing up as a Benihana chef and performing an onion volcano, heating cheese mid-meeting with a fondue pot, and carving a massive tomahawk steak on camera.

The Redditor also claimed they purposely behaved obnoxiously during the meeting to further drive home their point. But where do people draw the line when it comes to eating during a remote meeting?

Kate Noel, head of People Ops at Morning Brew, said it's important to read the room:

"All Zoom meetings are not created equal," Noel wrote. "If it's with your closest teammates, it's probably nbd. But if you feel nervous about eating your sushi on camera, then you might want to wait until after the awkward goodbye waves at the end of your meeting. Not for nothing, you could probably get away with keeping your video off during a larger group meeting to eat food. But at your own risk, so choose your own adventure."

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People rally behind an older woman who refused to train her 25-year-old replacement

"They expected me to teach her the job they said I wasn't good enough for."

ageism, workplace ageism, workplace violations, hr, negotiating severance package, exit strategy, hiring, jobs
Photo credit: Canva

An older employee refused two train her replacement who was "fresh out of grad school."

When an older employee was asked to train a 25-year-old to do the same job she'd been doing for as long as the young recruit had been alive, she had some choice words. And it became a vital lesson in not getting exploited.

The TikTok creator, who goes by The Unobsolete (@theunobsolete) centers her content around helping people “fight age bias” in the workplace. She explained how she had been “passed over” for a promotion that she had rightfully earned over the past two-and-a-half decades and was instead expected to train someone “fresh out of grad school” who presumably would then do the job for a fraction of the price.

“They expected me to teach her the job they said I wasn’t good enough for.”

The Unobsolete didn’t entertain pleasantries as she flat-out said “no.”

@theunobsolete watched 25-year-old get my promotion then ask me to train her. I said no. Not sorry. Not maybe. Just no. She shocked. Manager furious. HR email about team player. Don’t care. They passed me over for promotion I earned. Gave it to someone with zero experience. Expected me to teach her job they said I wasn’t good enough for. Train my replacement? Pay me. Want 25 years knowledge? Triple salary consulting rates. Want me to smile while you humiliate me? Wrong person. Not your free training program. Not making cheap hire look competent. Not handing over everything so you can pay her half. They said unprofessional. I said appropriately compensated or not sharing. They said not supporting team. I said team didn’t support me. Silence. Second you stop being useful they stop caring. Stop pretending you owe them anything.#promotions #over50 #notateamplayer #genx #isaidno ♬ original sound - The Unobsolete

"I'm not your free training program," she explained. "Want me to smile while you humiliate me? Wrong person." Furthermore, she noted that if she were going to move forward with the training, she would be expecting “triple salary consulting rates” as payment.

While she got reprimanded by HR for not “being a team player,” she maintained her stance that she deserved to be “fairly compensated for her expertise” or she wasn’t sharing it.

"They said [I was] not supporting [the] team. I said [the] team didn’t support me."

She then concluded the video with a word of caution to other folks who might find themselves in similar situations:

"The second you stop being useful, they stop pretending to care. So stop pretending you owe them anything."

With over four million views, the video certainly resonated. People flooded the comments agreeing how real ageism is in the workplace, and commended The Unobsolete for standing her ground.

"Can't be a team player for a team that played you," one person said.

Quite a few shared their own horror stories. One person recalled, "They hired 6 people to replace me and the work I was doing & wanted me to train them. Nope."

Another said, “I was laid off from a job and they said they’d be fine, because I wrote a literal manual on how to do everything for when I was on vacation. First thing I threw in the trash cleaning out my office. They emailed a few days later, asking where it was. I told them.”

In subsequent videos, The Unobsolete shared that while she didn’t get fired outright (for obvious legal reasons), the company had less direct ways of phasing her out. First, a meeting was held to discuss her "attitude.” Then, she was excluded from company functions and given less work. Eventually, she was called into another meeting and told the company's culture might not be a "good fit" for her.

@theunobsolete UPDATE: Refused to train replacement. What happened next I expected. Two days later meeting with manager and HR. My attitude. Not that they passed me over or wanted free labor. My attitude refusing exploitation. They said not collaborative poor leadership need team players. I said you passed me over want free training punish boundaries that’s control not collaboration. Silence. Not willing develop staff maybe not culture fit. I said right. Culture exploiting experience isn’t my fit. Ready for compensation talk? No? Back to my job. Didn’t fire me. Can’t. Lawsuit risk. Instead stopped including meetings gave projects away documented everything performance issues. Managed out playbook. I documented everything back. Every email meeting project. Knew exactly what they were doing. #promotions #isaidno #refused# #over45 #corporatetiktok ♬ original sound - The Unobsolete


"I agree," The Unobsolete apparently said in the meeting. "A culture that exploits experience isn't a fit for me."

Still, she didn’t back down and asked what the severance package she would receive for leaving. Unsurprisingly, that offer started off low with two weeks' worth of pay. The Unobsolete told them she expected six months of pay with full benefits through the end of the year, plus a neutral reference letter, and a release stating that they wouldn’t contest her unemployment.

When the manager said her demands were “unreasonable,” The Unobsolete replied, “So is asking me to train my replacement for free.”

@theunobsolete UPDATE PART 3: Refused train replacement. How it ended. Three weeks managed out documented retaliation. Manager and HR called me in. Don’t think right fit anymore. Best we part ways.#refusedtotrain #notateamplayer #isaidno #over50 #corporatetiktok ♬ original sound - The Unobsolete

“I’ve never been prouder of someone I don’t know,” one viewer wrote.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. The Unobsolete got her demands met, and with that six months of pay, she was able to build what she “actually wanted.” Furthermore, she learned that not long after she left, the 25-year-old quit the job and the company was left scrambling to fill the position. Talk about karmic justice.

“Turns out, I wasn’t obsolete after all. I was just undervalued. There’s a difference.”

Now, she’s taking what she’s learned to help other experienced professionals protect themselves against being taken advantage of.

“They’re counting on you being afraid…stop being what they’re counting on.”

That’s useful advice for anyone, no matter what age they are.

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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.

It's not easy seeing green.

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Photo credit: @margoinireland on Instagram

Did she get superpowers?

Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.

Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.

At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.

Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.

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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:

“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”

“You can just say you're a superhero.”

“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”

“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”

“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”

“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”

“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”

“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”

In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.

While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.

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Teacher shares her surprisingly wholesome story of learning what ‘Netflix and chill’ means

She chalked this up to being an “oblivious Millennial.”

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Image via Canva

An image of an embarrassed woman interlaid with a picture of two people cuddling while watching Netflix.

For many, if not most of us, when someone uses the term “Netflix and chill,” we know it to be a euphemism for, well, not much TV watching.

And yet, not everyone knows that this phrase has sexual connotations, apparently. At least one 34-year-old female college professor recently admitted to not knowing. Too bad she had been using the phrase as one of her go-to “icebreakers” in class.

A teacher learns she’s been using “Netflix and chill” wrong

As she shared on Reddit, she would often list “Netflix and chill” as one of her favorite hobbies. Not only that, but whenever students mentioned how stressed they were, she would reiterate: “While it's important to study, it's also important to take time to relax and recharge, so I hope they are able to do something for themselves soon, like ‘Netflix and chill.’”

It wasn’t until she visited her husband for lunch at his work and struck up a conversation with two of his co-workers that she discovered her hefty misunderstanding.

“I'm currently on maternity leave and mentioned to his co-workers that I can't wait for my infant to be older so I can ‘Netflix and chill’ again instead of having to feed and change diapers,” she wrote.

When one of the coworkers had a “shocked look on his face,” the OP was “confused.” She couldn’t believe it when this person explained that it’s a “euphemism for hooking up.” And yet, when the other coworker, a 50-year-old female, said, "Oh he's right, even I know what that means!" there was really no denying it.

Photo credit: Canva


Well, understandably, this woman was “mortified” at having learned the truth and was “now terrified I'm going to be reported for sexual harassment because I guess I've been inadvertently telling my students I love to hook up and have been encouraging them to hook up, too??”

In her defense, it's true that “Netflix and chill” used to mean relaxing while streaming, but that was about 17 years ago. The context we are all familiar with has been around since 2015.


She also noted that she and her husband married young and therefore never spent much time on dating apps, which could help explain why she remained unaware. Plus, she lived at home and worked two jobs during her college years, which meant "Netflix and chill” was literally “Netflixing and chilling,” she quipped.

All in all, she chalked this up to being an “oblivious Millennial.” And by that, she meant a “Millennial who is clearly oblivious” to something “invented by Millennials and has been around for at least 10-15 years.”

Reddit's reactions

Down in the comments, people tried to ease her worries about the whole accidental harassment thing.

"They either thought you were adorably clueless, or just a very cool teacher. Don't sweat it."

“Either people figured she didn’t know and thought it was funny or just assumed they’re very open and sex positive. NBD either way.”

“Rate my professor: 10/10. She told me I can come over and netflix and chill anytime 🥵”

Others didn’t let her off so easily, especially when she surmised that her older coworkers also likely didn’t know what it meant.

“I was shocked when I opened the post and saw OP was 34. I expected her to be 64.”

“I am 38 and have known what it means since it’s been around. This definitely isn’t an age thing, this is a living under a rock thing lol”

“I’m an out of touch millennial but that’s been a saying for like a decade now. lol. You might be under a rock.”

Photo credit: Canva


Regardless, the OP has had a good sense of humor despite being mortified. She concluded her post by saying, “Anyone who has lived the past decade+ under a rock like me is welcome to come over to my place and literally chill and watch Netflix with me anytime! I'll supply the popcorn 🤣”

Listen, it’s bonkers when things like this happen, but they do happen. Is it embarrassing? Sure. But does it remind us that life is about laughing at ourselves? Also yes.

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