In a world where people have more spare time on their hands than ever or should we say more spare time to become obsessed with digital media, it’s no surprise that people have gotten good at Photoshop.
Like so stupid good, it’s ridiculous. To prove it we’ve put together the wildest photoshopped images to hit the web.
Some could get you tight as kids these days test the waters of their ancestors photoshopping images of a durag onto MLK.
https://twitter.com/enelson_510/status/957472398042742785
This made me feel a tiny bit braze when I first came across this image, but at the end of the day what am I going to do? Shoot 280 angry characters with my Twitter fingers?
Nah, I’d rather just belt out a huge “HANNNN” and hope that MLK deadass was working on his spinners the night before his “I Have a Dream” speech. Even civil rights leaders had to stay fly.
The MLK one was pretty funny, there’s also a dark side to these funny memes.
If there’s one thing that we learned through the power of Black Twitter, it’s that with great power comes great responsibility. And also, people will call you out on your bullshit.
We have to wonder about the age of the “digital blackface” as we enter the realm of the photoshop underworld. Laur M. Jackson of The Awl described the term perfectly back in 2014. In her post she wrote,
“Many have used the phrase ‘digital blackface’ to describe the odd and all-too-prevalent practice of white and non-Black people making anonymous claims to a Black identity through contemporary technological mediums such as social media. It often involves masquerading behind the Black face of a fictional profile picture. These attempts, while hilariously transparent, take advantage of the relative anonymity of the internet to perpetuate decontextualized stereotypes and project an image of Black people that fit the desire of anti-Black individuals…”
The photoshop craze has its evils as you never know the person’s intentions behind the image. It could be out of pure humor thinking, ‘I wonder what Obama would look like with a playboy haircut.’
All we can do is hope that anyone who falls under the comedic photoshopping tree is not misrepresented.
Like the MLK durag photoshopped pic, anonymous bigots on the internet will use that as a resource to tackle the race issue. We cannot let that happen.
Just look what they dude to Pac!
https://twitter.com/ColdTrain_/status/961412141508120576
Another worry — people will relate to these photoshopped memes and stand-alone images in the wrong way. There’s always that one guy.
Beyond controversial issues, gullible people out there will really believe that this is what Morgan Freeman really looked like when he was a kid.
Or that Kanye is actually a toddler, which is actually very believable.
Even this Dwayne Wade and Derrick Rose hybrid made me do a double take.
Let’s just pray that nothing too hot-boy comes out of this Photoshop craze. The last thing we need are these kids to start disrespecting on a whole new digital level.
I can hear “pops” in the background now saying, “You young whippersnappers and your ghat damn photoshop… back in my day all we had was respect for our elders.” And us replying. “Yeah ok, gramps that’s why you washed.”
Just remember to always put respect on the Obama name.
https://twitter.com/WAVYDESIGN_/status/962016057685770242