We are super excited to announce the launch of our latest campaign, together with Miss Representation, LoveSocial, I Am That Girl, and Endangered Bodies: The Keep It Real Challenge!
We were so invigorated by the positive response to SPARK blogger Julia’s petition asking Seventeen Magazine to run one unretouched photo spread per month, but we were disappointed when the magazine essentially said “no.” So now, we’re calling on our community–you!–to create a firestorm of social media telling magazines that we’re not buying their idealized, retouched images any more. We’re telling magazines that we want them to Keep it Real.
Getting on board is easy! First, RSVP to the Facebook event and join a community of people who are pushing back on sexualized, objectified, unrealistic images of girls and women. Then, check out this brilliant toolkit we’ve put together–it contains images, facts, and figures for you to share and help spread the word, plus the Twitter handles of magazines and their editors for you to reach out to. Finally, on the 27th, 28th, and 29th, tweet, blog, and Instagram your heart out! (Don’t have Twitter? Leave your messages on magazines’ Facebook walls! Don’t have Instagram? No big! Send us your photo on Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr.)
What does it mean to Keep it Real?
Here’s what we think: first of all, “keeping it real” means represent actual authenticity & diversity. Seventeen Magazine claimed to be excelling at both of those things, but as our partners at FAAN Mail and Sisters Action Media will tell you, they’re not exactly pulling it off:
Secondly, keeping it real means appreciating women’s actual bodies, not just digitized, CGI’d versions of them. That means no lightening skin, slimming down waists, tucking in tummies, lengthening legs, or smoothing out armpits and knees to the point that they don’t exist.
Finally, for us, keeping it real means not only knowing that what the media is selling us is harmful, but doing something about it. Refusing to engage with the problem won’t fix it–it’ll just make things worse.
So join us, and send a message to media:
[…] the challenge is here! Tell magazines what youth think. Thanks to Spark Summit and Miss Representation for launching this awesome challenge. What would happen if 1 magazine […]
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[…] when I was invited to join the Keep it REAL 3 day challenge as part of global effort to demand REAL photos from the media as opposed to the digitally altered […]
[…] that are so clearly unreal. So when I heard about Miss Representation and SPARK Summit’s Keep It Real Challenge, I was totally on board. Yesterday was day 1, and we tweeted a challenge to magazine editors to use […]
I love it! Here are my thoughts on the topic – http://www.talesofordinarymagic.com/2012/06/26/keep-it-real/
[…] Approximately 80 percent of all 10-year-old girls have dieted at least once in their lives, according to recent data released by the Keep It Real campaign. […]
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[…] pledge comes on the heels of a 3-day “Keep it Real” challenge launched by SPARK, the amazing San Francisco-based Miss Representation and several other […]
[…] along with Miss Representation, LoveSocial, I Am That Girl, and Endangered Bodies recently started The Keep It Real Challenge! They asked readers to “create a firestorm of social media telling magazines that we’re not […]
[…] Summit, LoveSocial, I Am That Girl, Endangered Bodies, and Miss Representation started the #KeepItReal Challenge, a “3-day challenge” utilizing tweeting magazine editors, blogging personal experiences, and […]
[…] 80% of all 10-year-old girls have dieted at least once, says shocking new data released by the Keep It Real Campaign, an alliance of groups looking to improve body image issues in young adults. The ‘Eating […]
[…] Summit, LoveSocial, I Am That Girl, Endangered Bodies, and Miss Representation started the #KeepItReal Challenge, a “3-day challenge” utilizing tweeting magazine editors, blogging personal experiences, and […]
[…] that have not been digitally altered, buckling under the pressure of a social media campaign led by SPARK along with Miss Representation, Love Social, Endangered Bodies, and I Am That […]
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[…] produces. Facebook and other social media sites are certainly to thank for SPARK’s own success in sharing our own actions and seeing them through to success. Perpetuating social movements is one thing that Facebook does […]
[…] have on children’s mental health. Ads for Keep It Real, a body-image campaign launched by the SPARK Movement, say 53 percent of 13-year-old girls have body-image issues. In addition, the National Eating […]