A rising Chinese influencer has seen her profile boosted for all the wrong reasons after side-by-side photos that revealed she has been digitally transforming herself went viral throughout Asia.
A Facebook post comparing before and after images of the influencer, who goes by the names Coeyyy and Coeyyyy, has so far received more than 18,000 shares and 11,000 comments.
While the altered pictures depict her as a doll-like figure with porcelain skin, the original photos show what appears to be a completely different woman. A friend included in several photos also appears to have been heavily edited.
Coeyyy predominantly uses the Chinese instant messaging site Weibo and Chinese social media platform RED. The viral photos started spreading among Chinese social media users in late April and went viral throughout Asia when they were posted to Facebook.
The photos, uploaded by a Taiwanese Facebook user by the name of Ex.Treme in May, were only accompanied by a vague caption that read: “Technology…advanced.”
The photos started flooding Facebook feeds in Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, with many netizens expressing shock at the extreme use of editing apps.
Many, though, were impressed by the technical skills required to achieve the transformation.
“Their Photoshop skills [are] really [at a] genius level,” a user commented, while another stated: “These edit skills are beyond God level already.”
However, many other users fat-shamed Coeyyy, accusing her of dramatically reducing her apparent weight in the edited photos.
“Who needs to work out when you have [an editing] app,” one netizen posted. Another user said Coeyyy had possibly edited her photos due to a lack of self-esteem, commenting: “I can’t blame her [for having] insecurities.”
One netizen went further by claiming that the post had to be clickbait because no app could “shrink someone so overweight with 0 reduction in resolution and alignment”. According to user Shiro Kami: “These are two different sets of people.”
Coeyyy has since responded to the internet furore her photos have caused – albeit hesitantly.
“I am a normal person, not an internet celebrity. I have never received any benefits through public platforms,” she wrote in a Weibo post.
Arguing that she did not deserve to be receiving abuse online, Coeyyy claimed the viral photos showing her true appearance had been taken without her consent. “We did not know that we were secretly photographed, nor do we know the person who secretly photographed them.”
Coeyyy also rejected accusations that she had been “catfishing” men online and she had never used her edited photos to trick or deceive anyone. She ends the post by urging people to be kind and not engage in cyberbullying.
Still, Coeyyy has been quick to push the hate aside and instead capitalise on her 15 minutes of fame. She posted editing tutorials on RED, publishing screenshots on how she uses apps such as Facetune2 and Meitu XiuXiu. One of her detailed step-by-step tutorials has received over 900 likes.
One RED user even admitted to thinking that Coeyyy deserved the backlash but had a change of heart after seeing the tutorial.
“You are just a girl who wants to make her photos a little more beautiful … just like everyone else. What are you doing wrong?” The netizen added that people should celebrate and admire different body types.
Photo-editing applications such as Facetune and Meitu XiuXiu have become hugely popular among millennial influencers in China and around the world. The apps allow users to remove blemishes, whiten teeth and give selfies an overall airbrushed look.
Chinese beauty standards have long equated being thin, fair and flawless as being attractive. This has given rise to severe body image issues among Chinese women – and these apps are likely an enticing temporary solution to a broader social problem.
