Meet Zilla Van Den Born.
She’s the Dutch student who just faked a five-week overseas holiday to Southeast Asia.
Van Den Born, a graphic designer from Amsterdam, used her excellent Photoshop skills to lie to her friends and family about being overseas. She got them to drop her at the airport, waved to them at the gate, pretended she was going to Thailand… and then caught the bus home.
In reality, the 25-year-old never left her hometown and spent five whole weeks manipulating photographs and posting fake Facebook statuses.
She even skyped her family at bizarre times of the night to keep up the facade.
Here she is, pretending to snorkel with fish. Actually, she’s in the pool at the bottom of her apartment block, and the fish are Photoshopped in later.
But the reason behind her fake holiday wasn’t to evoke travel envy in her followers. It wasn’t even just because she was bored.
It was for a university assignment. And also, incidentally, to prove that the world as we know it is a lie.
“I did this to show people that we filter and manipulate what we show on social media, and that we create an online world which reality can no longer meet,” Van Den Born said, speaking to media in Amsterdam.
“My goal was to prove how common and easy it is to distort reality. Everybody knows that pictures of models are manipulated. But we often overlook the fact that we manipulate reality also in our own lives.”
Click through below for more images from Van Den Born’s elaborate fake holiday.
Van Den Born has posted photos and videos of her journey on her website.
Here Van Den Born shows the process of creating one of her photos, taken at a temple that was actually located in Amsterdam.
The lessons here are as follows:
Next time you come across photos on social media of tropical holidays, don’t feel sad. They could be fake.
Every time you see a photo so beautiful you think it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Also, never trust anyone ever.
How far would you go to prove a point?
Top Comments
I enjoy seeing people's travel pics (real ones) and "positive" life events, embellished/over-emphasised or not...
There is also so much whinging on social media and negativity in the world; let's appreciate the goodness...
Not everybody portrays "the perfect life", but some people tend to focus on those posts (what the Joneses are doing) - if they're comparing their lives to their friends'... Why would you even do that? Social media might heighten this for some, but it's been going on forever... Why should you care about the freakin' Joneses?
I travel a lot and do a lot of social/active/artsy stuff - and post lots of happy snaps, and everyday shit (like food & beverages :D). Yep, I'm one of them... I'm not doing it to pretend to have "a perfect life". I'm doing it cos I like to use FB to share/communicate with people far & wide. It's the new "mass email" for me, which I also used to engage in...
I am also acutely aware of how short life is, so I get out and embrace life and "do stuff" all the time - and document it. I don't post pics of me sitting on the couch watching awful tv, arguing with my husband, having a stressful day at work, or picking up dog-shit, though... Not because I don't want people to know these "hidden/real!" aspects of my very normal, boring life/pretending they don't exist, but because everybody already knows this stuff is part of the every day. Why would we want to see people doing housework, sitting at their desk, sitting in traffic, doing normal shit?
If people genuinely believe people's "positive pics/events" are the only/dominant aspects of their lives, then they're a bit daft, really... and if seeing only positive elements bothers them, perhaps they should focus on their own lives/choices, not others.
What about the parents who only post pics of their happy babies/families - they don't post the ones of them covered in a number three, in tears and stressed because they can't get their child to sleep, emotionally spent cos they've hit the wall and want to run away, and their house looking like a bomb's hit it cos their day-to-day life is chaos! Equally, they could say they don't have time in the midst of it all - but they still have time to post the pleasant experiences...
On the flip side, do we really want to see whinge feeds all day... Would you prefer to read the rants about how annoying the check-in process was en route to Turkey ("ungrateful bastards", I'd say!), or how atrocious the weather in Spain was (Please - you're in freaking Spain!), or the fight you had with your partner over dinner (normal!)??? People who rant about "weather" or "hating their job", or how terrible their overseas holiday was, shit me more - talk about first world problems. Be grateful for having those choices, having a job, the privilege it is to travel, being alive...
Life is short. Get on with it. Post what you like. Don't give a shit what others are doing... Do what makes you happy...
I couldn't agree with you more - except hold the baby photos. I'm going on a trip at the end of the week and will be adding posts to FB - not to laud it over people and not all the time, I don't have to live on social media, but for the excitement and thrill. I disagree that if a photo you see is too good to be true that it's not. I've been lucky enough to go to a Fiji tropical island and some of the photos do look photoshopped because the water is so clear and the setting on my camera. Do we have to think a photo is not real to cope with jealousy? How ridiculous. It's natural to feel envy about where or what someone might be doing if we share the passion. Let's also remember that most people work and sacrifice to travel or to get ahead. For my upcoming trip, I've barely been anywhere social for 4-5 months and live in a country town to get there and I have a decent wage. This is my 2nd OS trip within 9 months and I've been unemployed for 6 months in the last 12 but I make things happen. What I find more annoying is people complaining about things that have been given to them without effort.
Yup! There's "gonnas" and "doers" in this world, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's the "gonnas" doing all the whinging :) Enjoy your well-deserved trip, and post away! Other people's reactions are their sh*t to deal with/issues; not yours/choice for doing so... Celebrate life, early & often, I say :)
This is just awesome!!' Good on her. I think it's a fantastic idea. Well done