Photoshopped Galaxy Sets Unrealistic Standards for Young Interstellar Matter

By Morgan Pantuck

April 20, 2014

A young dust cloud at the grocery store with her mother sees a row of gossip magazines lining the checkout counter. She picks up a cover of Star! magazine and whispers, “Oh, God… those are supermassive.”

The truth is, black holes come in all shapes and sizes, from micro to quasar. However, the media continues to impress unrealistic beauty standards upon millions of young nebulae, many of whom are resorting to unsafe methods to achieve the “perfect” celestial body.

“If you look in magazines, on PBS science shows, movies, MacBook computer backgrounds, you keep seeing all these flawless spiral galaxies, digitally manipulated to enhance their color and luminosity,” explains media specialist Stella Hoffman. “These are digitally mixed, multi-spectrum images. Without Photoshop, they would look completely grey.”

“Advertisers also select wavelengths that bypass interstellar dust to make their images clearer. So now we have all these young, hysterical clouds looking for ways to remove their dust, which is just totally unrealistic.”

“I mean… they’re made of dust,” she added.

Media messages set in at very early ages. In a recent study, Hoffman’s research team found that infant Dwarf galaxies prefer to play with Spiral Barbie Dolls overDwarf Barbie Dolls. She explains, “There’s just no media representation of irregular galaxies. We’re constantly bombarded with the message that all star systems need to be very thin and rotate extremely rapidly.”

In addition, Hoffman explains, the “hottest” stars are typically blue or white, leaving millions of red and orange stars uncomfortable in their own skin. Many are beginning to experiment with iron fusion to raise their core temperatures, despite the potentially deadly cost.

Parents who set a negative example for their children may also be responsible for these disturbing trends. “My mom’s almost a red giant, and she’s been getting hydrogen injections,” Cloud G2-Alpha explains, shyly twirling a strand. “I know she just wants to stop having Helium flashes, but I don’t see why I can’t try to look pretty, too.”

In related news, new evidence has been suggesting that negative media pressure affects men as well as women. A recent survey found that 35% of male Barred Galaxies think their bar should be bigger, and 60% of all male solar systems are unhappy about the size of their asteroid belts.