Aug 25, 2010  •  In Asian, Beauty, Personal

The New Generation of Sticker Pictures

I’m sure my Asian readers will be more familiar with the sticker picture phenomenon that was so popular in the late 1990s to early 2000s. My friends and I always took sticker pictures when we got together, and traded them among ourselves like baseball cards. It was always fun to find a familiar face on someone’s sticker picture collection, to exclaim, “I didn’t know you know _____!”

I used to collect all my sticker pictures in my planner, which I personalized and made pretty with tons of stickers and colored pens (decorating planners was another trend back then). Here’s just one page out of the dozens I had in my planner:

Slowly, the sticker picture fad died out and was soon replaced with purikura, or photo booths which went a step further by washing out the colors in the photographs to make the skin look smoother and lighter. I knew that these “Photo Clubs” existed all over Asia; however, I was surprised to read the latest trend in photo booth pictures: eye enlargement software. Take a look at these “before” and “after” shots:

Examining these photos even further, it seems that the software also slims your face (a trend that is very much desired in Asia) and perhaps trims your jawline.

Recently, a Japanese television show decided to run a picture of the Mona Lisa was run through the software and got the following result:

When shown a picture of the original Mona Lisa alongside the new, purikura version, most Japanese women tended to favor the sticker picture version.

I’m curious as to how I would turn out using these new generation of photo booth machines. However, this would be purely for fun as the changes that are produced are a bit too drastic for my tastes.

As for the experiment being conducted on such an iconic image, a priceless piece of art? And to have the majority of pollers prefer the new version? The word “travesty” doesn’t seem fitting enough. (But then again, this classical art aficionado is biased.)

Via Kotaku.

P.S. — As Kotaku points out, I want to make it a point to say that skin-whitening and larger eyes are not evidence of Asians attempting to look more Caucasian. These features have been desired in Asia long before contact with Westerners.

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6 Responses to “The New Generation of Sticker Pictures”

  1. Juskimo says:

    Is the skin tone thing a class distinction? Like only the workers are outside and get dark from the sun?

  2. Geek in Heels says:

    @Juskimo — Perhaps it originated from class distinctions, but these days class doesn't have anything to do with it…it's just what Asians find attractive.

  3. Nani says:

    omg are you serious?! I remember the sticky pictures from when I was a teenager and I remember all the goodies you can do to them in Korea and Japan but this is just.. wow.

  4. penga says:

    hehe, I JUST did one of these in Japan, with hubby, and another (bee) couple. The weird part was that it only seemed to make the girls' eye's bigger. maybe cause the guys were wearing glasses? I thought it came out cute, actually! Like how little animals are cuter with big round eyes. The whole concept did wig me out for a while though, bizarre!

  5. CHKsnowflake says:

    ohhh i look so young lol

  6. Kettuk says:

    hehehe it was a good read.

    I am tad bit curious how I’ll turn out there, I am a north european with already rather huge eyes 😀 I’ll be a ufo. Scary.

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