Jezebel

That is downright scary. And how do you put eyeliner on a 5 year old without sedating her?

It is official. Armagedon has come. Our society is in the throes of the decline of empire, and we deserve annihilation. If you need me I'll be outside showing the Visigoths where to park.

Obviously these parents learned a lot from Jon Benet.

And for the child who has outgrown her old photo...

[www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com]

This is seriously scary and sick. The dolls eyes really freak me out. Why don't these parents just buy a mannequin and leave the real children alone?

The eyes are creeping me out. And the molded-plastic skin.

@FourthWaveBaby: You made me snarf coffee with that comment. Visigoths! Har!

Well I for one am tired of unsightly undereye circles on the neighborhood infants, so bravo for these pioneering families. Tip: Unsightly bags on toddlers often respond well to naps!

Oh my God. People should have to fill out applications to breed. I just....just....ugh.

The sickest one is the ACTUAL BABY. IT'S FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN, PEOPLE! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!!!

Too bad for the girl in the picture that her round face foreshadows her future chunky adolescence and a lifetime of disappointing her mother. Not that I would know anything about that.

Besides being child abuse, its also a gross abuse of Photoshop. What a hack. "Natural beauties" my arse.

@petuniacat: That is the creepiest of them all.

Airbrushing under the eyes of babies. No wonder models do so much coke.

That hot baby with the "eerily flawless" skin looks like she tends bar on the weekends. Like at a trashy sailor bar.

OK, that's it, ladies. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Between this and those "full quiver - let's see if can ruin my lady parts so badly that my 18th baby just falls out of me while I'm on the toilet" folks, the world as we know it will end. It's time for a call to arms. We need to start breeding pronto. I will not have my (as yet non-existent) kids live in a world where these things are normal. Husbands, boyfriends, sperm donors - whatever it takes. Who's with me?

@petuniacat: That seriously freaked me out.

Hey, Spielberg had a great idea in AI! When are they going to start manufacturing perfect robot children? Though the Haley Joel Osmet version would definitely have to get his brows waxed for this crowd ...

The freaky baby picture's original photo was taken by the mom. What mom has time to put a giant, perfectly tied bow on their 6 month old child? And what sort of child stays still like that?

My 6 month old just had his portraits taken at a local Wal-mart. He's crying in 2 of them and looks like he's taking a righteous poop in the third one. I couldn't care less what they look like - I just wanted photographic evidence of what he looked like at this age. My family would come give me a giant smack down if I sent them photos of the kids that looked like that.

I remember when all of my 8-year-old friends were getting Glamour Shots, and my mom refused to let me get a photo taken there. She pointed out the absurdity of a child wearing make-up, when kids don't have skin flaws and naturally have long lashes. Oh, and that they're kids. They shouldn't be worried about looking perfect/sexy. (Not that I understood at the time.)

But this is disgusting. It isn't borderline inappropriate, it is WRONG.

@katastic:

Absolutely. A quick psychiatric screening would surely weed out the creepy pageant moms, right? Hopefully they would also do something to limit the amount of babies one can have to, oh, say 15 or so. Sheesh.

Seriously though, this is totally creepy to me. If one of those kids was walking toward me, I would run away screaming. They look body-snatched by aliens or something. I think they also want to eat my brains.

Ugh, I always feel like every pageant kid is totally being molested. The sexualizing/adultizing (for lack of a better word) of kids creeeeps me the hell out. Even moreso than those Anne Geddes pictures where she dresses kids like vegetables and stuff.

I think the correct word might be "deadualizing". They all look reanimated. These photos just added three hundred 'suck' points to my day.

All that work & they decided to leave this one's rotten toof. Guess it woulda been an extra $2 for that.

[www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com]

@narymary: I f-ing HATE Anne Geddes. Why the hell do you wanna dress a pile of sedated babies up like an ice cream sundae? Ice cream sundaes are something people are supposed to want to eat. Why do you want to subliminally suggest to people that babies are tasty treats?

She's off her rocker, and yet Thomas Kinkade loving suburbanites think she's a damned genius.

My question is, do the crazy pageant moms think the creepy pageant judges can't tell that the kids' photos have been completely overhauled? And do the creepy pageant judges hold this against the poor, psychologically scarred kids, or is frighteningly bad, obvious retouching just another acceptable thing in their bizarre little world?

We were all going on about that retoucher about giving Faith Hill such scary arms and stuff, but crap like this makes you realize how good those magazine airbrushers are at their jobs. If there's a market for such horrible photoshopping in the world, I may have to hang out my own shingle (though I won't be giving any children "mouth replacements.")

@BiscuitDoughJones: I hate this retouching stuff. It's unfathomable to me as a mother. I've never bought anything Anne Geddes in my life. However, I will have to admit to dresing up my first baby as a topiary in the late 90s. I was young, poor, and made the whole thing out of hot glue and things from the local Wal-mart.

I've now seen the light about Geddes, but still... My baby was too cute.

photobucket

This reminds me of an e-mail conversation/threatened lawsuit I read on SomethingAwful a long time ago. It is worth viewing for the photoshopped doll children alone: [www.somethingawful.com]

I just don't get it...what kind of person is happy in a world of airbrushed babies and makeup-plastered prepubescents? What sort of childhood must they have had? I'd love to look inside their heads, see how this all ties into their world-view. This crap is enough to make me get my tubes tied. I used to be such an idealist, but now the world (well, humanity, anyway) seems truly headed to 'Idiocracy' territory. Mike Judge is a prophet, which I guess makes Beavis & Butthead his disciples. You know things have gotten bad in the world when you're nostalgic for the simpler times of Beavis & Butthead.

Oh for the love of God. I remember being about 9 and my mother not allowing me to shave my legs. I hated her for it at the time, but now it smacks of good parenting and I'm in total agreement with her that the world would be an entirely better place if she were allowed to roam about with a hyperdermic full of sterelization fluid for anyone who gave off an air of having had a neglected childhood leading to a tendency to live vicariously through their children.

@Merebear: Aww, she's prosh! My nephew's 1st Halloween we dressed him up as Yoda. Adorable, he was.
H-ween is totally okay, but dressing babies up like really realistic foodstuffs for no reason but to make some cheese-ass photograph= no bueno.

This makes me want to go back and watch "Living Dolls" all over again.

@Merebear:

major difference 1. that was for a halloween outfit 2. it doesnt freak me out. cute kid

and imagine the body image you have as a kid to say ..." oh that pic is from when i was three. mommy got it all fixed up. she says it is prettier than just a normal picture of me "

The Scientologists and their robot babies have struck again!

(Okay, I'll admit it - goddamn, Suri Cruise is cute.)

@pink_orchid: @BiscuitDoughJones: @Merebear: I think it's pretty much a rule of motherhood that until they can talk/walk/make your life a living hell in the terrible twos, you can dress them up however you want. Case in point? Me, age 5 months, dressed up as a pumpkin. With pumpkin-vine hat. My boss's kid: 8 months, as a lobster.

My kids are going to haaaaaaate me.

@pink_orchid:

Well, would you really want your friends to see baby pictures of you with - gasp - drool and shadows under your eyes?!

Besides, by that point - at the ripe old age of 12 - you will be so smothered in Mary Kay makeup that no one will ever suspect you were once a baby human, with imperfections and all.

@Merebear: Your little pumpkin is adorable!

@petuniacat:

OMG ! you are right ::hangs head in insecure shame:: time to visit my mom and burn the baby albums.

LOL

@mccauller:

I worked at a place that sold costumes for kids at halloween and the baby costumes always cracked me up... but a lobster? very original. but i agree with the pont of anne geddes turning kids into weird baby food and planters is odd to hang in your house. your own kid as a pumpkin/plant/lobster/burrito is a different story.

I wonder what they could do with the picture of my 2 year old holding his father's empty bottle of Sam Adams and the television remote?

Anyone else think that baby looks hottttt? Hollaaaaaa!!!!1!!!11 No? Just me? Cool... cool...

@pink_orchid: No need to burn em - just get em retouched!

Do you think they could photoshop my echography? My foetus looks way too fat on this one...

creepy. any parent that does this to their child should be shot in the face. immediately.

Um...Wow!

I thought I heard it all when my sister-in-law felt concerned that her baby daughter looked fat (OMG...she's a baby...they are suppose to be fat!)

Now this?

I think we are going to be visited by the Anti-Christ soon. I hope you guys are ready for the rapture...I'm coveting my neighbor's car when they go.

@Embot: That was my first thought too. These kids look.....embalmed. They remind me of the kid in "Pet Semetary". I think this would be a great way to weed out people incapable of being parents. Anyone who orders this "service" should have their kids taken away by Protective Services.

I don't know what's worse, the "refocussed" dead doll eyes or the drawn-on Barbie/Pam Anderson eyebrows.

Thanks for removing any discernable trace of cuteness, guys!

Just for shiggles somebody oughta mock up a bunch of pics from Cuteoverload.com... you know, "define/shorten" the gangly colt legs, make the puppies grow into their ears, etc.