Friday Q&A

Questionable Election

Greetings crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A, on what will no doubt be remembered as an important week in world history. I finally remembered to change my underwear! Also, there was some kind of protest in Iran. You may have noticed, as over two dozen discussion threads on Fark's main page have been devoted to the subject.

Q: Why should we care about the Iranian uprising?

A: The Iranians are a proud and brave people, with a rich history of using Photoshop. Fortunately, they aren't good enough at it to threaten my ego. You may remember this gem of propaganda from last year.


Somehow, a keen observer caught onto a few misplaced pixels in the above image. The Iranian regime was universally derided for the incident, but you have to give them credit for trying. After all, can you imagine the mockery that would have ensued if they had released the unedited version where the missile didn't fire?

Q: Did the Iranian Propaganda Ministry learn their lesson?

A: If they did, it sure wasn't a Photoshop lesson. In the past week, Iran's government has once again been busted for trying to pass off a doctored image. This time, they altered the crowd of a pro-Ahmadinejad rally to include more people.



As you can see, there are several things wrong with the image above. For example, they didn't add a Paint Huffer Guy, Ceiling Cat, or even a Mustard Man. In fact, you'll notice the distinct absence of any Fark cliches. Also, the circled areas are a dead giveaway. You hardly ever see enlargement bubbles IRL.

Q: Is Iran the first government to use Photoshop for propaganda purposes?

A: No more than I'm the first jackass to use a blog for narcissistic attention-whoring purposes. Image editing has long been used as a political tool. In the days before Twitspace and Facetube, dictators would often alter images for the sake of propaganda. Nowadays, governments continue to under-estimate the number of 'shoops we have whooped. Evidence can be seen in this image recently circulated by China.

As it turns out, antelope do not like the sound of noisy trains tearing through their breeding ground. But the Chinese government needed to make a point, and thus the photographer was "motivated" (either by electrodes or bullets) to create this rather dodgy composite image. China was able to save some face when the poor bastard was once again "motivated" to confess to the forgery. I'm not sure what happened to the antelope, but I imagine their carcasses were ground up to dilute the lead content of Chinese baby food.

That's all for this time, crickets and trolls. Thanks again for stopping by. Regardless of this new Iranian revolution's outcome, a watershed moment has been reached in the area of international relations. All across the world, people have followed the crisis in real time, while the MSM fumbled. The efforts of misinformation by President Ahmadinejad were quickly thwarted by diligent cyber citizens. I'm glad to see so many web communities come together for a common cause, regardless of whether or not they agree with me about Photoshop.

Stay tuned for more electronic solidarity from the Doctor!