Leopold KupelwieserBehold, Victorian YouTube.

Invented by Sir David Brewster in 1816, the kaleidoscope quickly became a must-have item for all age ranges and professions, plunging Victorian England into a "'mania' the like of which had never been seen before," according to newspapers.

Designer's AtelierSome kaleidoscopes were clearly compensating for something.

As a result, it was common to see people bumbling along like finely dressed zombies, walking into walls and bumping into cyclists. That's right, some asshole in 1800s England shared the exact same pain as you when you wandered crotch-first into a drinking fountain because you were too distracted by something shiny in your hand.

Over the following decades, personal portraits gained popularity, but also allowed the masses to see their defects like never before. The masses didn't like that, and cosmetic photo manipulation became commonplace. Retouchers physically altered images by drawing, painting, powdering, or scratching away at the negative. Pencil strokes could remove freckles, the sign of the devil:

The pens had to be dipped in holy water for this to work.

Etching knives were used to literally cut out undesirable aspects ...

... or just to diminish muffin tops on ladies "whose embonpoint may be too apparent":

And like today, retouchers had to be careful not to overdo it, lest the trickery become obvious. Like the photo on the right here:

The next step would have been a Muppet.

By 1930, a special retouching machine was developed which backlit and vibrated the original negative while a retoucher erased imperfections with a pencil. Retouching a single portrait, like Joan Crawford's Laughing Sinners publicity photo from 1931, could take six hours of work. And that's for a subject who was already pretty.

Metro-Goldwyn-MayerPeople have absolutely never looked like that.

The desire to hide humanity's flaws grew exponentially throughout the 20th century, judging from the arsenal of retouching tools detailed in the 1946 guidebook Shortcuts To Photo Retouching For Commercial Use. Which means that no, millennials aren't the shallowest generation; they're just the ones who got caught.

Nathaniel HoneShe was doing it for the love of the game. Landing a reality show wasn't even an option back then.

Fisher's debauched affairs with the rich reeled in the tabloids, while extravagant stories about her personal life kept them interested. Casanova (yes, that Casanova) spread the rumor that she once ate a 1,000-guinea bank note, which was enough money to buy a large house at the time. According to him, they never had sex because she didn't speak French, but most other sources claim she spoke it fluently. Yep, she shut down Casanova. The moment that really catapulted her to fame was the 18th-century equivalent of a sex tape, when she fell off a horse and exposed her underwear to passersby. Whole books were written about the incident, while lewd engravings of it spread like wildfire. Crumpled, mysteriously sticky wildfire.

Library of Congress"You can see a knee! The harlot!"

But Fisher wasn't being exploited by the media -- the media was being exploited by her. She wrote a public letter complaining about the media's obsession with her, which historians now believe was a carefully coded advertisement designed to drawn even more public attention to her image. Her very first portrait was commissioned by Fisher herself and soon began showing up in print shop windows, while pamphlets concerning her sexual misadventures flooded London's literature market. Meanwhile, stuffy old entities like Fox indignantly complained about Fisher's influence on the young people (Lady Caroline Fox, the noblewoman). Another critic called Fisher an untalented and uncivilized floozy, and generally despaired over the downfall of Western civilization. And yet here we all are, still kickin' today. So take heart, we'll survive Kim Kardashian. P-probably.

Gareth is from England, but currently lives in the middle of the Hungarian countryside, where he is trying to live self-sufficiently. You can read more about him and his wife on their website.

Eh, couldn't hurt to teach yourself some Photoshop, even in this day and age. Try Photoshop for Dummies.

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For more, check out 6 'Signs Of The Time' That Are Older Than Your Grandparents and 6 Millennial Fads That Are Way Older Than You Think.

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