Google & Beatfreeks Commission - Digital content for the Emotional Manipulation lesson, as part of our Be Internet Citizens Programme.

In 2020, Laura was commissioned by Beatfreeks as part of their Be Internet Citizens programme, delivered in partnership with Google.org to help young people think critically about what they see online. The brief was to create a short piece of digital content exploring emotional manipulation, aimed at 13 to 15 year olds and used in teacher training webinars, classroom resources, and Beatfreeks' wider social campaign.

Made during lockdown, Laura became the model and turned the camera towards herself. The film opens with a polished, aspirational Instagram post: a beautifully lit lifestyle shot, paired with copy designed to sell a feeling as much as a product. From there, the footage rewinds, frame by frame, through every stage of its own construction, the styling, the lighting, the posing, the retouching in Lightroom and Photoshop, the scheduling and caption-writing, until the viewer is left with the unglamorous reality behind it: a model in a plain t-shirt, no makeup, sitting alone against a bare wall.

By exposing the mechanics of image-making, from set design to skin retouching to the language used to romanticise a product, the piece invited young viewers to question the truth behind the content they consume daily, and to recognise how easily curated imagery can be used to manufacture desire for an unattainable lifestyle.