this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2026
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this is 100% slop
Looks like it is an enhancement of this one.
those tools are not very trustworthy. but i agree that upscaling is likely.
Nah. It's been around since at most 2021 (post deleted on second link, but thumbnail matches exactly). Someone's color-corrected it at some point.
What makes to say that? Sorry, I'm desperately trying to learn and I'm terrible at telling them apart.
One of the kids is missing a head, one child has two left hands, some children don't have legs. The Darth Vader mask and shirt don't make sense visually, and you can see the same shirt repeated on the child with no head.
The desks and chairs are inconsistent, looks like there are a few different styles but they also have bits that don't connect to anything. I don't know what it was like in the late 70s but generally classroom furniture is very consistent.
Then there's something really strange going on with the shadows, like the smurf and clown have dark cutouts attached to them that could be shadow but aren't.
I can't figure out what is happening with the Disney princess mask, it looks just pasted in
I think the image is real. However it looks like itβs been run through a couple filters to clean it up, possibly AI filters, that have really messed some if it up.
Someone shared the original! The missing head i was talking about is visible in the original, I definitely agree that it's been run through filters :)
I see, thank you so much for sharing! I just need to spend more time studying them I think.
first, look at how homogeneous it is. all the costumes consist of a mask and a shirt. every desk has an empty paper on it. everyone is looking at the camera. almost every costume appears twice. this is an all-black classroom in the early-to-mid-80's, where someone is standing at the front of the classroom with their back to the windows (no light from any wall), taking a photo with flash of kids just sitting at their (all left-handed) desks in full costume.
second, think of the context. bluntly, this photograph should not exist in a world of film cameras, because even without all the visual oddities this is the sort of thing you'd do a photoshoot for. you'd ask all the kids to line up against a wall so you could get all their wonderful costumes. this is a spur-of-the-moment shot, like you'd do with a phone today, and unless you're the teacher you wouldn't be in the spot the photo is taken from.
Edit: more interesting details:
Lol, so many of those points can be answered with: 80s.
Masks with a plastic cover shirt were a common thing. And yes they often had a picture of the character on it, and made no sense. People did take casual photos, that's not out of place.
But there do seem to be oddities, eg the table legs, so hard to say overall
Indeed it does.
I agree parts of the image look wonky, which might be attributable to AI upscaling, but 90% of what you're listing here is absolutely natural for the '70s/'80s. The idea that no one would take casual pictures in those days is especially silly.
what the shit...
and it's not that nobody took casual pictures. it's that nobody would do it in a classroom.
The teacher could easily have done that on a dress up day, or a student, cheap portable cameras were a thing and kids would take photos of whatever with them
so what i'm learning from all the replies is that the us is an insane place. don't know why i'm surprised.