I don't understand the endgame with posting fake pictures if you are actually looking for dates. I mean, presumably you will see each other in real life, wouldn't the look of disappointment be kinda soul crushing? I don't photograph well and honestly the only time I was glad about that was the brief foray into the world of meeting guys online. It was kinda nice to be able to show up looking better than the pictures.

Also, OP - I don't think yours is an unpopular opinion - I thought you were going to be complaining about the more extreme styles we see around now. Online photo editing I thought was pretty universally held in disdain. It's harmful in so many ways. People editing themselves then wishing they looked like the edited pictures. People seeing pictures they think are real but have been nipped and tucked with Photoshop, then being upset they can't have those proportions at any weight (because most of us have ribs!).

Though to be fair, the push for unnatural proportions predates the editing software, I remember my mom telling me that in "her day" girls had smaller waists and bigger hips, and I was skeptical because evolution doesn't work that fast, both me & my sister are built more straight up and down, were skinny. When I asked for clarification she said it was foam rubber and girdles, it was a style they achieved by padding out the butt and hips. So smaller waist yes, smaller all around, but not somehow magically all curvy. Regular skinny with foam padding.

That sounds really difficult. It was already hard back in the MySpace days just because of what people could do with camera angles, lighting, and makeup. Catfishing is probably a whole different league now.