It's fair to say that governing a country is hard. There's a budget to manage against multiple competing interests, borders to keep safe and then there's the most important thing of all: Photoshopping shoes on your holiday snaps.
Our tax dollars were recently put to work in the PM's graphics department with his slightly grubby sneakers replaced by a pair of no-name white shoes in a family portrait. The photo was then uploaded to the prime minister's official website. (Not to be confused with his personal website, which was hilariously hijacked by an online troll after he forgot to renew the domain name.)
The fact that "shoegate" even happened yesterday is pretty ridiculous. For a start, does anyone at the PM's department know about Google Image Search? It took an enterprising Twitter user very little time to track down the original, unedited image.
#auspol story of 2019: our latest PM (ScoMo) had nice white shoes photoshopped onto his feet for his official https://t.co/eXNtcX7xTa site?! Yup. Regular bloke. Our tax dollars hard at work. #shoegate pic.twitter.com/kA0gG0yy9L
— Luke (@lukerhn) January 8, 2019
The fact that the edited image gave the PM two left feet was also laughable.
The PM has seen the funny side of this and responded to the confected controversy, saying he'd prefer the graphics team worked on restoring his hairline rather than footwear.
Message to my Department (PM&C): I didn’t ask for the shoeshine, but if you must Photoshop, please focus on the hair (lack thereof), not the feet! ???? Here they are in all their glory – my footwear of choice whenever I can get out of a suit. pic.twitter.com/hKKUstnArq
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) January 8, 2019
On the serious side, Google Image Search makes it pretty easy to check when an image has been altered.
In this case, the edit was pretty amateurish. It looks like the PM has two left feet – which is never a good look for a politician – and the editing is somewhat clumsy too. Surely it would have been easier to review the strips and recolour the shoes to clean them up instead of the somewhat ham-fisted job they went with. At least the internet was amused:
#auspol #SloMoShoes
I wouldn’t like to be in Scott Morrison’s shoes right now…
Bwahahahahahaha…draws breath…bwahahahahahaha pic.twitter.com/qalFGEhUMt
— 4 A BETTER AUSTRALIA (@AntiAbbottAust) January 8, 2019
Still trying to prove he has a sole.
— JRB (@JRBSays) January 8, 2019
He had to wear white sneakers because he had donated his red shoes to the Museum of Democracy pic.twitter.com/B4fh0PoHeO
— Pup Fiction (@jjjove) January 8, 2019
Also, what’s this? Some sort of bum-mirror? pic.twitter.com/ua8wXW1OI2
— Stilgherrian (@stilgherrian) January 8, 2019
A bit generous to suggest it was 'photoshopped'. It looks like it was edited using Microsoft Paint. #shoegate
— Matt Harris (@m_p_harris) January 8, 2019
It gets even stranger when you zoom in. #shoegate #IShoppedThese pic.twitter.com/xqv7kjXiML
pic.twitter.com/MPort0ZuJj
— tomred (@TomRed43) January 8, 2019
Yo did I do this right? #Shoegate pic.twitter.com/cW2axIecQQ
— Greig White (@schnozzman) January 8, 2019
They should have got in a professional to do it. #LNP #shoegate pic.twitter.com/2e1JUBnKB5
— Individual Citizen 1 (@SnotRejected) January 8, 2019
Originally published in Lifehacker Australia on 9 January 2019: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/01/pm-photoshops-fake-shoes-onto-his-body-forgetting-google-image-search-is-a-thing/