Fans have expressed disappointment after falling for altered pictures of Zendaya and Selena Gomez at the Met Gala red carpet.
As A-listers descended upon the steps of the Met on the first Monday of May, a few fan favourites were missing including Selena Gomez, Zendaya and Blake Lively.
But thanks to technology and some creative editing, social media users were duped into believing that some stars who didn’t attend the event were actually present.
Following the event, a photo of Selena Gomez started doing the rounds on social media where she appears to be wearing a sheer blue beaded dress.
‘SELENA GOMEZ DID A SURPRISE APPEARANCE AT THE #MetGala WTF,’ tweeted a user with the handle @kevormez, posting the images.
While some people believed it as a knee-jerk reaction, others pointed out that it was fake.
The image seems to be a digitally altered picture of Lily James posing in a Versace gown from last year’s Met Gala, superimposed with Selena Gomez’s face. The fake photo has also changed the colour of the dress from lavender to blue
‘The fact that I thought this was real,’ tweeted one user.
Still, looks like the damage was done as the tweet with the fake pictures has been viewed more than 22million times since.
Gomez, who last attended the Met Gala in 2018, wasn’t the only one who was photoshopped into this week’s Met Gala.
Hours into the red carpet on Monday, a Twitter user shared an image of Zendaya wearing a black one-shouldered dress on this year’s Met Gala red carpet.
The photo was evidently created by editing Zendaya’s face onto a picture of Rita Ora in the same Prabal Gurung dress from that night.
‘Not me actually believing this was her’ Tweeted one user who fell for the gag.
The tweet was even picked up by official Twitter accounts like HypeBae, which shared the image with the caption: ‘ZENDAYA IS THAT GIRL AND WILL FOREVER BE THAT GIRL #MetGala.’
The incident has shocked people at how easy it is to fall for fake images.
The only silver lining seems to be that Elon Musk’s Community Notes feature on Twitter is working and surprisingly helpful.
The feature allows people on Twitter to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading Tweets.
The original tweet with the fake images of Gomez were flagged with the note saying, ‘Selena Gomez did not attend the 2023 Met Gala and has not attended the Met Gala since 2018. These are altered images of Lily James at the 2022 Met Gala.’
It also features links to articles with James’ original dress and why Gomez wouldn’t be attending this year’s Met Gala.
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