Graphic artist pretends to be on Facebook fake world

The story

Colorful fish circling around while snorkeling, a monk kneeling next to her in a temple - no question: Zilla van den Born travels through Asia. Or not?

The 25-year-old graphic designer posted during her alleged vacation trip on Facebook what Photoshop says: endless beaches and turquoise sea. In the middle of it: Zilla.

The message

Everyone believed it

While family and friends suspected her in Laos, Cambodia or Thailand, the Dutch woman spent 42 days in her room in Amsterdam - house arrest in front of the PC for her university project. Zilla's Message: An illusion remains an illusion, even when seen on Facebook or Instagram. Pictures, posts and messages take us into a world of illusions.

"On Facebook or other social media services, we manipulate our own public image on a daily basis," she says. "We virtually create an ideal world, stage a show for our 'friends' and followers'. My goal was to show how normal the distorted truth has become in the meantime. "

Making Of

Room is in the smallest Amsterdam hut. Even for a temple ...

The young graphic designer went out of her way to make every detail as real as possible: The diving photos were taken in a Dutch swimming pool. Since there are hardly any exotic fish, she worked on the pictures later. For conversations with friends via Skype, Zilla set up a Thai hotel scenario in her Amsterdam apartment. For the proof photo from the temple a monk in saffron yellow cowl had to come here (and lots of devotional items). In addition, the Dutch woman ordered tantalizing, Asian seafood, photographed it and also posted the pictures of the crustaceans on Facebook. Every "post" an indication: The holiday is great.

the end

Photoshop makes it possible

For every single release, she kept an eye on the time difference. In this way, she created the perfect illusion, for six weeks none of her friends noticed that she was not even there. The family also bought her the story. Although the parents got postcards from Thailand stamped in Amsterdam ...

After some time had passed, Zilla van den Born deliberately blew up the dizziness and filmed the reactions: some of the family members had their mouths open, some friends had a delicious time, only one behind-the-light was really angry: Granny , You could not do that with an old lady!