{"id":488746,"date":"2026-02-21T00:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488746\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T00:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:11:07","slug":"how-to-change-your-artist-photo-on-wikipedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488746\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Change Your Artist Photo on Wikipedia"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday (February 18), Mike Hadreas, the artist better known as Perfume Genius<\/a>, posted a desperate plea<\/a> on X: \u201cCan someone please change my Wikipedia pictures? How do you do it? It\u2019s haunted me for years.\u201d What was then his artist photo dated back nearly a decade to 2017. (Hadreas\u2019 frequent collaborator Blake Mills also caught a stray<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Musicians have long suffered in silence at the capricious whims of Wikipedia editors. Artist photos on the site are almost always out of date, unflattering, or both. And Hadreas isn\u2019t the only one speaking up. Swedish pop star Zara Larsson<\/a> is apparently locked in a cold war with one user who keeps swapping out the photo on her page. In a new TikTok<\/a>, Larsson addressed the rogue editor directly, vowing that \u201cI will never stop changing that picture to a nice one. I will never stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larsson\u2019s page\u2014like those of many high-profile artists\u2014falls under what\u2019s called extended confirmed protection<\/a>, which restricts public editing. So while Hadreas was able to enlist one of his X followers to do away with what he called the \u201ccorpse in red lipstick<\/a>,\u201d Larsson would have required the assistance of a high-level Wiki user (someone who\u2019s made at least 500 edits) or site administrator.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re a musician who cringes every time you Google yourself or a stan who knows your fave deserves better, here are several ways<\/a> to change an artist photo on Wikipedia. Just be sure the image is freely licensed<\/a>, which means you either took the picture yourself or you have the express permission of whoever took it.<\/p>\n

Via Social Media: Post a suitable picture<\/a> on Instagram, X, Facebook, or another social media platform with a licensing statement in the caption. The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence<\/a> (CC BY-SA 4.0) ensures that you\u2019re still credited in all future uses. Or you can cite Creative Commons Zero Public Domain Dedication 1.0<\/a> to release the photo completely into the public domain.<\/p>\n

Via Email: Submit a suitable picture via photosubmission@wikimedia.org, alongside a statement confirming that you own the copyright on the image and a specific licensing agreement (Wikipedia recommends CC BY-SA 4.0. If you don\u2019t own the copyright to the photo you want to use, whoever owns the rights\u2014usually the photographer, unless ownership has been transferred\u2014should send in the release statement instead.<\/p>\n

Via Wikimedia Commons: Start by creating a Wikimedia Commons account<\/a>, or logging in to Wikimedia Commons with a pre-existing Wikipedia account. Click \u201cUpload file\u201d on the left-hand menu, and fill out the upload form<\/a>. Once you\u2019ve uploaded a suitable picture, you can crop it and add a caption. Go to the page you want to update and click \u201cEdit\u201d in the top-right corner. In the edit window, look for \u201cInfobox musical artist,\u201d then delete whatever\u2019s listed under \u201cimage.\u201d Replace that text with the file name of the photo you uploaded, then scroll down and click \u201cPublish changes.\u201d (To be a good Wikipedia samaritan, you should also write an edit summary<\/a> describing what you changed and why.)<\/p>\n

Via the Talk Page: Click \u201cTalk\u201d in the top left corner of the artist page. Go to \u201cAdd topic,\u201d and make a post with the subject \u201cPhoto Edit Request.\u201d Link out to another suitable picture anywhere else on the web, confirm that you\u2019re the rights holder, and include one of the above licensing agreements. Help should soon be on the way.<\/p>\n