Hear/Say » facebook

Who Is That Beautiful Creature? Oh, Me.

admin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:03:17 +0000

The mythological tale of Narcissius is widely known: self-obsession is an obviously weak downfall; silly, frilly, shallow, foolish.

Narcissius, by bada$$ Baroque artist Caravaggio

Yet we love the Jersey Shore: GTL. Lookin’ fresh. Tee shirt time. Lookin’ fresh to get it in.

In our society: self-confidence is inextricably tied with physical beauty. Sarah says Kim Kardashian has insurance on her a$$ets. We then discussed possibilities of some samurai strolling alongside of her and relieving her of some of that weight. How does justice look in that light?

How does L.A Fitness justify its outrageous monthly prices to use the communal swimming pool and equipment while listening to their shitty inspirational soundtrack? We’ve placed the toned, tan, pearly-white toothed flesh on the pedestal, and then radically jacked up the pedestal.

Lacan’s theory (I think I’ve blogged about this before in a much more serious, emotional, existential mode) where we look to others to confirm who we are by similarities and differences:

The mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body image.

Logical: we see those around us and by judgement and critique, come to better understand who do or do not want to be, what values we uphold and what is or isn’t important to us. We then present ourselves in a way to perpetuate this want of self-image: hip. Young. Intellectual. Passionate. Level-headed. Impulsive. etc.

So hip it hurts via latfh.com

The body and mind are never exclusive of each other. Think of the people who weren’t as fit when they’re young, and as soon as they lose the weight and gain the confidence, the endearing quality of their personalities fade into their past like their love for a super-sized number 6 combo meal with extra mayo. They begin to overcompensate for their past. Cue desperate narcissism, or sexual overload…

…Enter the libido. Is this the concentrated fulcrum that hinges our bodily and mental being? Where they collide and merge? To sign up for a gym membership and “earn sexy points” (courtesy of FB statuses) because without a kickin’ bod, your body is baggage. Your confidence plummets. You don’t get laid. You stay at home stuffing your face with poptarts and pie, crying into the crumbs. Sinking into reality television.

Modern day Narcissius: who is The Situation without his body and/or penis?

When women on the View or Oprah say “embrace your body, it’s unique, beautiful, etc.” to whom is it beautiful? People forget that these things are mere adjectives, not fact. That we are beautiful and ugly at the same time to different people is preposterously optimistic. When girls primp themselves and purse their lips in front of the mirror for hours until the party has already started, their mental health is reliant on hairspray. When guys pump in front of the mirror, their beauty is found in the form of their lift and their muscle capacity. If you’re hopelessly unsatisfied, you hint at it so friends can reassure you that you are, in fact, still beautiful as they are.

This inner-neurotic tension about self-image is a predominant display of narcissism: when people untag themselves on Facebook because they’re astonished to see themselves in terrible lighting, or when they refuse to take pictures at all unless they’re properly primped and posed. Because maybe someone they might like in the future will see the photo and reject them for everything they are. Because the narcissism and neurotic nature places them in their own mental spotlight, mistakenly assuming that the world is watching.

When people are freaked about Facebook or online information, its a similar sort of narcissism. Who’s gonna stalk me? Who’s gonna take my *Favorite Quotes* and sniff my essence out of them? Laughable, because: who cares? Out of the entire universe of online information and data online, who is going to pick out Nancy McMancy’s prom pictures and critique the binary code out of it?

UNLESS you're wearing this a;skljdf;ldskjf

On the other (of many) hand(s), I feel as if there is a positive to negative range of narcissism. Outward narcissism acknowledges the libidinal nature of self-image with self-confidence, or the relationship between mental and physical self. In moderation, the outward narcissism is healthy and positive– too much, and the person’s some gorgeous asshole with a rotten personality. The inward narcissism is the insecurity; the back-pedaling of progression towards strengthening a personality and being comfortable with your own skin; rejecting who you are because you’d rather be her, or him. If your goal is to look like Megan Fox (sans toe-thumbs), you’re going to feel shitty. It’s impossible, short of plastic surgery. Even then, there’s the trauma of connecting who you are with your “new image”. It would be like “Being John Malkovich”, where you aren’t living who you are, but you’re watching someone else live your decisions. Puppetry.

Today, looking at pictures of yourself is the new mirror. But so much more, because factors like: who you’re with, or who is taking the picture, or where you are, what you’re wearing, where you are, etc. are part of that reflection of “self”. Taking a look at profile pictures is fascinating, because it portrays how people would like to be seen, rather than whatever they’re tagged in. What they think they look the hottest in, or the coolest. What they agree to be tagged in, and who they agree to be identified with. What jives with their ideal libidinal nature. Think ghetto Myspace pics.

Getting a rise out of the hippest smokers via latfh.com

The key is moderate self-critique and praise. Easier said then done, of course, but if there are that many insecure, self-neurotic people in the world, it’s ironically reassuring. It means that no one really has the time and energy to worry about what you look like, or how flattering your hair part is, or even the shape of your thumbs, because they’re busy worrying about their own.

Which is sort of how I’ve grown more comfortably about asserting my own space through my blog. While most bloggers are viewed as self-righteous and presumptuous (crooning o readers, dear), those who critique it are still its readers. And that’s the point of writing, or sharing with the world your opinions, your endless essays on narcissism in order to reaffirm self-worth (ha. ha.): just to share. GPOYWs and personal drama-rama aside, blogging online is just an expression of existence. You don’t have to share any opinions or stories IRL either, but you do because it’s a form of social interaction. So there’s no point in being so self-conscious all the time: in fact, it makes it blatantly uninteresting. Some would describe it as a form of mental masturbation: self-indulgence in neurotic self-worry. Which is why self-deprecation can cross the line into obnoxious attitude.

Be proud of your flaws, as writers, poets, artists, girls, and boys. Work them, because being normal and predictably sexy is not as near excitingly stimulating. Besides, out of the many unpredictably unique people in the world, someone will be turned on.

Graceee

FB Kills Surprises

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:58:53 +0000

Today I had a discussion about high school reunions with a neighbor/ g-sale patron. He was telling me how the 20-year was the big “gasp!” of high school reunions, while I suggested that perhaps the gasp has been stifled, now that we’re already on the up-and-up on everyone’s lives via FB statuses, photos, profile pix, etc.. So maybe reunions will be kaput, once everyone already knows the gossip, and doesn’t want to spend the time to talk about what they discovered on Facebook IRL… ?

Yes, this is another FB post. But it’s lolz ish. Promize.

via peterandrewhart.com

Andrew Hart is an old classmate of mine from UW– impressively, he is part of the Seattle Times New Digital Media Dept. Ah, successful youth.

Graceee

Prankz

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:55:20 +0000

I couldn’t get more creative, but I didn’t want to be too much of a creep.

Some dude named Shane didn’t log out of his Facebook…

SHANE: BEWARE

Click on it for a bigger picture.

GUYS

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:59:24 +0000

I’m totally going to Rome in like, 9 hours.

Filthy sik.

I will try very hard not to look like this

To my dear family and roommates: do not fear, for I have tattooed my face into the insides of your eyelids. You will never forget the asymmetry of my face.

To my dear friends and/or co-workers: I will return 100 fold stronger and greater than ever before; but also 100 times as merciful. Be excited. Be wary. But be excited.

To my facebook friends: I will be deleting some of you soon. 2010 calls for a purge.

To Elliott Smith, Michael Cera, endearingly awkward darlings, and Seattle: I love you–! Marry me!

Love,

Gracious

PS: keep u posted

A Few Good Ones

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:41:51 +0000

Using photography as a medium is more diverse than it seems: some use it as a tool to capture a real or artificial moment, while others use photography as a tool to capture imagination and distant possibilities. The authenticity of photography is another layer of a medium; “photo illustrations” take from the photography genre (as a reproduction of a time.place.state) but with the exception of the rules of its developed or digital reality. Using a green screen to facilitate the bending of realities versus building actual giant sets bring radically varied effects to the image and the reality produced by the image.

While photography is generally enjoyable and artistically accessible (because we unconsciously admire and revel in the composition of aesthetic and the private interpretation of a storyline for each photo), amateur photography has grown into a part of our daily lives. From Facebook albums to profile pictures and even avatars, reproducing our personalities and experiences to share with others becomes much to do with personal image-control and self-branding. This social trend has given even the social bimbo-butterfly who isn’t familiar with resizing fonts a way to cleverly manipulate how they’re seen and how they identify; it’s also given the World of Warcrafts obsessed introvert a social outlet to comfortably express themselves.

But I digress;

The point is, that photography is usually thought of in the photojournalism-genre- sort of way; this is because in our increasingly aesthetic culture, we generally rely in pictures to tell us the news (or at least pique our interest) and the text to tell us more. Aside from magazine covers, photos are still assumed as showing the truth, following that sort of “innocent until proven guilty” thread. A different kind of artsy photography, where the images are clearly lying or bending the rules of our reality, is still a relatively under-enjoyed genre of art– the famous photographers tend to be the portraiture/ celebrity photographer, the Annie Leibovitzes and Herb Ritts of the world who started out as documenting the world and people around them (Leibovitz started out photograph for Rolling Stone magazine).

Anyway, here are A FEW GOOD ONES: photographers that take this road less traveled by, and instead dared to create and show a world that a mere camera lens is not able to capture.

Photographs from beautifuldecay.com, booooooooom.com, ivomayr.com

Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin

Dina Goldstein

Dina Goldstein

Dina Goldstein

Ivo Mayr

Ivo Mayr

Gracious

Failure, Like it

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:46:46 +0000

Awesome/great job via veroniquekim.tumblr

I’ve heard about girls who Photoshop their own pictures before publishing them online, but it was … not taken very seriously. It’s LOL-able that this exists. It’s totally ironic how their insecurities become even more transparent.

It also shows how conscious people are of physical image even when engaging in a medium of communication that does not require “physicality”, per se. While people complain in paranoia of Facebook ads targetting them, no one ever talks about how they gear their own images to fit a demographic or image. How the internet enables this meta-self-awareness: what you said/say/will say, what you looked like/look/will look. The LOLlability of a ridiculous Facebook status, for example, draws from specifics such as

1) Is this a quote from a song? Does it reflect *exactly* how I feel? Is the song cool enough to reflect how I feel without embarrassment, but gains me cool points?

2) Is my status update worthy of note? Will people respond to it? Is it outrageous, or an actual status of “what I’m doing”?

3) punctuation and emoticons; how much is enough/too much? Does the design of my text also work to illustrate my point?

4) How will different groups of my FB friends read this? Is it appropriate for a boss, a sibling, a relative? Which group would this status appeal to?

5) Words used: Since it is a status, the tendency to paste large amounts of texts is laughed at. So the amount of words reflect the dexterous quick-ness of what the FB Status does: update your friends on plans, your life, your emotional stability… etc. all at once. The less words, the cooler you are– and because we’re aware of who will read this, we become more keenly aware of how we represent ourselves through a small blurb

On a more specifically interpersonal level, wall posts function the same way, but bewtween a much smaller group of people.

People also politicize their statuses in order to elicit support for their cause, or at least place their valued issues on their friend’s/family’s agenda.

The “LIKE IT” meme is also surprisingly versatile in terms of contextual meaning. From sarcasm to genuine enthusiasm, as well as general display of support for a friend, “LIKE IT” is a strange internet function that has come to embody the wonderful ambiguous tone that characterizes “internet humor”.

What do you think?