So, apparently the secret to a good online dating site photo is kissy face.
Now, I don't have any photos of myself that would qualify. Nor do I have any photos of my friends in which they are making said face. And I started to wonder, is this a generational thing? The data for the article went up to age 31, and it doesn't report what percent of women are doing it at what ages. I went back to college photos, to sorority events, and none of us were doing it. Back in my day, we didn't have digital cameras, and we didn't take as many photos or show them to as many people. We didn't have any of this online social networking nonsense. We also had to walk uphill both ways to class, barefoot, in the snow. But I digress ... We settled for doing the basic sorority pose most of the time. You know .... slight turn to the side, slight bend forward, hands just above your knees or on the girl in front of you, and biiiiiiigggg smile!
So, in the name of scientific research, I decided to see if I could do it. If millions of teenagers on MySpace can do it, how hard can it be? I forewent the recommended cleavage, not having time for an augmentation tonight.
Results? First, I should not take up acting or modeling, although I may be able to play Derek Zoolander in a community theater production if they're hard up. Second, I don't know what I was expecting. I can't take a good self-portrait, even though I can take good photos and pose well for others. (I will also blame this on my generation.) Third - no. I can't do it. At all. You can see the awful results here. I look ... afflicted may be the word I am looking for, although I also considered mentally subnormal.
I guess Teh Menz of Teh Intertubes will never know what they are missing. And without cleavage or kissyface, I will be SINGLE FOREVER!
Excuse me, I have to go adopt several cats.
1 comment:
When I took a break from my busy night Friday schedule of revising a paper and reading Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" to post this, I foolishly failed to anticipate that the rhetorical frame would capture some readers' attentions more than the serious kernel of generational differences in intimacy with the camera. It's no coincidence that the friend who offered to teach me the art of self-portraits is in her mid-20s. I will have to decline, however. I am content to carry the baggage of squareness that begins to accumulate after the age of 30. In fact, I rather look forward to the day when my young students giggle at old Professor Turducken's highwater pants, or their futuristic sartorial equivalent. In the meantime, I am not at the highwater stage yet, and any rhetorical tropes about singledom and doom and cats are merely literary devices.
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