What do you look like in our beloved month of August 2014

selfies are a disabling of the process of external gaze imo. they can of course be co-opted (as can any form of expression) and used as a means for women to exploit themselves for others' benefit but the effect from what i can largely tell is to change object to subject, which is surely ideal

lol crut

My biggest problem with selfies, is the word selfies. I just can't speak it.

imago otm

also lol crut is right :)

i took self portraits all the time as soon as i had a camera because i couldn't even figure out what i looked like unless i could examine my face in a picture
years and years of "is this what my face looks like?!"

totally get that quote -- your picture is lovely enbb and i love the lipstick, which is not insane just vibrant

I think my problem is that "caring about what I look like" as a form of radicalism strikes me as merely a recuperation of radicalist poses for the same purpose as "caring about what I look like" via patriarchal and capitalist structures. I want to care about what I think like and what I act like and be able to ignore what I look like if I want to.

HOWEVER, I realise (should realise, should act upon more often) that refusing to be shamed by one's body is different to being defined by one's body. And wresting back control of your own image isn't the same thing as forcing everyone else to be image-conscious. Though it certainly seems that way sometimes, and that's why I get twitchy around grand claims like ENBB's friend makes.

yeah i mean i understand what the person is saying even if i'm not on board with grand claims in general

I've played with these ideas myself - in my novel, no character's appearance is described until the second half, at the start of which they all parade and are described entirely naked & it is as meaningless as you want it to be

owning your image is important, but owning the means of disseminating it is also important

i think owning your image is perhaps subordinate to owning the means of broadcast & the vectors of presentation

but provided you're in a safe & personally-approved context i think it is to be encouraged that people who want to take selfies do so

on which note,

http://i.imgur.com/WDd5aN2.jpg

I don't understand the philosophical context for large parts of this essay, but I like a lot of it.

If the the body of the Young-Girl is her primary commodity, her ticket of entry into the world of consumer capitalism (outside of which she is not only useless but also illegible), then her ability to authentically maintain the femininity of her body maintains its value. Participating in femininity, and documenting and representing that participation, is not only a relation of the young girl to herself, as the narcissism explanation would have it. It is also the relation of the young girl to herself as the Young-Girl, as an object to work on, and whose realization can be more or less effective. The selfie is both a representation of and, in the case of social media sites like Instagram and Facebook, an opportunity for the public recognition of that labour. The image may assert sexual subordination, but it still asserts.

http://text-relations.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-young-girl-and-selfie.html

yeah it is all fkn means of production ultimately

lol can I sub in 36 year old woman and the selfie when I read that? ;)

(that's reductive but yknow xp to selfe)

i took self portraits all the time as soon as i had a camera because i couldn't even figure out what i looked like unless i could examine my face in a picture
years and years of "is this what my face looks like?!"

I think I'm a little too self-conscious for this? Although I do have a picture of my side profile, which I am not really into, and it's by no means a good picture but looking at it makes me feel really good because I'd just shaved and gotten my hair just how I wanted it.

Now, recordings of my voice on the other hand.... maybe I should get used to those.

i never showed them to people, i just took the pictures and put them away

you're going to leave behind quite the collection, some day

having heard so many old male academics casually mention how the selfie is the apotheosis of narcissistic neoliberal individualism i have become a full-blown reactionary selfie promoter

I kind of don't get the idea that we have to constantly have an opinion on our appearance/body/face
"love your body" that kinda thing
My body is p cool at the moment as it's incubating another one

This doesn't mean we shouldn't take pics, I need to take more tbh as I love looking at old ones.

I think if you're at all self-conscious you have an opinion, even if it's muted? I am sure there's a philosophical angle there in the field of self.

http://i.imgur.com/tdWEBXz.jpg

on a whale watching ship off the north coast of iceland.

i almost barfed. there were no whales.

did you at least get to eat rotten shark?

nope! however i did eat lots of tasty fish my entire time there. i never knew cod should be so goddamned delicious!

should could

did u pee in the blue lagoon y/n

Karl do you eat fish on the reg or was this out of the ordinary

thought the thing in the background said FAP for a minute

http://i61.tinypic.com/kdmiba.jpg

https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/1610809_10152304653848693_2067903531948682072_n.jpg

Me in Brooklyn, trying to fit in.

Ed is that the Puffing BIlly? (or something less obvious, I know theres a few active steam trains round here)

Me and my beloved, being drunken spazmos.

https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/p526x296/10431466_10152180872037757_1735294921994599719_n.jpg?oh=ffdd67fcf6f10751b2e60983b1f00896&oe=5474CDAF

It is Puffing Billy, I volunteer down there in the absence of any paid employment. Hit me up if you ever want a free trip.