What if Touch Screens Were Feel Screens?

ATTENTION NERDS

So, I've been watching a bunch of this show, Continuum, which has a narrative that is 60 years in the future, and it got me thinking about film and sci-fi (always) and how exciting it is to see all the fictional gadget ideas out there and how sometimes those things can be predictive of future technologies. For example,  surveillance, iPads, Bluetooth's, radar, atomic bombs, moon landings, and even flying cars (real now) are all things that first existed in science fiction. What I specifically ended up thinking about was computer screens and how lately I always see sci-fi tech in movies/shows that is based on some 3D, movable imagery (think iron man's tech stuff). It's super cool and I'll leave the tech geniuses to figuring out its application, but it also makes me think of ways to take it even further.

3D, movable, touchable expandable (Iron Man)

While super awesome looking, our concepts of these ideas are still rooted in todays idea of touch, hence have not crossed the boundary of not just touch, but what you can FEEL. I'm talking about texture.  What if these 3D super cool models had build-able, tangible data with physical texture? It could be for when vision can't be used. It could be for painting aps where you lay down the paint on your tablet and it rises with grit you can touch, architecture you can feel (think Jenga and only pull the loose piece), and ways to flip these tangible surfaces on and off with our beloved little swipe. Out to dinner and need to know the time? What if you could check your phone to see it or if you've received a notification, without looking or being * noticeably* rude, but simply reaching in your pocket. Do you think people would start watching for pocket grabs?

I've always been intrigued by how the senses can mingle with our use of technology. Like Willy Wonka's smell-o-vision (they're working on it), or built-in item transporters in phones where you can send items directly to the person you're talking to (3D printers are the future), or as an childhood friend of mine predicts (while still offering companies ways to make money), fileshare capabilities of 3D printable items with easy access to the printers once they're better mastered, meaning never-ending access to cheap, freeshare gadgets; just buy the materials.

We get seriously closer all the time to such cool technologies, so why not relax our overtaxed eyes and outstretch our hands to my imaginary tactile tech? Tv so often predicts future technologies (Star Trek pretty much got the flip phone, iPad and bluetooth in one swoop), and I want to see this one in action.  Something tells me that I'm not too far off to potential futures and I'm curious what you all think. Problems and conflicts, (obviously technology, but what else in practical application), benefits, other ideas? Where could you see this going in a plot? My mind goes all over the place!

I totally think that even by contemplating these ideas I am just helping us all get one step closer to a Black Mirror (UK fiction show) style world that could mean devastating things, but that doesn't mean I'm not curious what's coming in the process... I mean it's gonna happen whether I talk about it or not...

A fictional room in black mirror that everyone must live in and be bombarded with constant imagery.

At a deeper glance there both potential wonders and horrors in the idea of being able to touch any image. What happens when we can physically touch any body image? Would that just increase objectification of others and things like rape culture? Or could it increase positive bonds with those thousands of miles away? Would it just be used for sex? Or would it's applications bring beauty, trees, landscapes and art to whole new technological levels? Would the point in which this technology exists be one where access to the outside world may no longer even be possible? Would we need the imagery to remember what we'd lost?

Obviously, I am thinking in very fictional terms, but I'd like to see someone play with these ideas because I'm a nerd not a screenwriter. Please, find a way to give me credit if you do something with them in the process. Meanwhile, I just hope I got someone thinking and bringing in more awesome things to contemplate.


Thanks loves,

xoxo... Ella

Why Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" are Actually Reinforcing Self Doubt, Cultural Beauty Norms, and Telling You That You're Ugly

In the past few days you have probably noticed the newest viral "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" Campaign. Many have been responding highly positively to this, reposting, crying, and saying it's the best thing they've ever seen, yada yada.  If you have not seen the video, please prime yourself and watch below.

The moment I started watching these videos, I had a familiar unsettling reach to the surface and an immediate outcry that I find often heralded by Dove's campaigns. While I understand the primary concern is that women are their own harshest critics (and I would garner to say that anyone is their own harshest critic, but women are made to focus on their appearances as our primary quality, so tend to be harshest on that the most in the public eye, and possibly to ourselves as well), this campaign is lifted up on the idea that the sketches the women provided by describing themselves are of an undesirable quality, and the images sketched from another persons eyes are desirable.  While these ads are meant to inspire self confidence and beauty, in the process they go on doing one thing in the subtext: tell you that you do not know your own image, that your interpretation is ugly, and that anyone who looks like the original image or has those qualities is ugly. 

It has already been discussed about how whitewashed, skinny, normative, and feminine-presenting the women used for Dove's campaigns are while trying to sell diversity, including this campaign which has literally only ten seconds of tokenized folks of color included in contrast the normative micro-size range white women they generally focus on, and I emplore you to read more about that here.

We're Diverse!! We Swear!! 

For the points I would like to focus on first, though, lets start with bias. The idea that there are not biases in this exercise is total BS. The strangers who interacted with each other most likely did so in a positive manner and their lack of familiarity makes them much more likely to skew their descriptions to culturally polite depictions of what is considered "normal beauty". Secondly, as much as the video emphasizes that the sketcher did not see the participants, this mostly just points out that he is a talented artist and aural to visual interpreter and certainly does not free him from bias. I say this because he was well aware of who he was speaking to when he was in the process. He knew when he was talking to the person being sketched and the person describing the sketched (One said "I have ___ chin," next says "She has ____ chin," etc.), and it seems as though he was well aware of what the project intended.

By knowing when he was talking to the self-describer vs. the observer, he easily could be internally (not necessarily intentionally) motivated to draw the observer sketch in a more culturally considered positive light and the self-describer in a more culturally considered negative one, because he knew the intention of the project and was invested in its outcome. Again, I am not saying it was intentional but this is how bias works. This is especially true along with the fact that the stranger was most likely describing the other with the aforementioned positive and polite lens that would line up with the normative ideals of hegemonic, white, light-skinned, skinny beauty. It implies that because no one was paying attention to the things the participant was insecure about, that this is a good thing, but that they should still believe that those things that weren't noticed, are ugly.  It doesn't challenge our perception of the suppossed undesirability of those things, at all. The powers of the outside, polite interpreter, plus the bias sketch artist together make a second image look much more like the culture beauty standard so often "Ooo" and "ahh"-ed at, leaving us to dismiss the first images integrity and continue to uphold a whitewashed standard.

So, lets talk about that skinny white beauty thing some more. First off, this ad campaign and our culture are SOOO wrinkle-phobic, but more on that in a sec! I mean, okay, lets remember we're selling soap here, right?? (creamy, white, soap) So, that means you need to buy into cultural beauty to be considered a valid person to pay attention. Check. Okay, cultural hedgemonic ideals of beauty = white, skinny, feminine, able-bodied, etc...SO LOW AND BEHOLD the people of color were LIGHTER or less "ethnic" in the second drawings, and this was supposed to be seen as GOOD thing! I know this may be the first time you are seeing them, cuz, surprise surprise, they were left out of the video.

Why has it been decided that the PEOPLE in these first images are ugly? Maybe because they are darker and don't look like a whitewashed ideal of feminine caucasian hegemony??

Secondly, there's this idea of HORRENDOUS ROUNDNESS. OH WOW, let's all PANIC because she thought she had a rounder race then she does. This enrages me more than anything and was one of the first things I noticed. People have round faces and even if that women's face is not as round as sketching man depicted that does not mean she's self hating because she described her face as round. It can mean a lot of things, but it certainly doesn't mean someone with a round face is UGLY. Nor that their looks should matter to you at all.  But, I digress..

NEVER LOVE THE FIRST WOMEN. NEVER. HER FACE IS ROUND. SCARY!

Back to the wrinkles. The participants were given confused ideas about their REAL PRESENTATION, by implying that their their interpretation of themselves was invalid when some of them had some important features like deep wrinkles or marks that stood out and SHOULD BE HONORED, not labeled as this things that, "LOOK OTHER PEOPLE DIDN'T NOTICE"! Cuz, you know that stuff is totally "undesirable" (WRONG) but only you (the participant) see it (DON'T WORRY).  The video emphasizes that the features they are aware of and insecure of suck, rather than, this is ME, this is what I look like and it's great because it's ME. Instead, they emphasis, don't worry, no one saw! Oh, and ps. there's a little message about you being an obsessive woman in there, too, for caring so much in the first place. Bonus!

Again, why have we decided that this first woman is not beautiful?

Somewhere, I also wanted to mention that the person actually presenting the photos to the women and comforting them was also a man, reinforcing the idea that men should help comfort women about their image and that we can't get anywhere without masculine approval. I also want to make sure we step back and take a look at the larger issue of obsession with image, more closely. As said before, and by friends who responded to my original thoughts on facebook, this is just another way to focus on the worth of a person based on their looks, rather than their mind, experiences, struggles, strengths, goals, joys, or individuality. While it is trying to empower by saying YOU ARE LOVELY, in this hope that it boosts self esteem, it is still systematically working to beat you down by saying, that you are lovley because you didn't know how WRONG you were. You don't have to worry because you don't look like THAT girl you thought you did, poor her out there somewhere, but don't worry you're not her (age old comparison and hierarchy to other women). Also, you are lovely purely because of how much a random stranger interprets you closer to the imaginary ideal. 

Do you get it?? Your only worth is your looks, not your feelings about yourself, your personality, your wisdom or your fears, JUST your look, and even your personal interpretation of that means nothing! The message is is not to love your YOUNESS or your self image,  only love what other see of you, especially if they overlook the parts you feel insecure about. Isn't that ultimately the most insecurity building of all? Shouldn't we be building our inner and outer confidence based on what we have and see, not depending on others to lift us us and tell us we have no idea what we perceive at all?  A little bird told me that's where we get our outer beauty in the first place, *self love from the inside*. Not the bullshit idea of beauty, but the real, hard stuff. 

What drives me crazy is when a message meant for hope is somehow still secretly subverting that hope all together and reinforcing shame. My friend Rose says it best: 

"It's like how I feel when men give that oh-so-loaded-what-they-think-is-a-compliment, 'I really like when women wear less makeup' or 'I like women who don't really care what they look like.' It's like thanks for heaping centuries of patriarchal control on women and their bodies through constant policing, judging, and valuing of women's beauty and sexuality, and then criticizing/shaming them for wading through that control however they can, be that through internalizing the judgment (i.e. thinking you look uglier than you do), or abandoning the control-structure entirely (i.e. not looking pretty, thin or feminine enough to make it into the campaign)."

We are not just what others think of us. We are not just our image. AND OUR IMAGE IS AWESOME, WHATEVER IT IS, HOWEVER YOU SEE YOURSELF. ALL OF IT. YOU ARE AWESOME LOOKING, AND WE ARE ALL FUCKING UNIQUE.

When we wash ourselves out and try to all look the same we are BORING. Our various looks are our stories, our struggles. We are in a societally where we are made to constantly feel under pressure to care about how we look and if I want to paint my nails and wear makeup cool, if I don't, cool. When my stretch marks reach to the moon, they make me tiger striped, and tell tales of my bodies history. I am no ones to police and decide my image, my size, my ability, or my struggle. We each have our own stories. Everything else is an age-old patriarchal fairytale about our place in the world (and not to mention, the kitchen).

What it comes down to is that this whole thing is a play on numbers. Dove believes it's doing good things. Society continues to believe in the need to be obsessed with the hegemonic ideals of beauty. This leaves plenty of people thinking this is ground breaking because the ideal in the first place is so broken. So, yes, it will sell lots of soap and there's hope that the dominant ideologies can shift so eventually there's something critiquing the original critique. But whether it will be Dove that is the pioneer of that forefront or not seems a bit more doubtful to me, since they will always be focused on the ideal of looking soft and unwrinkled, and smelling only like flowers, not stopping our societal obsession with being smooth, celulite-free, blemish-free, light, caucasian-looking, non-disabled, feminine, and perfectly fresh.  While you're at it they say to you, "why don't you do more with yourself and stop standing there just looking pretty". Well, I say fuck them.

The mold we've been given is conflicted and the messages compile up to make un-accomplishable dreams. "Stay small, don't be heard, but be the boss and succeed." We don't have to live in this broken narrative; it has served its purpose and now it's time to follow a different path. Stand up, babes (I say with love TO ALL, to reclaim that word, because you and your soul and body in every form is babely), stand up. You are more that your looks, but that doesn't mean your looks aren't amazing in all their forms, your wrinkles, your soft spots, your fat, frizz, pimples, dry skin, dark skin, light skin, physical, invisibile and cognitive disabilities, skinny arms, varied gender presentation, purple lipstick, BO, crooked teeth, how you look between your legs and everything else I'm forgetting because the list is endless.  You're hot. Those things, are hot. They are a part of you and not all of you. I care about your story with them. You're a somebody, even if you've got absolutely nothing to show. If you have a kind heart, a compassate ear, a desire for thoughts and opinions of your own, I want to know you. Rock it out, babe. Rock it out.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo
Ella

UPDATE:
I've been having a lot of conversation since yesterday about this topic and the question has come up about those that this campaign has impacted positively. I think there is still value in working with people who are in recovery from self harm and body shame to emphasizing that the body dysmorphic views of themselves they perceive are not actually something others are obsessing about as well. My personal perspective comes from years of eating disorder recovery, and I am aware that the beginnings can be very different in focus. I would hate to make anyone feel as though this message is not one of reclaiming self esteem and worth.  What I think is important, as a family member pointed out from her work with ED patients is to emphasis conversation, either externally or internally, about perception. What does it mean to have internal perception, another persons perception, and what is true perception, etc. Also, to shift the conversation to one that discusses what it would look like to accept your whole image rather than just pieces. That right there is a long journey, but is the one closest to my heart, and what brought up so much emotionality in response to the original Dove piece.

I'm really excited about all the readership this has received and all the conversations it seems to have opened!! Always glad when people get talking.  Keep it going! xoxo


For other people talking about the issue:

1. Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry
2. Beauty Above All Else: The Problem With Dove’s New Viral Ad
3. Eat shit, Dove. I'm as hot as I think I am.
4. Dove body wash ad stirs controversy
5. Dove Does Not Give a Shit About Whether or Not You Feel Beautiful