Omg omg omg! How i love every word here, tho the education is terrifying! Love " ugliness" as resistance tho id rather see it as being human as resistance! We dont all age alike or look alike at any age and i am never frightened more than when i see a face that diesnt move or looks artifical because it is!!! Bless you for encouraging us to embrace the life of the human face and bodies that are equally unique and remind us of gratitude fir being able to mive in them!
I'm assuming Tressie McMillan Cottom is referencing the really thoughtful/challenging definitions of "beautiful" and "ugly" she uses in her book Thick, which I definitely recommend reading! Her definitions aren't about subjective judgment but about "naming what's been done to you" by beauty culture
I'd much rather look at people who have lines but real faces over the people who have given themselves mannequin face. They feel 'uncanny valley' to me because they don't look like real people.
Thank you for reminding me why I should leave social media (just wrote a whole essay about that). I haven't been online much and realized how much better I feel without all this beauty policing bullshit. My eyes are saggy, and I like them that way! I like squinty eyes!! Lol. But I am gonna check out Tressie's reading list.
Another absolute gem here Jessica! Flush world - bah ha ha ha!! Though the David's link was gross and a reminder that it's OK to eat real food. And I feel like it's going to take a series of swift bum-kicks for girls/women to stop using tanning beds and just lying out in the sun for hours. Australian here and melanoma is real and not just something that happens to Southern Hemisphere dwellers.
"One person’s facial friction is another person’s visual friction. One begets the other, and more of the latter permits more of the former. All of it contributes to the collective “tolerance” for — and enjoyment of — our ordinary human faces."
Thanks for showing/reminding us how easy it could all be Jess!
WRT the "thutt" - Is that a real term? It sounds like something a plastic surgeon made up in order to sell more procedures. In any case, I've always had that, so I don't know why he's saying that it's an old-age thing. I'm not planning to do anything about it, though. At 58, why bother?
It's hilarious that the beauty industry is trying to sell mortality to sell more products, because it's trying to convince everyone that, if you buy their products, you'll somehow be immortal. Related, why does cleaning out your makeup drawer have to be labeled "death cleaning"? Yes, I know it's a play on the Swedish death cleaning concept, but it's dumb to apply it to your makeup drawer. If you did die without cleaning it out, it's not like it's hard for someone to just take a garbage bag and throw all of it away. I had to do that for my mom. Believe me, the time it took to clean out her beauty products was about .01% of the time it took to deal with the rest of her house.
Thank you for the brilliant roundup, as always! It's an honor to be recommended alongside such salient and disturbing reading. I think Lady Oglitta is onto something, The Corinthian is truly the sex symbol we deserve. Bryan Johnson was floating around as a possible next newsletter subject, and unfortunately I think this sealed the deal for me...Interesting to see such a gender divide between products aimed at women trying to make death sexy (again), while men are doing everything they can to defeat it.
Omg omg omg! How i love every word here, tho the education is terrifying! Love " ugliness" as resistance tho id rather see it as being human as resistance! We dont all age alike or look alike at any age and i am never frightened more than when i see a face that diesnt move or looks artifical because it is!!! Bless you for encouraging us to embrace the life of the human face and bodies that are equally unique and remind us of gratitude fir being able to mive in them!
I'm assuming Tressie McMillan Cottom is referencing the really thoughtful/challenging definitions of "beautiful" and "ugly" she uses in her book Thick, which I definitely recommend reading! Her definitions aren't about subjective judgment but about "naming what's been done to you" by beauty culture
I'd much rather look at people who have lines but real faces over the people who have given themselves mannequin face. They feel 'uncanny valley' to me because they don't look like real people.
Thank you for reminding me why I should leave social media (just wrote a whole essay about that). I haven't been online much and realized how much better I feel without all this beauty policing bullshit. My eyes are saggy, and I like them that way! I like squinty eyes!! Lol. But I am gonna check out Tressie's reading list.
yesss you'll love all these books!
Another absolute gem here Jessica! Flush world - bah ha ha ha!! Though the David's link was gross and a reminder that it's OK to eat real food. And I feel like it's going to take a series of swift bum-kicks for girls/women to stop using tanning beds and just lying out in the sun for hours. Australian here and melanoma is real and not just something that happens to Southern Hemisphere dwellers.
"One person’s facial friction is another person’s visual friction. One begets the other, and more of the latter permits more of the former. All of it contributes to the collective “tolerance” for — and enjoyment of — our ordinary human faces."
Thanks for showing/reminding us how easy it could all be Jess!
WRT the "thutt" - Is that a real term? It sounds like something a plastic surgeon made up in order to sell more procedures. In any case, I've always had that, so I don't know why he's saying that it's an old-age thing. I'm not planning to do anything about it, though. At 58, why bother?
It's hilarious that the beauty industry is trying to sell mortality to sell more products, because it's trying to convince everyone that, if you buy their products, you'll somehow be immortal. Related, why does cleaning out your makeup drawer have to be labeled "death cleaning"? Yes, I know it's a play on the Swedish death cleaning concept, but it's dumb to apply it to your makeup drawer. If you did die without cleaning it out, it's not like it's hard for someone to just take a garbage bag and throw all of it away. I had to do that for my mom. Believe me, the time it took to clean out her beauty products was about .01% of the time it took to deal with the rest of her house.
Also, RFK, Jr. is going to kill us all.
yeah, it's definitely something a plastic surgeon made up
Eyelid wig is nightmare fuel. The David bar review had me laughing my ass off
I stumbled upon "The Ugly Stepsister" - so glad I did. It's remarkable. Off to check out the interview.
soo good
Thank you for the brilliant roundup, as always! It's an honor to be recommended alongside such salient and disturbing reading. I think Lady Oglitta is onto something, The Corinthian is truly the sex symbol we deserve. Bryan Johnson was floating around as a possible next newsletter subject, and unfortunately I think this sealed the deal for me...Interesting to see such a gender divide between products aimed at women trying to make death sexy (again), while men are doing everything they can to defeat it.