Happy 2015! The laziest blogger welcomes you into the new year!
Disclaimer- I've spent most of the past month sitting at my desk watching much 30 Rock and giving up many a sudoku. My contact with the outside world has been sealed at the bare minimum to guarantee utmost freshness.
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| I've discovered I'm not very good at Sudoku. |
So what's up with airplane bathrooms, anyway? Just kidding. Here's what I'm trying to say: The world needs more ugly! People are always telling you to put your best foot forward, but why can't you show off your real, un-pedicured feet? And when I say ugly, I don't necessarily mean this:
But maybe more like this:
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| My signature look. Why am I not on a magazine cover yet? |
Ugliness makes you a multi-dimensional person. When you have a beautiful child, people will always mention it. "He's so handsome."She looks so lovely in that little dress." But when you have an ugly child, people have two options: 1) awkwardly shuffle away, or 2) come up with a real compliment.
When people are pretty, it's very easy to label them as such, making it a huge part of their identity. But beauty should have very little to do with who you are. Beauty isn't something you control. To quote our favorite half-human/half motorcycle, you were born that way. Your parents' genetics spontaneously combusted in a good way (or do things only spontaneously combust in space?).
If you want to be nice to ugly people, you need to dig a little deeper and see them for who they really are. And when you dig deeper, you'll probably find that ugly people are beautiful, but not in the way you expected. Ugliness forces us to focus on what really matters- virtuous attributes, hard work, breakdancing skills.
If you want to be nice to ugly people, you need to dig a little deeper and see them for who they really are. And when you dig deeper, you'll probably find that ugly people are beautiful, but not in the way you expected. Ugliness forces us to focus on what really matters- virtuous attributes, hard work, breakdancing skills.
Embracing ugly helps us reduce the need to sexualize everything. I've never really understood the purpose of sex symbols- glorifying people just because they're ridiculously good-looking.
Sexualization is especially prominent in pop music. Mainstream radio artists may be talented, but it seems we're more concerned with their shapely legs or crystalized abs (see exhibits A and B).
With a good voice, you might have a shot at a successful music career. Sex appeal, on the other hand, you will get on the next flight to mindless consumerist music. Every American's dream.
But hot bodies don't guarantee good music (thoroughly consider exhibits A and B). We need more people like Ed Sheeran*- not a 10, but wholly passionate about his art (art?).
When we make beauty a trivial part of the music, we focus on what really is beautiful: the music. This applies not only to music but everything in life.
With a good voice, you might have a shot at a successful music career. Sex appeal, on the other hand, you will get on the next flight to mindless consumerist music. Every American's dream.
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| Exhibit A |
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| Exhibit B |
But hot bodies don't guarantee good music (thoroughly consider exhibits A and B). We need more people like Ed Sheeran*- not a 10, but wholly passionate about his art (art?).
When we make beauty a trivial part of the music, we focus on what really is beautiful: the music. This applies not only to music but everything in life.
*I am not endorsing Ed Sheeran, but merely using him as example to connect with my pop-nurtured audience.**
Ugly is fo' real. You know how people say, "You know God has a sense of humor-just look at us." We're supposed to be funny-looking with weird noses, starfish hands, and awkward hairlines. Our flaws make us unique. Have you heard the saying, "you know God is a plastic surgeon because we all have perfectly sculpted faces and figures?" No, because that's not a thing. Inject that into your cheekbones!
This is when Nicki Minaj was going to rap, but she had some appointment with a Mr. Botulinum Toxin. In her place, I booked Tina Fey. In her fabulous book Bossypants, Tina Fey talks about how she loves her weird-looking cast of 30 Rock:
We can't all be Beyonce! If we were all Beyonce, then there would be no Beyonce. And I need a song that tells me to put things to the left! (As well as a song the properly defines diva.) But we CAN all be our ugly selves, which is cooler. Which is REAL.
Ugly is fo' real. You know how people say, "You know God has a sense of humor-just look at us." We're supposed to be funny-looking with weird noses, starfish hands, and awkward hairlines. Our flaws make us unique. Have you heard the saying, "you know God is a plastic surgeon because we all have perfectly sculpted faces and figures?" No, because that's not a thing. Inject that into your cheekbones!
"I personally like a cast with a lot of different-shaped faces and weird little bodies and a diverse array of weak chins, because it helps me to tell the characters apart. When actors are too good-looking, I can't memorize them...for years the networks have tried to re-create the success of Friends by making pilot after pilot about beautiful twenty-somethings...this template never works, because executives refuse to realize that Friends was the exception, not the rule."
Caring about how you look or wanting to be attractive isn't a bad thing. I rock a plum lipstick and a secondhand 80s floral blazer. But we need to STAWP obsessing about how we look. I exhort you to own your ugly because no one is ugly the way you are ugly.
I don't think I can end by telling you're ugly. You're not ready for that. Redemption round: Let's focus on who we are and who we become. Physical beauty isn't the only thing that matters. In fact, it hardly matters!
Embracing our effortless ugliness will help us unleash our true easy, breezy, beautiful.*
* Insert proper citation to avoid copyright infringement if my blog gets famous.
Too much New Girl, not enough Tina Fey. CAN'T WAIT TIL YOU VISIT, SISTAH!
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