Pictures Suck

I am awesome. I totally get that. As user karakamos on Youtube expressed it here:

I'm a human being, and that's really, really cool. I breathe, and that's just the beginning of my awesomeness. At the moment eight of my fingernails are "deep purple," and both my ability to make that decision and carry it out are pretty amazing. I listed my awesome sometime last year, if you want the whole rundown. But I'm usually only aware of my overwhelming privilege, the unbelievable generosity of God, and the overall spiffiness that is me.

Sometimes, though, this horrible thing happens. Somebody points a camera at me and pulls the trigger. 

Between my genes and my lifestyle choice, I'll never be any kind of supermodel. I have a striking face, and perfect eyebrows, and a left elbow that people come miles to see, but a camera won't pick up any of that. Or my talent, or humor, or depth, or personality, should I also possess any of those. The camera's a shallow bastard.

It forces me to see myself in the company of the more beautiful, more conventional, skinnier, younger, and it's always a heartbreaking contrast. You know how in every family photo there's always one who looks mentally handicapped? That's me, for the last twelve years at least. I'm not, as far as I know, actually handicapped, and if I were, it's some helluva privilege that overpowers it to get me where I am today (in a PhD program at a respected University).

I'm the great, white whale any Ahab would be proud to hunt, but no man would ask on a date. I'm the warthog, underneath. And this is what a camera does to me. If you're feeling vindictive, say this is what I allow the camera to do to me. It's my fault that the camera can't show the world my determination, or my self-care. Because you can always judge a person by how they look.

You see, before I face that flash firing squad, I am confident. I talk about my convictions, my passions, my hobbies. I have a whole, rich, internal life that overwhelms my attention. I meditate, read, develop friendships, give what I have to those in need, and enlarge my talents. I'm awesome. I go on hikes, and try new food, and teach freshmen about complete sentences. I'm a superhero, and a superstar, but not a supermodel. Because I'm fat.

And you point a camera at me, and that's all I can see. All of my abilities, opportunities, and blessings in this cottage-cheese marshmallow of a fat, pale, middle-aged woman. None of the important things matter when somebody with a camera reminds me how I look.

When I was a teenager and still thin, I thought I had an ugly face. I felt sorry for the world that I could not make it more beautiful, and that people would be forced to see me. I was such a bitch. It never occurred to me that I didn't resent other ugly people for their faces, because I knew they had other, more important value. But I couldn't make that instinct apply to myself. Teenagers are unbelievably self-centered.

Uh. Wait. What about other fat people? What about the ugly person in everybody's family photo? Jeez. I'm such a bitch. Cameras turn me into a gibbering idiot.

We are more than volume and wavelengths of reflected light. If I can love people underneath their looks, in all their individual beauties, I can reasonably expect the awesome people around me to do the same thing. They can look at a photograph of me, and remember the sound of my laugh.

 

The camera is a shallow bastard, but a photograph is a key to memory. And for all those people who see my photograph as a reason to avoid making those memories, I say this: you are not awesome, but you have done me a great service in staying away. Carry on.