FYI this started as an Australian thing months ago (too many links to count), and these pictures are basically exact copies from all that "Celebrity Bogans" stuff (bogan in Aussie is sort of like redneck, but not quite). Nice to know that internet users can dynamically mix the globalised world of celebrity can mix with the localised world of regional chauvinism!
Eugh sorry that last sentence is a mess. But yeah, my point was, it's not necessarily "Americans are FAT!"; or at least it certainly didn't start that way.
I have no idea in hell how this will come off but some time in my past something clicked in me and a whole lot of the 'average' women started looking good to me.
I'm not saying it was a Shallow Hal sort of thing because this happens before I get to know someone. All the sudden it just seemed like I was surrounded by a lot of attractive women and it was okay to enjoy that.
Weird.
I think attitude is part of it, probably mine, but I really don't know what changed.
And no, I don't go around gawking or leering or anything perverse. It is not even so much a sexual thing, although that seems to be part of it.
Mostly I don't question it, I simply enjoy it.
I love the Johnny Depp one. Also I love staring at people.
3: Yeah I was never really into the 'hot' girls anyway. I think because all of the supposedly-attractive girls at school were (like the supposedly-attractive boys) such profoundly awful people, my brain developed this reflex loop thing whereby, still, as soon as I see a classically 'hot' person I instantly assume they're going to be a complete arsehole. Also as long as you're not a body-fascist pretty much anyone can look gorgeous if they know how to dress.
I have the same reaction as HG--it's irritating as hell that the point of the pics is obviously "oh look how awful they look haw haw!!" but my reaction is sort of like wow, yeah, that's really awesome that those photoshops show you that yeah, "average" looking people can actually be totally adorable/sexy/attractive, if you just pull your head out of your ass.
pretty much anyone can look gorgeous if they know how to dress
Except Australians, of course, who are disgustingly fat.
Tom Cruise and Sharon Stone are brilliant.
some time in my past something clicked in me and a whole lot of the 'average' women started looking good to me.
Well, I sort of shocked myself when I realized that I was physically attracted to women of a "certain age". Mostly because I had also reached that age plateau. I think the shocking part was that while certainly admiring the nubile starlets presented for my viewing pleasure on a daily basis, I no longer thought it might be fun to date them. Which made me sad for the guys who did (Derbyshire).
b and 3:
"average" looking people can actually be totally adorable/sexy/attractive, if you just pull your head out of your ass.
That's it! I pulled my head out of my ass. Yeah. I've said it before but you really have a way with words.
Thanks!
The Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta-Jones one doesn't look so much like "what if they were midwestern" as "we dug up some photos of them from the '80s".
3: A genuine and weird phenomenon. I've found that in the past few years everyone around me has gotten much more attractive. Can't understand it, but there are worse problems to have.
I choose to believe that since I'm more at home with myself I no longer consider people attractive only when doing so will reinforce my neuroses. ("Attractive, but too attractive for me!" "Halfway attractive to the point where I might get somewhere!" "Attractive in such a way that I will sabotage my chances purely in order to convince myself that I'm useless and stupid!")
I assume that the twin purposes of the linked pictures are to remind us that working class people are ipso facto ugly and ridiculous and to reassure us that anyone above us on the social ladder is a prune-faced, stick-like twit (the Sharon Stone one, I believe).
I like the DMV, actually.
11. Be yourself, Tripp. Don't let B. tell you what to do!
TLL,
I no longer thought it might be fun to date them.
Exactly! I'll think "If I was with her I'd want to live a regular life with her, a regular life with a regular attractive woman and I already have that." I don't want the 'star' lifestyle.
I think, too, the fact that I have remained faithful removes any guilt so I am free to enjoy knowing attractive women guilt free. I know I don't cheat and it is not cheating and won't lead to cheating so there is no guilt. I've never been very good with guilty pleasures. They make me feel, um, guilty.
John,
You got it backwards. B sees me for who I am. I like that.
10, 13: I think I'm on (or near?) the same page. In the past few years, I've found myself looking at far more people thinking, "Hey! He/she is really cute!" And, no, it's not at all a function of being back "on the prowl" -- the vast majority of people whose cuteness strikes me are not even remotely people I would have a personal interest in beyond detached aesthetic admiration. I think Frowner's on to something in linking this to self-acceptance. Having come to realize that, "Hey! I'm actually much cuter than I thought I was!" works together quite nicely with "Hey! He/she is actually much cuter than I previously realized!"
Tom Cruise and Sharon Stone are brilliant.
That Tara Reid picture is frighteningly real. Almost too real.
The Coen Brothers discovered Tara Reid, and either they wrote the part for who she was, or she became the part they wrote for her. (The Big Lebowski, natch).
Di and others,
It is a hard thing to explain to others who haven't experienced it yet.
I agree that self acceptance is probably key. I think B's "pull your head out of your ass" can be paraphrased as "stop worrying so much about yourself" which is like saying "have more self acceptance."
The thing is that once you have it (self acceptance) you start to recognize the other people that have it too.
Self dissatisfaction is pretty unattractive.
Is it necessary to say that the young and conventionally pretty are awful human beings in order to appreciate the less-conventionally pretty?
(Hint: no, it isn't, and it's kind of obnoxious, really.)
B, don't sweat it. To begin with, you're not young.
#19. If you liked Tara Reid in The Big Lebowski, you'll love her as Ms. Smarty-Pants Scientist (she wears glasses!) in Alone In The Dark.
23/26 - that's not actually what I said, B. I suggested that this prejudice and my tastes were consequences of my school experience that for some reason I haven't been able to ditch. I didn't say this prejudice was legitimate. Anywhere. Cos I don't think it is. Observation != Legitimation.
RobDP, you were right as Heebie on that one. Don't back down! B was a beauty queen in her youth, and she still feels guilt about the things she's done.
Pretty people are in some respects like rich people - given to particular vices that are the result of their privileged status, but also capable of developing a generosity of spirit that can also come from privileged status. I suspect which path one goes down depends on basic humility - the understanding that you caught a lucky break, instead of being intrinsically superior to those less fortunate.
Fitzgerald was right. The rich and beautiful are not like you and me. Well, okay, not like me, anyway.
Also, it seems that a lot of pin-heads live in the midwest from these photos. Or else, celebrities would be pin-heads if they lived in the midwest.
The rich and beautiful are not like you and me. Well, okay, not like me, anyway.
I was going to say.
Come on, can we have an old style blowout between the sexes here? Somebody say something controversial and stick to it! I'll start: attractive people are more attractive than unattractive people, and therefore I am more attracted to them and more likely to think it would be nice to have sex with them! Take that!
while certainly admiring the nubile starlets presented for my viewing pleasure on a daily basis, I no longer thought it might be fun to date them.
Yeah, the thought of dating a woman under 25 just makes me feel tired and irritated now. I'd be heaving a lot of heavy sighs and saying "when I was your age..." a whole lot. Not sexy for either party. On the other hand, they're still real cute.
Bizarrely, I find I am more likely to be attracted to (and desire to have sex with) people whom I would describe as unattractive under conventional standards. Literally, the last time I can remember being genuinely attracted to a conventionally attractive guy is well over a decade ago.
Pretty people should be hunted for sport.
34: Di, a woman I was dating once told me that she wasn't attracted to conventionally good-looking men. So I speak from experience when I tell you, for future reference just in case it comes up, it's probably best not to mention that to someone you're dating.
unattractive under conventional standards
Di, the preferred locution is "not conventionally attractive."
No, it is not a euphemism, dammit!
I'll start: attractive people are more attractive than unattractive people, and therefore I am more attracted to them and more likely to think it would be nice to have sex with them! Take that!
The problem is, is that over the last decade, the 'attractive people' on TV often look like they should have that new car smell. Whereas people who formerly would've been considered conventionally attractive are now magically unattractive, which screws the people who would've been considered conventially unattractive.
At any rate, I am amused by the idea that the photoshopping in Heebie's link confirms that the Midwest is the 'asscrack of the world'. Someone is due for a very unpleasant awakening.
max
['Bell, tolling.']
Minor edit:
it's probably best not to mention that to someone you're planning to continue dating.
In other circumstances, it can be somewhat satisfying.
34: maybe some insecurity there.
36: I was talking with a (friendly) ex once and she told me this really gorgeous guy was hitting on her. She said it was kind of weird because she'd never been hit on by really tall, handsome guys before. I was like, "what the fuck was I?", and she said, guiltily, "oh, I mean conventionally handsome".
Doesn't really bug me, though, looks do matter for guys but not so much that you can't make up for them in other ways. (Height actually seems to matter as much or more than other dimensions of looks). Not that the other ways aren't just as tricky, but it's easier to kid yourself that you have them.
This adds nothing to the mix here but in HS I dated a beauty queen before she got her title. For the most part getting the title is what led to our breakup.
I thought she was pretty and I really liked her singing and acting.
Years later at our like 30th HS reunion I saw her and she was on her third husband and she worked delivering mail. She was less attractive to me then than she was in HS, but she could still sing well, and I think her singing is what made her attractive to me the first time.
But it is hard to tell.
All the women I dated before BR were ugly hags who dated not-conventionally handsome men. Now that BR and I are monogamous, we only date beautiful people.
41(1): Oh, of course, it's a given that I am a massive bundle of insecurities. But I don't think I'm any more insecure now than back when I was attracted to conventional hotties, so I'm not sure that's it.
I actually am pretty beauty-oriented in my relationships. It does have a lot of power for me. It took me some time to learn that. It doesn't have to be conventional beauty, of course, but it's usually the kind that others would recognize as being attractive.
It's sort of an unfortunate handicap, it cuts down your field considerably.
I think Willard Metcalf and Theodore Robinson and Julian Onderdonk were better than any of those French guys. I mean, whatthediff, 60-70 oils of bluebonnets at sunset versus haystacks and cathedrals and waterlilies. The cathedrals and haystacks were all blurry anyway, the colors not as bright...just not pretty ya know?
This preference for Onderdonk over Monet not shows my good taste, but demonstrates my moral superiority to the effete snobs who claim objective standards.
David Foster Who?
41.1 is reductive. It's hard, as apo suggests, to make it clear that one enjoys dating someone who is perhaps not tall, not magazine-gorgeous, not thin, etc., without being insulting, but it corresponds with a very common sexual taste. It's not that I prefer dating regular-type guys because I fear someone "stealing" them or whatever, but because when I have dated magazine-gorgeous dudes, I often feel I'm failing to appreciate them in some key way they're used to being appreciated. They're obviously initially attracted to someone who talks about them as intelligent or kind or good in bed, or whatever, but there comes the day when they seem to really want someone to stare at them from the other side of the room and say, "Holy fucking shit, you're beautiful." They're used to that kind of language, and I'm not the right person to give them that.
looks do matter for guys but not so much that you can't make up for them in other ways. (Height actually seems to matter as much or more than other dimensions of looks
So true. The only guy I've ever dated who was shorter than me was otherwise devastatingly handsome. (Also, an alcoholic with a possible criminal record, so it's not like my needs for being with someone totally unsuitable went unmet.)
I find I am more likely to be attracted to (and desire to have sex with) people whom I would describe as unattractive under conventional standards.
Well, I am too, but I'm a masochist.
Everybody is beautiful, in their own way, like a starry summer night or a snow-colored winter's day.
Didn't comment on the comtempt thread, probably should have stayed off this one, sorry.
If you don't think Elizabeth Tayler ca 1950 or Halle Berry or Aishwarya Rai, or their male equivalents, are different, special, better...ahh, whatever.
The one time I visited the art museum in Boston, I was surprised at how good John Singer Sargent was. He had never been on my radar before.
bob is Tommy Flanagan (Jon Lovitz)?
Everybody is beautiful, in their own way,
I dunno about that. I think everybody could be beautiful. Lack of self acceptance is not beautiful. Bitterness is not beautiful. I think those are the biggies for me but I haven't thought about it a lot.
This preference for Onderdonk over Monet not shows my good taste, but demonstrates my moral superiority to the effete snobs who claim objective standards.
McManus's kinship with George W. Bush?
51:Could gotten a late Italian watercolor for 10-15k thirty years ago.
Took a long time for the Monet series to be understood and appreciated. They were wrong.
Standards can vary. A very good Alma-Tadema was hung next to a museum bathroom. It's neat to examine how and why tastes change.
But ain't ever been anyone who thought the Botticelli Venus was ordinary.
but there comes the day when they seem to really want someone to stare at them from the other side of the room and say, "Holy fucking shit, you're beautiful." They're used to that kind of language, and I'm not the right person to give them that.
There are also alot of bizarre and mysterious factors that go into that sort of reaction. I can still remember a particular morning at the breakfast table, long, long ago, looking at UNG and thinking, "Wow, he really is attractive!" I remember it in large part because it took me by surprise. Was it the three piece suit signaling "provider" to me? Confidence he was radiating because he'd just gotten laid? A fuzzy hormonal response because I'd just gotten laid? Did he slip a hallucinogen in my coffee? I suspect if I could have continued to look at him like that, we might have lived happily ever after. Attraction is a tricky, tricky thing.
53:Shoulda had irony tags on 46?
Downloaded a ton of Rembrand drawings last month. Beggars and 50-70 year olds, many nude. Yeah, yeah, beautiful cause of Rembrand, a beauty in themselves than Rembrandt captured.
But the qualities of youth, health, vitality, charisma that aesthetically elevate Elisha Cuthbert, or Obama over McCain, have existed for millenia, and I don't think are simply reducible to sexism, ageism, biology.
But I really don't want this argument. Boring & ugly, like me.
Di,
I know a few of the factors. Don't worry though, I only use my powers for good. What do you think it was - the three things you said, or something else?
Did he slip a hallucinogen in my coffee?
This one has my vote.
I suspect if I could have continued to look at him like that, we might have lived happily ever after.
Iris Murdoch, ladies and gentlemen.
60: Once again, W-lfs-n forces me to (a) resort to google, and (b) acknowledge that I am really not well-read enough to hang around these parts as much as I do...
Oh, hell back again.
Because as I was driving home from the dog walk, there he was walking shirtless on the sidewalk. Black dude, tall & slim and not a body-builder, with a perfect sixpack. So niiiice.
Now I'm gone to the crash.
Will doesn't believe in love. Bad for business.
Marriage scares me, which is why I'm not married. You can look at someone and be enraptured, and then ten years later be referring to them as "ugly naked guy". More to the point, someone can look at *me* and be enraptured, and then ten years later...
It doesn't seem like this could be defended against even by being really nice to your partner. But if and when I get married, I do plan to be really nice, because I've just given someone the power to rip all my guts out and give all my life savings to Will.
Di - W-lfs-n got me too, but some of the books do look interesting. Please stay. Most of us are not all that. (I think) We each have strengths, and they can lead us to good books and such.
61: Di, I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I've read 2 novels by Iris Murdoch, and I have no idea what Ben is referring to either.
64: Oh, recognizing that I don't truly belong here amongst you intellectual giants was hardly meant to imply that you'll ever get me to leave!
PGD,
Don't confuse marriage with intimacy. Marriage is not necessarily intimacy. They are separate things.
65: I'm assuming he must be drawing a comparison to this line from her Wikipedia entry:
she "thrived on acts of betrayal", was cruel, and was "prepared to go to bed with almost anyone"
66: Good, cause I like you here. Don't tell the others or they'll get jealous.
Iris Murdoch, ladies and gentlemen.
Di is a severed head?
I'm assuming....
W-lfs-n is rarely mean, so you're probably making an inaccurate assumption. I'd explain your mistake, but--as is often the case--I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about, either. My solution is to remember that he looks like a grown up version of the kid brother ("Heed") in So I Married an Axe Murderer.
SCMTim, I was kidding about the assumption. Also kidding about the deeply offended part. Totally serious about having no clue what the comparison to Iris Murdoch means.
Murdoch made much of the connection between love and perception. I believe this is expounded in Alice Crary's Beyond Moral Judgment (I haven't read much Murdoch myself), and, if you believe Elijah Millgram, got completely wrong in Velleman's "Love as a Moral Emotion", but I don't have the Crary to check anymore. Libraries, you know.
I love the Pam Anderson photo -- that's just what a middle aged woman with terrible taste and a dazzling smile looks like. And the J.Lo one is adorable!
But yeah, the Britney one is mean. Leave Britney alone, etcetera.
I've mostly just read Murdoch's fiction, but I believe her notion of the relationship between love and perception was not that love is predicated on perception, but (1) that love is was comprised of a particular kind of perception, and (2) that moral uprightness and ethical behavior are predicated on perceiving them with loving attention.
"He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight on his huge pillow" is one of the high points of recent cinematic history.
(2) is of course not contrary to the proposition that Ben's allusion was apropos.
Okay, I am not afraid to admit my ignorance. RFTS, could you possibly dumb 76 down a little?
How about this then:
...empathetic pets, curiously "knowing" children and sometimes a powerful and almost demonic male "enchanter" who imposes his will on the other characters...
74,76:The movie made much of this, I think, as a theme. Umm, if I open anoher window,I'll crash. Jim Broadbent, I think.
Iris ...yeah, Broadbent & Dench.
Well, perception and love complicated by Alzheimers. Focusing on the tragic loss doesn't completely capture why Broadbent got an Oscar. Was Iris still there for him?
Okay, I am not afraid to admit my ignorance. RFTS, could you possibly dumb 76 down a little?
Sure! (But you have to realize that I'm coming from a position of ignorance here, too, leavened by only a tiny amount of knowledge.)
So, one way that you might claim that there was an important relationship between love and perception would be to say that love depends on seeing someone, or being able to see someone, in a certain way. This would be to say that a certain kind of perceiving was a precondition for love, or that love is caused by, or grows out of, seeing someone in a certain way.
I believe, but don't know for sure, that Murdoch primarily argued for two other propositions about the relationship between love and perception. One proposition is that what we describe as "love" is actually to perceive a person in a certain way. (I would actually describe this as conceiving of the person in a certain way, but the line between perception and conception is pretty slippery.) What it means to love someone is to be able to truly see them as themselves, and separate from you, and some other stuff that I don't know because I haven't read her extensively on the subject.
The other proposition is that moral behavior is predicated on "loving attention": seeing other people as real individuals, and seeing them compassionately.
My solution is to remember that he looks like a grown up version of the kid brother ("Heed") in So I Married an Axe Murderer.
...Haulin' that gargantuan cranium about...
Or, okay.
Someone might ask the question, "What do you have to do in order to be able to love someone?" and answer it, "First, you have to see him as attractive (or endearing, or lovable, or as a real individual). If you don't do that, you won't ever love him."
Or, you might ask the question, "What does it mean to say that I love someone?" and answer, "Ah, loving someone is to see them in a certain way: with compassion, as an individual (or whatever). It is only to the extent that you see them that way that you can actually be said to love them."
Or, you might ask the question, "What do you have to do in order to be a moral (or morally upright) person?" and answer, "First of all, you must consider other people with loving attention."
That thing's got its own weather system!
Actually, W-lfs-n is a dead ringer for Mighty Mouse, at least in some of the recent videos I've seen.
Someone leaked my videos?!
JM, I uploaded some tabla music for you.
And I really hope you mean Danger Mouse.
Danger Mouse
Modest Moose
One of those guys, forget which.
And I really hope you mean Danger Mouse.
Or maybe Penfold?
re: 93
There is the pedantry. No little round specs, though.
I want glasses like JJ Hunsecker wears in The Sweet Smell of Success.
Yeah, Ben does sort of look like Danger Mouse. His beats are not as sick, however, and his collaborations with most rappers have been criticized for their exceedingly long song lengths and unusual-for-unusual's-sake meters.
He is a damn sight better at punctuating, though.
If I could meet Danger Mouse, I'd tell him that Chopin's Prelude in C minor would make an awesome gansta rap hook. I've been obsessed with this for over a week now.
his collaborations with most rappers have been criticized for their exceedingly long song lengths and unusual-for-unusual's-sake meters.
Only by short-sighted critics. It was on the strength of those collaborations that Meredith Monk selected me to be the producer for her upcoming foray into rap.
I really think Iris Murdoch's Under the Net should be on everyone's required reading list. Jake Donoghue is one of the best realized rogues in English literature. One of my favorite lines of his from the book:
I felt an impulse to make her, even at this late stage, some sort of rash proposal. .... I took a deep breath, however, and followed my rule of never speaking frankly to women in moments of emotion. No good ever comes of this.
Kobe requires a reading list of Kobe.
JP, that line is hysterical. I went through a period of devouring a fair amount of Murdoch in short order, to the extent that I can't remember now which, but don't think I read that one.
101: Glad you agree. Although I suspect I would view it a bit differently if it was from, say, a Mailer book.
The way Murdoch nails it reminds me of Proulx's great handling of the boat destruction at the going away party run amok in The Shipping News. Boisterous drunken male good-natured resentment never imagined nor handled so deftly.
Newfoundland is Canada's Alaska. Only different.
ben, I love you for that. I love sweet smell of success!! get the glasses.