Man, I want dreadlocks. Probably not flattering on middle-aged white yuppie farmers though. Bummer.

Probably not flattering on middle-aged white yuppie farmers though. Bummer.

Around here, that's the only sort of person who has them, I think they look nice. Thanks for passing on the good juju lfr!

If everybody's beautiful, then nobody is.

Not true, jonmc. There's lotsa different ways to be beautiful.

BOP, It's like the Lake Wobegone effect, "where all the children are above average..." If it can be applied to everyone, the term loses all meaning.

your welcome jessamyn!

jon, why does EVERYTHING have to be about you? seriously dude, give it a rest.

lfr: I'm just stating a disagreement.

no. no, you're coming into a thread that I specifically posted to attempt to cheer up a lot of folks on this site who've been down lately, and you dumped a huge steaming pile right in the middle of it. if this isn't about your continual need to be contrary then what is it?

mods, feel free to delete whatever but I'm fucking sick of this shit. jon that was completely beyond the pale.

No, I getcha, jonmc. I'm pickin' up what you're layin' down.

But it seems that the point of the picture is not to say "everyone is beautiful like a supermodel in lingerie serving me breakfast in bed is beautiful" but that we should, perhaps, broaden our definition of what beauty is. And that's not to say that we should water it down -- it's to say that the social construct of "beauty" as it stands is just that: a construct, and not a fixed category.

You're beautiful, man.

*passes doobie*

jon that was completely beyond the pale.

But I'm 'beautiful....'

But I'm 'beautiful....'

nah, this is more your speed.

You are beaaaaaaautiful in eveeeeery siiiiiingle waaaaaaaaay, wooooooords caaaan't briiing yooou dooooooooownnnnn

/sometimes I like to pretend I'm Christina Aguilera

lfr: you went from 'everyone is beautiful' to tearing my face off in about two comments. If that dosen't expose the idea as a platitude, then what does?

jesus dude you're just like all those fundy christian douchebags who just have to continually ramble on about how great their spiritual enlightenment is. there is absolutely no difference, it's just your holy trinity is slackerhood, metal and cheap beer.

but see, your constant pathetic need to be the centre of attention doesn't really prove or expose anything except to Constantly. Beat. Your. Cold. Dead. Horse. Of. Failure. seriously, WE ALL GET IT, you're a loser who always has to get the last word in. And hey, certainly trash is beautiful, too, which is why I shoot alleys and rusty bridges and junk cars as well as flowers and trees and birds and so on.

but yeah, what BOP said was basically my point.

It's like the Lake Wobegone effect, "where all the children are above average..." If it can be applied to everyone, the term loses all meaning.

Which is exactly what the folks who won't let me get married to my husband say. "If anybody can define what makes a family, it loses its meaning."

It's bullshit in both cases.

Every man and every woman is a star, and all that. BOP said it:

There's lotsa different ways to be beautiful.

Saying that we all have the same AMOUNT of value in a certain respect, isn't the same as saying we're all the same.

Uh, I'm just popping in to encourage stet to grow dreadlocks.

If everyone is alive, then no one is.

If everyone is human, then no one is.

If everyone has equal rights, then no one does.

If everyone can communicate, then no one can.

If everyone has a mother, then no one does.

If everyone has a story, then no one does.

If everyone has a beating heart, then no one does.

If everyone is loved, then no one is.

If everyone should be safe from violence, then no one should.

If everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then no one does.

**
This isn't a zero-sum game and beauty is not a limited good. Logically, the idea that 'if everyone is beautiful then no one is' can't stand the test of reason - it sounds logical, but isn't. You may personally have a standard of beauty which excludes a lot of people, jonmc, but don't mistake your standards for other people's standards or think that by 'beautiful' you mean the same thing.

lft, thanks for the picture. It made a difference for me.

Nice picture. Also, that whole "if everyone is beautiful, then no-one is" thing is crap. Of course everyone can be beautiful (they're not, but that doesn't change the point) in the same way everyone can be human - that doesn't mean that nobody is human.

I think that the "you" being referred to in the picture is not the Time Magazine 2006 person of the year "you" but rather the "you" that is behind the keyboard, looking at a flickr post.

Because reality is subjective, we assign our own values for beauty and ugliness. When it comes to the beauty and the ugliness of the self, we rarely have control over such a thing beyond that which is superficial.

So the phrase "You are beautiful" in the flickr post is, in my opinion, not the re-assignment of the relative beauty of humanity writ large, it's a personal reassurance. The fact that this is written on someone's skin and not, say, on a billboard enforces the idea that this is an intimate kind of thing.

Time for another beer, this heineken tastes like water....

The flickr, she is broke.

The fact that this is written on someone's skin and not, say, on a billboard enforces the idea that this is an intimate kind of thing.

What he said.

Flickr still working for me, deborah...

It's working now, BP, thanks!

It's a good message and I find it easy to see the beauty in other people (faces or otherwise), but not in myself (that's not a come-on for everyone to say that I am). It doesn't matter what anyone else says/believes, I know I'm not beautiful.

Anyway, she has quite a few nice photos in her stream.

weeds only grow when we dislike them

I am trying to find the appropriate context for this little saying, because it needs to get more traction.

The person in this flikr set has decided she is not a weed, so good on her.

I'm not even tlking about physical beauty standards or anything like that. This all sounded to me like it was some kind of 'everyone is wonderful,' sort of deal, which is of course, nonsense. The world is full of people who act mean, violent, and petty. and that's not wonderful.

I was a little squicked out about being informed of my beauty by the breastacular of a woman I don't know and won't ever know.

Isn't that kind of a three-months-in thing to do? Provided that our relationship had progressed to where she could think to herself, "LT likes my boobies, LT is beautiful, but may not think so, so what I'm-a gonna do is write You Are Beautiful on my breastacular and just throw it up there on the Internet for LT so he knows and stuff."

I love the photo, especially for the reason hellojed mentions: The fact that this is written on someone's skin and not, say, on a billboard enforces the idea that this is an intimate kind of thing.

I think I understand what she means, and why she chose that form to convey it.

Jon, I think that before you dismiss it as an empty platitude, you should think about it a bit more. Even then, it may have no meaning for you, which is fine, but I can find a lot of meaning in the message and the medium. First of all, I'm older than most of you, and as someone here recently mentioned (I think it was jokeefe, and it might not have been here, it was probably at mefi), I look at the young girls so worried and insecure about their physicality and they are all gorgeous to me... I'm sorry that I didn't know I was beautiful then.

But as I become more and more separated (by age, in my case) from the need to fit into categories of beauty myself, the more people of all kinds are beautiful to me. Not in some I-want-to-hump-them way, or cold aesthetic/curator way, but... just... the beauty of life, I guess. There's an old lady and an old man, she has two teeth, and he's almost totally blind, and in the evenings they lean out their window to watch anyone or anything happening on the street. I usually pass by there with Sky for her evening walk, and we have little crazy conversations with my bad-bad-Greek, and their no-English-at-all, and they are always so happy to see us and smiling and laughing, and goddamnit, they are beautiful. I love them.

And I mustn't be accused of only being able to see their beauty because they are old and harmless... I'm captured by vignettes of beauty constantly, people engaged in the ordinary things people do, and even the outcasts and lost souls - often especially the outcasts and lost souls. And... I'm going to stop now, because then I have to go into a long, long explanation of why I say that, and I'm not up for that... but let me make a clumsy comparison to sort of explain.

To me, there's hardly such a thing as an ugly dog or cat, for example... even the ones that are demonstrably ugly (9 out of 10 people would agree, or whatever) are still kind of cute to me. Cross-eyed, mangy, old, yappy, whatever, I still sort of feel like hugging them. Why is that? Because to me they are innocents. Even horrible attack dogs that kill other animals and sometimes people are innocents... they've been abused or exploited to the point that they are unnatural and dangerous. I imagine having that very same dog since puppyhood, and what a different creature it would be now. And I often get that same feeling about people, if that makes any sense. I feel like I can often see... um... the puppy in them. The "innocent". Or something. Can't. Keep. Typing. Too. Stupid. To. Communicate. urrrgh.

I like the sentiment and the photo...thanks for sharing, lfr. But, damn, I don't see how what jon said "all about him" or why you so quickly likened him to a fundie douchebag for stating his opinion.

I think there are different meanings to the word beauty:
1. physical beauty from a standard judgemental mindset. Some people are somewhat attractive, some rather beautiful, some ugly etc. Opinions will largely agree on the appraisal.
2. the word 'beauty' as an expression of positive feeling towards a person. Some people can feel at times non-judgemental and 'inclusive' towards the world. Even people who are 'ugly' in the first sense have a beauty as being part of all humanity or all existence. I've felt like this at times.
3. 'beauty' as a sappy plastering over of the unwelcome truth that some people are ugly in the first sense.

I think that the flickr woman meant to express 2. and that jonmc experienced it as 3.

Thank you, lfr, for both the link and the call-out.

I like jouke's idea that "beauty" can, in a sense, transcend our immediate biological reaction to a person and allow us to connect on a level above sexual attraction.

dano, I just get very, very tired of those who constantly feel the need to piss on someone else's parade. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't so continual, and to me it feels like an insidious form of bullying. Like those kids whose dads beat them so they turn around and stomp on someone else's sand castle.

so, I am definitely sorry I let that push my buttons, I'm sorry for feeding the trolls, and I'm also sorry for going way over the top and saying shitty things in a thread that didn't need it.

peace

It's like the Lake Wobegone effect, "where all the children are above average..." If it can be applied to everyone, the term loses all meaning.

Everyone's good at something.

I was a little squicked out about being informed of my beauty by the breastacular of a woman I don't know and won't ever know.

That's how women are sexy, donchaknow. We show off our breasts. Would this picture had garnered such attention had the girl written her message on a piece of paper and held it in front of her fully clothed body? Doubtful. She has a "different" look but she's still delivering the message the same way we all claim to hate.

I dunno, TPS. She's not even that breastacular in the linked picture. There's not, as one Metachat denizen wrote, "a boob crack" showing. She wrote it on an expanse of her skin, because it is a personal message. If you look at the next photo in the series, it's clear that she doesn't just have "a different look" - she has a conventionally unattractive body. She has probably been called a fat lesbian, or a fuckin' punk, or whatever. Maybe the first step to internalized acceptance in externalized acceptance.

*shrug* that's just my take.

Oh, man... here's my chance to show a screen shot of a photo accompanying an article that totally ooked me out today:

≡ Click to see image ≡

This... was so weird. Where was anyone with an ounce of sense to say, "um..."?

But, I feel totally differently about the linked photo. I feel like that is sort of "taking back the power" or something, I guess.

I think the linked photo is wonderful. Writing on the skin asserts ownership of same. Addressing the gaze of the camera/audience - to me it asks the question - who is the you of this photo? Her? Me? A specific someone? Everyone? And the portrait is beautiful - the colors in particular. Another layer - it's almost National Geographical. She strikes me as a very smart young woman. It's perfectly fine to have the reaction "no I'm not" or "no she's not" - the great thing about it is it punches you in the gut and you react.

Thanks, lfr.

just... the beauty of life, I guess.

Beautifully said, and that's exactly how I see it. There is a kind of beauty that have nothing to do with physical attractiveness or prettiness. And it can be heartbreakingly beautiful. And it is the root of our basic sense of self-worth and of the value of other people.

I like the picture, but would never have even logged in if it hadn't a been for the jumping stink going on in here; we have as a given that my man jonmc is suspicious of anybody voicing specific, unknowable opinions about the general public's worthiness (and yes, I think "you're beautiful" means "you're worthwhile;" and yes, I think the general public is both beautiful and worthwhile, and no, I liked the photo and the post) but then as another given we're gonna have people who post supportive stuff and get mad at anything curmudgeonly or contrary; maybe it's a problem with format, where posters write things and declare (to themselves if to no one else) the post a no-boo zone, naysayers be damned to hell and fucked by devils for a day less than eternity (put that in your pipe and smoke it, my hellbound gimmick friend). It may seem like I'm just weighing in for the sake of the fight, but I totally see your point, lfr, that jonmc is a contrarian and that's annoying in a thread you want to be some measure of perfect, but with all the namecalling and hyperbole in your responses to him, your reaction just can't be taken seriously.

All that said, and I mean well, I think that defining the function of posts here is a worthwile aim: Who is the arbiter of what's appropriate? The poster? The admin? Anyone who cares? I think the answer is some of the above, to varying degrees for varying posts, but there's a real difficulty in categorizing these things, as there may be a consensus but nothing's hard and fast, and the internet isn't very democratic (in that majority doesn't really rule).

I've been made to feel like an asshole before, both for comments I've made and for my defense of jonmc. It sucks when it's actually your opinion someone disagrees with but they're bent on making it about more than just opinion, maybe all about you, let's have a referendum. I honestly see what you're saying, lfr, but your way of disagreeing with him is wack. I'm sure this all settles into armed camps, but honestly you can all have your civil war, I'm just gonna go fuck myself. I recommend it, you can all just go fuck yourselves too. To climax... and BEYOND!

Whatever, Hugh. jon can post whatever he'd like, you can defend his posts as you'd like, and I can think he's being mindlessly contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. Mindlessly contradicting uplifting posts is pointless noise at best, trollish at worst. It's like shouting "Freebird" at rock concerts.

Shouting 'Psycho Killer' is still cool.

omg, now that is on my Bucket List.

Not specifically in this situation, but I wonder if there is a possible code for giving people an "ignore" function for specific other users.

I know that I have wanted one, in the past.

Is this possible/desirable?

The ignore function works, but not always perfectly.

Why do people need technological solutions for problems they can solve in their own heads?

I'll get back to you with an answer, tps, as soon as I find my calculator.

Well, this didn't turn out to be so beautiful, after all ;-)

For what it's worth, I think lfr's reaction would have been extreme were it not for jonmc's continual popping into conversations everywhere just to stick a pin in people feeling good about something. I saw the reaction as not being to that one utterance, but to a whole string of the same over a period of time - straw, meet camel's back and all that. Taken in that context, I don't see the reaction as extreme, but it's easy to see how someone could see it that way if the wider picture is not taken into account.

Plus, you know, when you come here saying we can all go and fuck ourselves, you kind of dilute your message of tolerance.

Geeze, I saw he was worked up last night, but I didn't realize the hooplah. Now, he doesn't need my defense (I think he holds his own quite well, thank you), but it seems like there are a lot bigger things to think about in the world than worrying whether someone agrees with you that everyone's "beautiful" (was Hitler beautiful?). I know I'm "the wife" and all, and no doubt biased (I don't pretend otherwise), but why can't people just agree to disagree? Maybe deflect with a bit of humor and move on? Why take the occasion to attack so? That smacks more of bullying to me.

it's just your holy trinity is slackerhood, metal and cheap beer.

You don't know him very well. First of all, he's been working since he's 13 years old; second, he's just as likely to be singing the praises of an old blues song as he is metal (not to mention country, jazz, rap, you name it); and third, he loves his Guinness and microbrews, but, true enough, enjoys his Bud and Schlitz, too. If you're going to try and insult someone, at least know what you're talking about.

As for the photo, nice tits.

Sorry for the masturbation joke, dg, I thought it was obvious. I really hate myself.

I think jonmc spends a lot of time making his opinions clear, and I think a lot of people here spend time imputing intentions to him that probably aren't there. That, combined with the knee-jerk "jonmc is making another thread all about him" accusation, which is rarely true and in any case certainly untrue in this thread, encourages a group of people to create and destroy a bugbear that jonmc is not.

Everybody here has opinions, and most of those opinions are well thought out. All we have here is what we say, and calling it "mindless" is an insult. Whatever, indeed.

All we have here is what we say, and calling it "mindless" is an insult.

OK, does "thoughtless" work better for you? This is not intended as an insult. We all post thoughtlessly from time to time. None of us are mind-readers here, we all have to use our words to communicate our thoughts and feelings. I note that TPS, for example, was able to clearly and coherently disagree with the message in the link without raising anyone's ire.

Maybe jonmc thinks that he can effectively communicate with only a few words, but obviously many of us disagree. I like jonmc, I appreciate his contributions to some threads, where he is obviously able to effectively portray himself as not-an-asshole.

Sorry for the masturbation joke, dg, I thought it was obvious.
Ah, now I get it. I've never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed and here's some more proof.

Having just (literally - 5 minutes ago) been given the outcomes of our recent 360^o feedback process at work, it appears that I'm something of an insensitive arsehole myself, so who am I to judge you anyway?

Oh dg! you ok? *whuffles*

Yeah, muddgirl; thoughtless is way better. I think there's a big difference, and that it matters.

I don't think I'm a good communicator. Most of the time I find myself saying reasonable or even smart things and undercutting them in the very next sentence. It's all half a joke to me. My downfall. So I understand what you mean about not communicating clearly. The first words between jonmc and me were pretty fucking harsh, then we met and the rest is history.

A lot of words come out of jonmc's mouth. A lot are put in his mouth. There's baggage all over, but for a lot of jonmc's accusers, it seems like vampire baggage; it doesn't reflect in mirrors. It's only partly jonmc doing this to everybody. The other half is people choosing time after time to turn his monologue into a dialogue. Quite often people make threads become all about jonmc by accusing him of making threads all about himself.

Just like what happened in this one.

I think bringing TPS into this kind of sucks. I mean, I agree, she's awesome and her second comment in this thread is clear and pointed, but even if you were wrong I'd be a total asshole to go parsing her comments or comparing her overall contribution with jonmc's (since it's really the overall perception that's at issue here). She's actually a great counterexample overall -- it's interesting to analyze similarities in their online behavior and the very different way their comments are received -- but I'm ashamed of myself for even thinking about it. I think they're both awesome and fun to be around.

Shit, I come here because it's fun and every time, every fucking time, it isn't long before I go and start some shit, or more likely read though a whole thread and get so beat up over the injustice that I make other people into monsters and myself into a bigger asshole than in my wildest dreams. I'm turning into a fucking Ramones song. At least it's Thanksgiving and my mom's downstairs waiting to give me a big hug.

Crap, dg, I'm sorry to hear you've just been through the wringer. You're not the asshole. Big hugs, and one from my mom too.

Relax, everybody, really. I was just in a crabby mood because we're entering the Dark Days Of Retail, so the whole 'life is beautiful' thing just rubbed me the wrong way. Let it die.

God damn it.