"Most Improved" and other burning instead of beauty

Last week I saw an advertisement for a permanent make-up company in Salt Lake, and I was going to write a post about it, but I got lazy and didn't do it. This week I found a new catalyst in that the young women in my ward are having a presentation on make-up as part of their weekly activity night.

Before I get into the particulars of my catalysts, let me just explain why I have a problem with make-up. I know there's a lot of potential issues with make-up or even with fashion in general, especially when you try to reconcile it with religion, but I think the thing that sets make-up apart from other fashions is how intertwined it becomes with a woman's self-esteem. If it were treated the same way as picking a belt or a pair of shoes, then I don't think I would care. But it's not treated the same. It becomes such a part of a woman's identity that she is convinced that she is not pretty without it, and she's uncomfortable being seen in public until after she has her face painted.

Cultural traditions are complicated and I know there's probably a lot of factors that have gone into making and keeping make-up so connected to self-esteem as it is. I don't know what's to blame for that, but I do see that the make-up companies realize this connection and that they prey on women because of it, taking advantage of self-esteem issues to sell their products. You could probably make an example out of any number of advertising campaigns, but one that is particularly obvious to me is Mary Kay. When they have their little make-up parties to sell the product in women's homes, they actually vote on who is the "most improved" because of the new make-up.

I don't really know what my ward's agenda is with this activity for the young women or how they're going to present it. I think it's entirely possible that they're going to have a very tasteful presentation and try to teach the girls to be moderate in how they wear their make-up. Even that, though, I think is potentially damaging to the young women.

I've seen those reality shows where they give a woman a make-over, which usually involves teaching her how to properly use her make-up. I haven't seen a lot of these shows, but every one that I have seen tells the woman to be more moderate and more sparing in how she applies her make-up. That's fine. The problem is that even this approach (or especially this approach?) teaches the woman that this is the way that her face is meant to be painted. The make-over teaches her what clothes are in style, and maybe what is flattering to her out of that style, but with the make-up it teaches her what matches her, as though it is something permanent that her face needs and not something that changes with the seasons and her moods like other fashions. It teaches her that this is the right look for her features and complexion. Even if the end result is that she wears less make-up than before, it still emphasizes the idea that there is a correct look for this particular woman and that it is only achievable through the application of make-up.

So regardless of the intent, I'd just be afraid that by teaching the young women to use make-up, you're really just teaching them that they need make-up.

Maybe it's an extension of that idea that there is a single correct look for a woman's face and that make-up achieves it that has led our society to the idea of permanent make-up. Anything permanent and unchangeable makes me nervous and I think the fact that there are women who are willing to have their make-up permanently attached just emphasizes how much the industry has convinced them of their inadequacy without it.

There is an additional thing that bothers me about permanent make-up. I'm sure that Salt Lake has more ads for tattoo removal than for tattoo parlors, but permanent make-up has no problem fitting in with all of the other ads for permanently changing a person's body to fit some arbitrary image of beauty. The part of this that really bothers me is that some of the same people who have religious reasons for thinking that tattoos are immoral can think that permanent make-up is just fine. You do realize that they are the same thing, right? The only difference is the shape of the tattoo that you're getting, but it's still a tattoo. I think the women who find themselves in favor of permanent make-up but against traditional tattoos have forgotten why they are against tattoos in the first place. It's so easy to be swept up in a cultural stereotype, but before long we forget our values and just start thinking that the definition of our religion is the same as our niche in that culture.

I guess it makes sense that the cultural associations blur the lines between make-up and tattoos for some women. After all, it's only because of cultural associations that permanent make-up could ever have an appeal in the first place. Women have been taught that they don't look good without it, and that they should always wear it whenever they are visible to anyone else, so it seems like an inconsequential step to have it permanently attached. Societal pressures have already permanently inked the make-up to our identity, so why not to skin?

For Loyd

I found out today why everyone was such jerks to you at CompUSA. (Not that you personally would have done anything like this; Maybe it's a statement about the organization itself.)
I went in to get a wireless router, because they had a really good sale on them today, and they were dirt cheap after the rebates. I decided to get three of them. (Seriously, they were really cheap.) So I got all rung up and everything, and when the rebates printed out, they only gave me one rebate form. I told the girl that I needed 3 of the forms, and then she tells me that I only get one rebate per household. Did it say this on the price tag on the shelf advertising the rebate? No. Did the sales person that went and got the things from the back tell me? Even though I made a big deal about how cheap they were and how I should just get a bunch of them at that price? No. He didn't say anything. And of course the cashier also didn't say anything until I complained about not having enough rebate forms. So, then they had to go through this big thing to return two of the routers, acting the whole time like it was my fault for making them do this.
Would it have really been that hard to just be up front with me about the deal in the first place? That's why people are mean when they go in there.

Google (TM)

Google Talk is all the rage among my computer nerd friends. If you haven't heard the hype yet (it probably hasn't spread away from the nerds yet), allow me to enlighten you.
Google Talk is a very simple (watered-down) chat client, similar to the Instant Messengers from AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. It pretty much has only two features: a regular text messaging, and a voice chat (both features that the other clients have had for a long time). It doesn't even send files.
You might ask, Why do the computer nerds (who should know better) like it, if it's such a piece of junk? Well, I'll tell you. You see, the hard-core computer nerds have a very strong bias against Microsoft, and hate everything that they make, even if it's better than the alternatives. In a similar fashion, they love everything with the brand name "Google", without regard to whether it's good or not. Google is just a corporate entity like any other (including Microsoft).
The reason I post this to the non-nerd world is simply that I fear that other people will be blinded by the Google name and fail to see that this particular program is a folly. I think it was silly of Google to make a chat client in the first place. What's the point of switching to a brand new chat program that no one even has yet? Even if the feature set were better than other IM's (which it isn't), don't you choose your chat based on which one your friends are on?

Anti-Mormon

I used to have this idea of the typical RM guy (his name might be "Peter"), and I hated him: He thought he was so righteous, and that if you didn't dress the same way that he did, he would think that you were a sinner or a bad influence, and he wouldn't be your friend. All he ever talked about was his mission, and it often seemd as if he just wanted everyone to know how spiritual he was, so he had to remind them all of the time. It's hard to be the punk kid around people like that, but I eventually realized that I was judging him just as much as he was me. It's funny, but it's possible that I was inventing that RM guy, because now I can't find him.
I think most of the time people choose whether to be happy in a situation or not to be. It's rare that a situation inherently makes you unhappy. Take Provo for instance. It's easy to have a negative impression of Provo: that everyone is all stiff and nerdy, and that there's nothing fun to do here and no cool people to hang out with. I don't actually think that anymore. Provo's pretty cool. I can do pretty much anything here that I can in the outside world if I want, and it being a college town adds up to a lot of cool people (both Jack and Peter) to hang out with that are in a similar stage of life as me (for the most part, anyway: I guess I am the oldest single guy in Provo).
I think the problem is that at some point people have decided that the Mormon culture is nerdy, and so they've decided not to be happy in it. No one can be happy if they've convinced themselves not to be.
Here's what nerdy is: when you're so into something that you can't deal with people that aren't into it as much as you are. I think that can apply to anything (computers, sports, music): I'm only a nerd if I belittle or otherwise can't get along with other people that aren't nerdy about the same thing as me. It is nerdy for people to not associate (well) with others that don't share their religious (or other) views, but it's not nerdy to live your religion. You can be happy with it, but it can't make you happy or unhappy. That's a decision you make about it.

So I tried to get this web design job today. When I talked to the owner of the store the other day she got really excited and she acted like she had already decided to have me do the site. I went back today to seal the deal, and her attitude completely changed when she realized that she was going to have to pay for it. I tried changing some options and lowering the price, but I think she just decided not to actually pay me for it. She even made some excuses about her husband or some friends making one for her for free, and I'm just like, Come on, your husband doesn't know how to make the site that I'm trying to sell you here. Besides, who makes web sites for free anyway? Well, whoever you are, I wish you would stop, because you're ruining my business.

So we go to see the Independents last night, and I was all excited about seeing them, but they weren't the headlining band; the Queers were. We tried to get there early but we showed up at the theater half an hour late and they were in the middle of their last song. So we pretty much missed the whole show. No offense to the Queers, but we didn't want to stay since we'd only gone to see the Independents. The ticket guy was cool, so even though there are no refunds allowed, he gave us our tickets back and we sold them to someone else waiting outside. So much for Independents day. The adventure only cost us $2, though, so it's OK. I'm not angry. Just disappointed.