Came across this on HuffPo just now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/jennifer-mckendrick-penns_n_931324.html
A Pennsylvania photographer has chosen not to photograph a group of high school girls for their senior portraits after she found evidence of the teens bullying other students on Facebook.
"If you are ugly on the inside, I'm sorry but I won't take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside … I simply don't want to photograph ugly people," [the photographer] writes.
* * *
Her quote made me think about the stereotype of fat people being ugly, but there's a whole other definition of ugly, isn't there?
I remember how vicious and desperate for attention and validation teenaged girls can be and it's even worse now with the Internet. Places like Facebook are so much wider reaching than just word of mouth or shitty notes tucked into school lockers. Remember that story of the 40-some year old mother of a targeted middle- or high-school girl who then targeted a 14 year old, thinking she was anonymous? I still have no idea how a mother could do something like that to someone else--to talk about looks or weight or sexuality.
In some ways, people are almost held hostage to what's written about them (or gossiped about them in some other form) but as more and more employers and others start tracking people online, I think we may see more of this kind of backlash. The photographer has gotten lots of support for her decision and the parents of 2 of the bullies have written her to apologize and admit they had no idea their teenagers were being so cruel.
I still remember a time when we didn't use applications like FB; when we didn't need to document our every thought, our every action and our every opinion. I mean, you've read one mean, inflammatory statement or seen one duckface and you've read/seen 'em all!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/jennifer-mckendrick-penns_n_931324.html
A Pennsylvania photographer has chosen not to photograph a group of high school girls for their senior portraits after she found evidence of the teens bullying other students on Facebook.
"If you are ugly on the inside, I'm sorry but I won't take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside … I simply don't want to photograph ugly people," [the photographer] writes.
* * *
Her quote made me think about the stereotype of fat people being ugly, but there's a whole other definition of ugly, isn't there?
I remember how vicious and desperate for attention and validation teenaged girls can be and it's even worse now with the Internet. Places like Facebook are so much wider reaching than just word of mouth or shitty notes tucked into school lockers. Remember that story of the 40-some year old mother of a targeted middle- or high-school girl who then targeted a 14 year old, thinking she was anonymous? I still have no idea how a mother could do something like that to someone else--to talk about looks or weight or sexuality.
In some ways, people are almost held hostage to what's written about them (or gossiped about them in some other form) but as more and more employers and others start tracking people online, I think we may see more of this kind of backlash. The photographer has gotten lots of support for her decision and the parents of 2 of the bullies have written her to apologize and admit they had no idea their teenagers were being so cruel.
I still remember a time when we didn't use applications like FB; when we didn't need to document our every thought, our every action and our every opinion. I mean, you've read one mean, inflammatory statement or seen one duckface and you've read/seen 'em all!
