Making [Retail] Faces

[INSPIRATION]

            I’m inspired by YouTubers that create alternate reality characters, obvious simulacras based on a particular stereotype.  However, I’m only truly impressed by those that go the extra mile and really go for the extreme… previously non-existent even. 

            Part of my inspiration also includes those that I interact with almost daily at my job, my coworkers.  They fearlessly brave the unknown every time the store business doors open for the day.  They don their retail face for those that pose a danger to their inner zen that they worked so hard to reach.

[PROPOSAL]

I have two plans at the moment:

1.    Create and expand on the Snapchat stories that I have started, inviting other retail employee friends of mine to record their experiences and twists on evil heathen customers that have stood out to them.  This would be a very short stream of consciousness type film that would be similar to that of the Snapchat stories function.  The idea is to capture the side of retail unfamiliar to those that have never had to try and sell anything to make a living.

2.    Create a collage or photo series of retail face selfies from retail employees in the Fox Valley area and beyond.  This would be a collection of photos from people donning their best “I’m ready to help!!!!” mentality, with an extreme twist of course.  My goal here would be to capture the simulation of our retail persona, the persona that says “we’re here, some of us are queer, and we’re ready to make you drop some cash even though I’ve been having a really shitty day and I can’t afford my student loan bills and rent and food for my cat and I really need an oil change but I haven’t really been able to save up for that because I need money to buy weed just to de-stress from the ever growing problems that our generation is constantly encountering wow that blush looks fantastic on you!!!!” :D

[CONCLUSION]

I'm going forward with my idea to gather retail selfies from friends and strangers alike to compose a collage on a blog, similar to the Pantone skin tone blog humane.

YouTube Beauty Gurus of Babel

My goal with our final project was to collect various YouTube beauty videos from all over the world and string them together to form a new makeup tutorial in hopes of shedding light on the global beauty village that we are all a part of as a reference to the idea of the global village in Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage."

Although I sat through about 12 hours of YouTube makeup tutorials in over 20 languages (Google translate was my best friend), this project was a refreshing reminder that there exists a world of beauty outside of the United States.  It was so interesting to see all of the different nuances that certain countries play up with regards to makeup application.

For example, in South Korea they really value a light application of makeup.  Anything beyond that resulting in a "cakey" or heavily made up face is regarded as undesirable and unnatural looking.  South Koreans would not fare well in India where they apply layer after layer of makeup and really spackle it on.

What's most interesting and refreshing to me is that there are so many different definitions of what beauty is depending on your place of origin, where you reside now, your parent's definition of beauty, etc., and how they're all 100% valid.  Who am I to say that your faintly filled in brow is not as beautiful as someone else's heavily drawn on brow?

If you'd like to browse through all of the videos I looked at for the project, you can view the playlist right here.  You can view my final video on YouTube by clicking this link.

Thank you for a wonderful class, everyone!!