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.

SEPHORA RANT!!

This blogpost will serve as the introduction to what my project is trying, keyword trying, to tackle.

I’m unmasking the mask behind my clients at Sephora. I’m going into the life of a client that I don’t know, nor do I necessarily want to know their background. I’m just imaging based on a conversation that I have heard, and been a part of and reacted to and experienced and had to react to a scenario that made me question what this girl’s life is really like outside of the walls of Sephora. I’m diving into what I think her life would be based on my cultural experience and knowledge of the beauty industry and its effects on the coming generations of the world, but with a gay man’s twist.

Within the world of retail exists a world of frustration and anger that resides within the employee.  Sometimes thanks to the retailer that you work for, sometimes because of the sheer idiocy that one has to put up with from time to time.  

an retail employee probably wrote this drunk or high, or both

A retail store is a space that welcomes anyone and everyone; the store doors do not discriminate.  My method of coping often involves deconstructing specific interactions and moments of shock, stupidity, what be it. Often it takes place at a bar with a few beers with friends that also work the retail scene, and also down for making a mockey of whatever happened that day.

My goal here is to document short little insights into the world of retail that is often seen through gifs on Buzzfeed articles, but rarely seen in the real. Or is it the hyperreal?

see what I mean?

Ultimately, I want something that I can look back on that will remind me to never work retail again.  And that's real enough for me.

Peel off that Mask!

For my project, I chose to portray a version of reality that may or may not exist, solely based on one interaction that I had with a two clients, mom and daughter, at the makeup store where I work. 

Baudrillard's breakdown of the successive phases of an image are what I'm basing my work off of.

"This would be the successive phases of the image:
- it is the reflection of a basic reality
- it masks and perverts a basic reality
- it masks the absence of a basic reality
- it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum" (pg. 11, Baudrillard)

My short Snapchat style video will be a "day in the life of" style VLOG that was/is popular in the YouTube blogger community.  I'm creating a fictitious version of how what this girl's day was like on the day my interaction with her took place.  

I have no idea who this girl is.  I have no idea what her day to day life is like.  I don't know if she's a makeup expert or novice.  This method of storytelling is in no way academic or "professional."  This Snapchat story will most likely bear absolutely no relation to her reality in the slightest, besides the little nugget of truth that I experienced first-hand.  

I'm simply unmasking a little bit of the mask that I put on people everyday, even if it's not plausible.