Heidi Klum's My Facebook Friend
I have a secret.
If you look at my Facebook profile, I think it’s pretty obvious that I am a straight male – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I have straight male tastes, I like straight male things, and I love Heidi Klum’s Project Runway.
I am so ashamed.
Now who cares, right? It’s Project Runway! It’s got Heidi Klum. It’s got runway models in lingerie. It’s got – heck – women looking good in tiny clothes that look good.
I so wish I watched it for that.
In truth, I watch it for the designerly minds. What’s a designerly mind? Well, that’s a later discussion. The issue at hand today? I was hanging with my neighbor and she asked if I was on facebook so we linked up our laptops and add-friended each other and, of course, immediately sat silent and stalked all over each others profiles awhile. I went for pictures, she went for “Info."
Male/female right there.
We went silent. After awhile I hear a practically disgusted, “Project Runway?”
Now, I understand I'm an unusual object. I’m accustomed to expressions of oddity. But holy cow, the way she said Project Runway I heard echoes of every straight female who’s ever laid eyes on my site. Project Runway??
As if, I was fine till that point. As if “yeah, good, sports, check, Seinfeld, check, penis, check, Project Runway??”
There was no doubt about it. I’d lost a point. I’d lost a penis point in the person’s perspective, and you know what? I like my points! I wanna keep ‘em. There are many things I can and cannot do and I am aware of what those things are. I have enough obvious negatives that I don’t need to send out a beacon to the world to take off some man-law points.
This bothers me for days.
“Should I remove it?” This was the question. It wasn't so much moral as it was a challenge. Should I take Project Runway off of my Favorite TV shows? Must I articulate all favorite shows if I am not around to articulate my liking of them.
An interesting question in interaction design is this question of on-line identity. Because, you know, in the real world, you can keep your work-friends separate from your school-friends and maybe we are a little different in the evening then we are when at the office. Which is normal in real space. We express different facets of a complex identity when we're in different contexts. It's like not painting your face for a promotion but doing so at the big game. Or being a nerd in the office and a freak in the... well, you get the idea. Many different facets.
How does one express a coherent and meaningful whole in one identity-page like facebook? Do I need to express the full complexity of me, really? Or just give the proper sound bite?
This question of a singular presentation of a complex identity is something I’d like to discuss more with you but for now let’s just assume Heidi Klum is hot.
Our (Victoria's) secret.
+ S
If you look at my Facebook profile, I think it’s pretty obvious that I am a straight male – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I have straight male tastes, I like straight male things, and I love Heidi Klum’s Project Runway.
I am so ashamed.
Now who cares, right? It’s Project Runway! It’s got Heidi Klum. It’s got runway models in lingerie. It’s got – heck – women looking good in tiny clothes that look good.
I so wish I watched it for that.
In truth, I watch it for the designerly minds. What’s a designerly mind? Well, that’s a later discussion. The issue at hand today? I was hanging with my neighbor and she asked if I was on facebook so we linked up our laptops and add-friended each other and, of course, immediately sat silent and stalked all over each others profiles awhile. I went for pictures, she went for “Info."
Male/female right there.
We went silent. After awhile I hear a practically disgusted, “Project Runway?”
Now, I understand I'm an unusual object. I’m accustomed to expressions of oddity. But holy cow, the way she said Project Runway I heard echoes of every straight female who’s ever laid eyes on my site. Project Runway??
As if, I was fine till that point. As if “yeah, good, sports, check, Seinfeld, check, penis, check, Project Runway??”
There was no doubt about it. I’d lost a point. I’d lost a penis point in the person’s perspective, and you know what? I like my points! I wanna keep ‘em. There are many things I can and cannot do and I am aware of what those things are. I have enough obvious negatives that I don’t need to send out a beacon to the world to take off some man-law points.
This bothers me for days.
“Should I remove it?” This was the question. It wasn't so much moral as it was a challenge. Should I take Project Runway off of my Favorite TV shows? Must I articulate all favorite shows if I am not around to articulate my liking of them.
An interesting question in interaction design is this question of on-line identity. Because, you know, in the real world, you can keep your work-friends separate from your school-friends and maybe we are a little different in the evening then we are when at the office. Which is normal in real space. We express different facets of a complex identity when we're in different contexts. It's like not painting your face for a promotion but doing so at the big game. Or being a nerd in the office and a freak in the... well, you get the idea. Many different facets.
How does one express a coherent and meaningful whole in one identity-page like facebook? Do I need to express the full complexity of me, really? Or just give the proper sound bite?
This question of a singular presentation of a complex identity is something I’d like to discuss more with you but for now let’s just assume Heidi Klum is hot.
Our (Victoria's) secret.
+ S
posted by Sean Connolly at
6:46 AM
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