By Chelsea Roden, Staff Writer, Emerson College
Homework time with my roommates is usually spent sharing cat videos, Jennifer Lawrence’s existence, or articles of clothing I’ll never be able to justify buying (unless it’s a sweatshirt with JLaw and a cat on it). It’s a surprise if one of us completes the homework we set out to finish. But our procrastination turned another way in December 2012 when my suite-mate asked, “Chelsea, this is your picture, right?”
I paused my cat video to look at her Tumblr dashboard and I felt my stomach drop. There was a grey-scaled picture of my midriff that had about 200 likes and reblogs.
“That’s me. That’s my tummy. That’s my work,” was all I could say as I excitedly sent myself the source link. I refreshed the site every half hour until it eventually capped at 1,500 notes. This was one of my bedazzled moments of my freshman year, partially because I go to a school where I can say, “well, I’m kind of big on Tumblr” and people will actually understand. The Internet exposure was just enough of a kick to feel I had accomplished something in photography.
I was in the middle of a 365 project, which entailed taking a self-portrait every day for a year. It was great for teaching myself Photoshop, but I found myself struggling to come up with concepts to shoot in my dorm when Mother Nature got a little icy.
The photo in question was a part of a series titled ‘The Human Body’ which incorporated quotes that commented on the human condition and were written on various parts of my body. This one used a quote from Marya Hornbacher’s memoir Wasted:
“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them
as if they might teach us how not to need.”
Wasted is a memoir about Hornbacher having a certain romance with eating disorders and ending the self-destruction on her own terms. Tiny enough to swallow and dissolve into our bloodstreams, our hearts, our nerves; this powerful quote perfectly defines the impression media makes on young women.
Tumblr agreed. Since I posted the image to Flickr on Nov. 30, 2011, I have found five other viral Tumblr posts ranging from 1,500 to 8,300 notes. Added up, this means roughly 15,000 people have seen and took the time to like my work, and hundreds more have seen it floating on their Tumblr dashboards.
This is all giggles and glitter until I look at who’s doing the note making. With each post I find, I spend a couple hours sifting through pages of the sites that have reposted my image. Often these are pro-ana and skinny blogs; stark sites that are set to play music when I click them into a stream of browser tabs and eventually fill my eardrums with a cacophony of insecurity and a fight for control.
Many add the photo to their collection of grainy pictures of conventionally attractive women. Some reblog it and add, “Ugh, I love this. It’s deep, and it’s personal, and it’s true.” Others simply write: “Struggling so much lately, monsters nipping at my heels.” “Morbid, but true. I’m in a downwards spiral.”
And the worst for me to read: “I’ll keep going until I look like this.”
I close the tabs; flushing away the dizzying melodies.
It’s the downside of art. Not all one thousand words I say in a picture are going to make people fist pump in agreement. Since the first Tumblr post, I’ve been connecting guilt to this photo. I’ve felt responsible for feeding the thigh gap phenomenon; giving these girls something to binge on and regurgitate into their lives as symbols of negative empowerment.
There are some women who believe a gap between your thighs is the key to getting a significant other. That people who are poisonous to you are the only people that matter, because they care enough to “be honest.” That the amount of good morning texts you receive are directly proportional to the amount of love you deserve.
These beliefs have been mistakenly bounced off my Human Body series, which is meant to emphasize how important it is to work with our bodies rather than fight them. The first picture in the series features the Frank Gillette Burgess quote: “Our bodies are apt to become our autobiographies.” Our own, unique autobiographies.
Throughout our lives we collect scars from the times we’ve fallen (or in my case, ran into a couple walls). We compare our bodies to each other’s and most of us are engrained to worship conventional beauty. So much of our self is invested in how we take care of ourselves, and the confidence we foster. We have control over our bodies, and therefore our stories. Our bodies are vehicles for us to succeed in everything from our professional goals such as creating meaningful artwork to mundane things like finding the perfect Jennifer Lawrence sweatshirt.
Which is why the notes on Tumblr made my stomach drop. Each hit my photo receives sends a blow to my gut; a fear that each misinterpretation leads to endorsement of the behavior I was trying to discourage. I started to binge on my guilt, but this is my self-accepting, healthy cleanse.
Our bodies are our autobiographies, and I have control over creating a positive story through images. Regardless of where my work is posted, what captions are tacked on, or when my words are used as a stepping-stone to gain a glossy standard of unrealistic beauty. Those are other people’s stories. I’ll continue to promote my own.
In those 15,000+ people, there are those that see my image in the light I intended. They might pause to look at the words for a minute, or show it to a friend if it strikes a chord deep inside of them. I imagine them smiling slightly, like they finished a chapter of a memoir, then continuing to search for a good cat gif – the photo recognized but not forgotten.
Chelsea Roden is a Tetris champion and a Waffle House Regulars member. When she's not studying non-fiction writing, she's probably getting herself into dilemmas she can later write about. Her favorite activities include compositing cats into pictures, talking to her favorite German, and narrating her life to the melodies of Les Mis. She's still Big Red.
Homework time with my roommates is usually spent sharing cat videos, Jennifer Lawrence’s existence, or articles of clothing I’ll never be able to justify buying (unless it’s a sweatshirt with JLaw and a cat on it). It’s a surprise if one of us completes the homework we set out to finish. But our procrastination turned another way in December 2012 when my suite-mate asked, “Chelsea, this is your picture, right?”
I paused my cat video to look at her Tumblr dashboard and I felt my stomach drop. There was a grey-scaled picture of my midriff that had about 200 likes and reblogs.
“That’s me. That’s my tummy. That’s my work,” was all I could say as I excitedly sent myself the source link. I refreshed the site every half hour until it eventually capped at 1,500 notes. This was one of my bedazzled moments of my freshman year, partially because I go to a school where I can say, “well, I’m kind of big on Tumblr” and people will actually understand. The Internet exposure was just enough of a kick to feel I had accomplished something in photography.
I was in the middle of a 365 project, which entailed taking a self-portrait every day for a year. It was great for teaching myself Photoshop, but I found myself struggling to come up with concepts to shoot in my dorm when Mother Nature got a little icy.
The photo in question was a part of a series titled ‘The Human Body’ which incorporated quotes that commented on the human condition and were written on various parts of my body. This one used a quote from Marya Hornbacher’s memoir Wasted:
“We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them
as if they might teach us how not to need.”
Wasted is a memoir about Hornbacher having a certain romance with eating disorders and ending the self-destruction on her own terms. Tiny enough to swallow and dissolve into our bloodstreams, our hearts, our nerves; this powerful quote perfectly defines the impression media makes on young women.
Tumblr agreed. Since I posted the image to Flickr on Nov. 30, 2011, I have found five other viral Tumblr posts ranging from 1,500 to 8,300 notes. Added up, this means roughly 15,000 people have seen and took the time to like my work, and hundreds more have seen it floating on their Tumblr dashboards.
This is all giggles and glitter until I look at who’s doing the note making. With each post I find, I spend a couple hours sifting through pages of the sites that have reposted my image. Often these are pro-ana and skinny blogs; stark sites that are set to play music when I click them into a stream of browser tabs and eventually fill my eardrums with a cacophony of insecurity and a fight for control.
Many add the photo to their collection of grainy pictures of conventionally attractive women. Some reblog it and add, “Ugh, I love this. It’s deep, and it’s personal, and it’s true.” Others simply write: “Struggling so much lately, monsters nipping at my heels.” “Morbid, but true. I’m in a downwards spiral.”
And the worst for me to read: “I’ll keep going until I look like this.”
I close the tabs; flushing away the dizzying melodies.
It’s the downside of art. Not all one thousand words I say in a picture are going to make people fist pump in agreement. Since the first Tumblr post, I’ve been connecting guilt to this photo. I’ve felt responsible for feeding the thigh gap phenomenon; giving these girls something to binge on and regurgitate into their lives as symbols of negative empowerment.
There are some women who believe a gap between your thighs is the key to getting a significant other. That people who are poisonous to you are the only people that matter, because they care enough to “be honest.” That the amount of good morning texts you receive are directly proportional to the amount of love you deserve.
These beliefs have been mistakenly bounced off my Human Body series, which is meant to emphasize how important it is to work with our bodies rather than fight them. The first picture in the series features the Frank Gillette Burgess quote: “Our bodies are apt to become our autobiographies.” Our own, unique autobiographies.
Throughout our lives we collect scars from the times we’ve fallen (or in my case, ran into a couple walls). We compare our bodies to each other’s and most of us are engrained to worship conventional beauty. So much of our self is invested in how we take care of ourselves, and the confidence we foster. We have control over our bodies, and therefore our stories. Our bodies are vehicles for us to succeed in everything from our professional goals such as creating meaningful artwork to mundane things like finding the perfect Jennifer Lawrence sweatshirt.
Which is why the notes on Tumblr made my stomach drop. Each hit my photo receives sends a blow to my gut; a fear that each misinterpretation leads to endorsement of the behavior I was trying to discourage. I started to binge on my guilt, but this is my self-accepting, healthy cleanse.
Our bodies are our autobiographies, and I have control over creating a positive story through images. Regardless of where my work is posted, what captions are tacked on, or when my words are used as a stepping-stone to gain a glossy standard of unrealistic beauty. Those are other people’s stories. I’ll continue to promote my own.
In those 15,000+ people, there are those that see my image in the light I intended. They might pause to look at the words for a minute, or show it to a friend if it strikes a chord deep inside of them. I imagine them smiling slightly, like they finished a chapter of a memoir, then continuing to search for a good cat gif – the photo recognized but not forgotten.
Chelsea Roden is a Tetris champion and a Waffle House Regulars member. When she's not studying non-fiction writing, she's probably getting herself into dilemmas she can later write about. Her favorite activities include compositing cats into pictures, talking to her favorite German, and narrating her life to the melodies of Les Mis. She's still Big Red.