Skinny Selfies

We all know that our looks don’t cut it. The modern world has high standards and the beauty-gang is getting excruciatingly exclusive by the day. Open a magazine at random and it will show us just how short of expectations we’ve fallen.

It doesn’t matter what we do, whether we have a healthy lifestyle or snack-binge every day, our faces will never look quite as pretty as we’d like them to without a little manipulation. There is also the matter of those big bones everywhere. If we ever doubted the theory of evolution, a quick selfie will let us know that there are definitely some dinosaur genes hidden in our DNA, tearing away at our skinny dreams.

Do not despair. Being human, we can not allow something as straightforward as nature to outdo us. Technology to the rescue! It matters little whether we are a size zero or ten going on twenty, we can always do with shedding a few pounds off those chubby cheeks of ours and… Wait for it: [Drum-roll] Now the is an app to help us do just that.

The lovely people who have created SkinneePix are there to help our public image. Not only do their photos make us look good, but they will make us fell good too. After all, we hardly meet people in real life these days. If we want to be more popular (and that’s what life is about, isn’t it?), all we need to do is to upload the latest in gorgeous selfies on our Facebook page and Ta-Da! the likes will pour in. Watch those cheekbones sizzle off the screen. Yum! And you get all this for a mere 69p. A bargain if I ever saw one.

I am certain that this will be the answer to a plethora of body-image induced illnesses across the globe. Goodbye bulimia and anorexia. Since our self-worth is entirely dependent on our looks and we can only feel confident and happy when the world can see how skinny we are, now we can change our abnormal appearance at will and need never feel like failures just because our jawline size exceeds that of a newborn. If you don’t believe me, check out what the Guardian has to say about it.

SkinneePix is certainly the best thing to happen to us since the invention of Famine. We don’t need to starve ourselves to look skinny anymore. Emaciation is only one click away:

“It’s not complicated. No one needs to know. It’s our little secret.“

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Daily Prompt: Green-Eyed Lady

Let’s Talk Opinion | Wanders with Werewolves

“You write well when you’re angry, Vic.”

This was the express conclusion of a friend who had taken the time to read a couple of my Let’s Talk Opinion posts. I was surprised to hear it.

I could not recall an instance when that particular emotion had prompted me to write, at least not opinion pieces. It is true that some subjects I feel strongly about and treading on egg-shells is not my strongest suit. But anger brings to mind a flaring face, augmented to the size of a Halloween pumpkin and gradually acquiring the hue of a ready-to-explode blueberry Willy Wonka style.

My posts I hope are never dispassionate, but I did not believe them to ever be guided by a sense of annoyance or downright hostility.

Pondering with some degree of perplexity on the matter, in re-reading the posts the aforementioned friend referred to, I came to a conclusion of my own. It was my propinquity proclivity to use irony and dark humour as rhetorical devices that must have come across as written in anger.  I do this intuitively, without forethought, and like any writing that gets submitted to public scrutiny, it may at times appear to linger on the threshold of sarcasm, if not crossing it altogether.

The reader is always a better judge than I could ever be of whether that is the case or not, so I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. For now, I will keep the promise of yesterday’s Let’s Talk Opinion | Lunchtime Edition and add the remaining favourites of the series for a complete top ten:

 

#6 Clichés | Avoid them like the plague! Laughter is contagious, and having just about managed to pick myself off the floor where I lay in stitches for a while after reading Michael Alexander Chaney‘s “cliché” misadventure, I decided to repay him in kind. This is one of those rare instances (for me at least) where humour went hand in hand with utility.

 

#7 Consent is Sexy When it comes to the issue of tacit consent it is difficult to disagree with Queer Guess Code: traditional media continue to portray romantic encounters as the prerogative of silence. If the other’s advances are unwelcome, we are expected to say “no”, but are women given enough opportunities to say “yes”?

 

#8 Danger Blogging explores the dangers bloggers expose themselves to on a daily basis, and offers a few tips on how to avoid them. I have fallen foul of a couple of these myself and the effects were immediate and lasting so beware. In conversation with Idiot Writing.

 

#9 Child Pornography and The Sexualisation of Children “Do child pornography websites lead to acts of unimaginable evil?” asks Giorge Thomas in the wake of Ian Watkins – the lead singer of Lostprophets – being convicted of child pornography charges. With this question in mind I consider the impact of the sexualisation of children perpetrated by popular media today. Some readers found the accompanying images disturbing, so please tread with care.

 

#10 Some are more equal than others In hindsight I wish I had named this article “Wanders with Werewolves”.  If you are familiar with this piece then you will know why. If not: then take a peek and let me know if you think a title change is in order. I believe this is the opinion piece that my friend referred to when she said “You write well when you’re angry, Vic.” Well… angry perhaps not, but a little wolfish, certainly.

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Let’sTalk Opinion posts engage with issues that are important to other bloggers, connecting with others on matters close to their heart. If you like a topic and would like to contribute, please feel free to add to the comment box, reblog, share, email or message me on Twitter @shardsofsilence.

Or if you happen to be a fellow Hogwartsian send me a letter by owl.