In an excerpt from his recently published article, "The Bangability of Silliness" Mr. Brown extrapolates on his 'Silly/Sexy' theory.
"...The blank expression has apparently overtaken the smile according to the media's standards of beauty. We allow a two-dimensional image to play a status game with us, causing us-as-audience to feel less than. Without thought, we create a causal relationship to the image without any complete information. Lacking any attributes other than the most obvious, we assume that this model's unsmiling, unblinking, Photoshop7'd mug simply must be beautiful. She would not be glaring at us otherwise. She must therefore be a good person and probably more skilled than us in most all skills. Moreover, the skills this model excels at are more important and should be taken more seriously than any of our own. However, if one assumes that few things are more attractive than confidence--real confidence--than the superficially morose attitude that seems to be the fashion right now should evoke laughter at best. Anyone can put on a frown, let their jaw go slack, walk very carefully, and be 'unaffected'. It is far more difficult to be constantly engaged and engaging. It is much harder to let the inherent beauty and plain goofiness of the world flow through you like the oxygen it is. It takes an immense amount of confidence in oneself and the world around you to realize that things like beauty are subjective. It takes a leap of faith to stop oneself from acting in a way that emulates our perceptions of beauty. The truly beautiful have an indescribable radiance. They are honest with themselves and others, caring, ultimately confident. They have nothing to prove, and therefore have no qualms about appearing foolish or silly. Its this silliness, this extremely honest part of who we as humans are, that makes a person attractive. Perhaps there will be a time in which silly will be bankable, but until then we must wallow in a sea of angrily seductive expressions."
Dakotah Brown is a staff writer for The Economist.
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ReplyDeletehow perceptive.
ReplyDeleteincidentally, you have just explained something that i have been pondering for MONTHS... a comment someone made to me one day. he said "you're so confident, it's great! it's beautiful!" and i walked away wondering if he truly believed that, and why. now i get it! yay!
I think attractiveness is a by-product of awareness. When someone is in their element, its super hot. In my opinion, if you're REALLY good at like...Connect Four...and totally in your comfortable in your Connect Four element, it's just as attractive as being a rockstar or something. When you're utterly cool with your ridiculousness, it's attractive.
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