So yesterday I was looking through a stock image collection to find an appropriately smug woman to illustrate my post on the alleged secret plans of female supremacists to take away men’s rights. I went for a picture of a woman wearing a crown. But there were so many other choices! And they all seemed to involve women pointing at themselves.
So ,in the tradition of The Hairpin’s famous post “Women Laughing Alone With Salad,” I present to you “Women Pointing at Themselves Alone (Without Salad).”
Well that’s enough of that for now.
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Smug? Huh, the what? At least half of those expressions I’d read as “Who, me? You talking to me?”
What would be an interesting contrast and compare with these stock ‘smug’ women are stock photos of ‘smug’ men. Are the poses and expressions virtually the same, or do they have significant differences on what makes each sex ‘smug’.
There were only two (maaaaaybe three) of those stock photos that hit anywhere remotely near the smug ballpark. There’s a lot of variety between surprise, annoyance, confidence, and happiness… but not a lot of smug.
Unless the people who tag stock photos assume a woman having any expression or non-expression on her face while pointing at herself must be smug.
Which yeah, that does actually sound on point for stock art tagging.
Still, credit due where credit due: stock art at least has so much more variability in people these days, and that’s a beautiful thing.
I see there’s been a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, at a supermarket. At least 10 dead, including a store security guard. It’s almost commonplace now.
I agree — most of those women have the “who, me?” expression. A couple of them seem to be saying “Check out my boobs!” The white woman in the gray blazer looks scared.
Still, it’s nice that people of all ages and ethnicities can now look stupid in stock photos.
I too think smug is not what most of these women are projecting. I especially like the one in round glasses, blue shirt, red pink background. She looks like she just got gifted a puppy and is going “Is he really for me?!?!”
The last woman looks to be pregnant. Almost all of these woman have long necks. Wish I did, too.
A distinctly bad day to post a lighthearted post; I learned about the shooting shortly after posting this.
Now I’m working on a post about the Buffalo shooter but I have to read his fucking manifesto first.
Does anyone want an open thread ?
Oh, look! there I am with the orange hair, grey sweatshirt, glasses and looking kinda a little bit cool but also kinda like a doofus?
I FEEL SEEEN.
David, an open thread (even if lightly trafficked) would be good.
Just saw the first mainstream article about it and oofta.
The last woman is pregnant and going “look it’s a baby!”
I bet the baby will be smug.
I’ll put up am open thread.
Women pointing at themselves? So! How ’bout my girl Joan Jett in the I Love Rock & Roll video. I think she points at herself. Going for what she fucking wants and demanding it. I am a little young to have known that music like some but I’m a young old person maybe. My boss and sweet friend cued me into this blog. The author does a good job cutting through the bullshit. Can’t believe what we just read now on the latest.
Love the comments here. One commenter said it’s like a salon in Enlightenment era Paris. I agree.
@David: Don’t kick yourself too hard about this post being goofy on such a day as today. Who could have anticipated that particular piece of fuckery?
Anything to make their heads explode is good with me.
Thanks, Nequam.
I’ve put up an open thread.
@Impatient and Gorgeous Bitch Becky
Welcome! Hope you enjoy it here.
I’m just driving back from London. I’m having a pitstop (coffee only of course) in a pub I like in Wiltshire. It’s a real country place. There’s a bunch of old guys at the next table discussing whether one day man will ever land on the moon. They’re not conspiracy theorists. I think they just haven’t heard.
Or possibly forgotten; they’re very much enjoying the nice selection of beers.
@Impatient and Gorgeous Bitch Becky:
Women pointing at themselves? So! How ’bout my girl Joan Jett in the I Love Rock & Roll video. I think she points at herself.
Here you go: 1:01-1:04:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMsazR6Tnf8
@Alan Robertshaw:
There’s a bunch of old guys at the next table discussing whether one day man will ever land on the moon. They’re not conspiracy theorists. I think they just haven’t heard.
Or possibly forgotten; they’re very much enjoying the nice selection of beers.
Possibly including Old Shoggoth Peculiar?
@Full Metal Ox
Oh, you found it and delivered it to me relatively quickly. Ha. Good. I’m just like my nym. Of course my first name isn’t really Becky. That’s just to fuck with incels. But I’m also gorgeous as well as impatient!!!!!!! Yeah.
Can’t bear to read the horror in the other thread. It’s nicer here to think of finding the cute boys and making them do what I want. So. That’s why the Joan Jett song came up. My boss and friend is like that also. And we lllllloooovvvvveeee being complete bitches about it.
@Victorious Parasol
Thank you!!!! From all your comments you’re clearly a doll!!!!
@ full metal ox
I’d say more like ‘probably’. I do like Wiltshire; but it has a real ‘don’t go out on the moors’ vibe. I appreciate the irony of someone living in Cornwall saying that.
But I did get to see my favourite (not actually a) Henge.
@Alan: If it’s not a henge, what is it? Stone circle of the non-hengey type?
I learned early on that going out on the moors was a bad idea. Either there were footpads and murderers, or eldritch Hammer Films beasts, and the best you can do is disturbed people wandering around all lovelorn. (Possibly in semaphore)
@ gss ex-noob
Archaeologists have gone with “proto-henge”.
The word henge does derive from Stonehenge (and there are various proposed etymologies as to what it actually means) but although there are various classes of henge, antiquarians decided that the definition would be restricted to circular monuments with an internal ditch and an eternal bank.
Stonehenge has an external ditch; so it doesn’t meet the criteria.
And that’s the same definition archaeologists use today. It’s the blooming Pluto thing all over again.
The definition also includes ‘located within the British Isles’. So although there are some similar, and possibly related, earthworks on the Continent, they have to make do with “Henge type monument”.
@Alan Robertshaw:
And that’s the same definition archaeologists use today. It’s the blooming Pluto thing all over again.
Add a dash of interpretatio nordica, and Pluto as dwarf planet can be retconned quite elegantly into Greco-Roman classical mythology and astrological correspondences: what are dwarves if not foreboding denizens of the netherworld and custodians of its mineral riches? (I’ve personally taken to personifying Pluto as Peter Dinklage.)