September 28, 2013

Miley Cyrus explains that youngsters' kabuki faces stem from autism

A recurring topic around here is how incapable folks these days are of expressing simple basic emotions, resulting in grotesque caricatures when they try to make any face other than that of an iPhone zombie. (See here and here.)

This broken system of expression is particularly strong among Millennials. Boomers and X-ers know how to and have had plenty of practice with showing genuine smiles back in the good old days. So when they make their weirdo face -- albeit not very frequently -- it's more like they're hiding who they really are, because you're not allowed to be yourself anymore in these stuffy, snarky times we live in.

The experience of Millennials, however, has only been with the sarcastic, glib, avoidant, and dismissive period of the past 20 or so years. They're not the pretty girl who makes herself look drab in order to avoid the inevitable assaults of beauty-hating bow-wows. They're the doughy, pizza-faced slug who slathers on juggalo make-up in order to suggest that "I can look pretty, I just don't want to." Get real, you skag.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, pop star and suspected faggot-trapped-in-a-chick's-body Miley Cyrus explains why she always sticks her tongue out and dials the facial fakeness up to 11 when she's having her picture taken:

"I just stick my tongue out because I hate smiling in pictures. It's so awkward. It looks so cheesy."

The key word there being "awkward" -- expressing basic emotions is awkward, presenting an attentive and affectionate face for your fans is awkward, and trying to make yourself likable is awkward. Young people today are pretty fucking awkward. And yet, does warping your face into a kabuki mask make you look more normal, cheerful, and not-cheesy? Nope. Check out a gallery of this freak sticking her tongue out for the camera.

So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. Millennials themselves realize that they aren't taking duckface pictures, staring down at their phones, etc., because it's cool, comforting, fun, or whatever. They're aware that they're just too damn sheltered and awkward to know how to behave around people who don't come from their nuclear family.

Miley Cyrus represents the more antagonistic subset of emotional retards. But her less hostile peers like Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj, and Kesha aren't any more developed. When they attempt a smile, it still looks smug or strained -- and irritated that you're causing them strain by expecting a normal smile.

Here's something you don't see much of nowadays. So cute and wholesome:

That looks like it's from 1987 or '88, when Debbie Gibson was only 17, yet looking more mature than bratty Millennials in their mid 20s today. Only when helicopter parents began to prevent their children from socializing with their peers did young people become incapable of even feeling basic human emotions, let alone express them to others. Helicopter parents have no one to blame but themselves for producing a generation of Lady Gaga's and Miley Cyruses.

If they want more Debbie Gibsons and Tiffanys, they're going to have to let their kids have their own (i.e. unsupervised) social life. That's what pushes a person to grow up -- having to fit into a group, leaving behind childish egocentrism.

And it's not just the "bright bubbly smile" look that young people used to be capable of. Check out the music video for "Foolish Beat" and note how effortlessly grown-up she looks and acts. Not one of those '80s hall of fame songs, in my book, but focus on how she presents herself. No caricature or irony back then to provide the lazy / retarded way out.



7 comments:

  1. Gosh I'd forgotten what a cute bab she was back in the day.

    ON the flipside, do you think that there is an upswing in fugliness that coincides with millenials?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Other than the obesity epidemic, nothing comes to mind.

    You might be interested in this old post on the change in body shape, though, between rising-crime and falling-crime times:

    http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2011/10/ideal-female-body-shape-during-safer-vs.html

    If you like more meat on the bones, you definitely want to be in a falling-crime period ('50s, 2010s). Of course, women in such periods wait longer, require more investment, and dole less of it out even when married.

    In reality, voluptuous women in those periods serve more as eye candy for the voyeuristic masses than as "try before you buy" girlfriends.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Millenial generation takes not much pleasure in social attention, separately has more anxiety, but is competitive and status conscious.

    So either doesn't want to be in photos (as being photographed doesn't put them in a good mood), or do and takes a self promoting, image conscious view of having photos taken of them. Or both at once. For more people, photos are more something slightly unpleasant or not that pleasurable that you have to do to promote your image. There's also the element that the photographer (when its not just a self pic) is also not sensitive to the subject giving them enjoyable attention (like a smile) so they're not likely to give positive, relaxing feedback to the subject.

    Making joyful, unselfconscious photos don't happen so much.

    You can see the difference in face composites of introverts and extraverts - http://i.imgur.com/5yVhB.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agnostic, it looks like you have helicopter parenting as the root of a lot of today’s social awkwardness. But what caused helicopter parenting?

    My first thoughts are high crime in the 1980s and the rise of the 24 hour news cycle.

    I'm a new reader, so if you've addressed this before, I'd appreciate some direction.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've thought photo fatigue could be a cause for kabuki faces. When your whole life is documented like it is for young kids today, making the same normal smiling face over and over gets tedious. Making a zany face is a way to break up monotony and demonstrate an offbeat personality.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Making a zany face is a way to break up monotony and demonstrate an offbeat personality."

    That makes it sound like most of the time they're making normal healthy expressions. But their default look is an iPhone zombie, and few or none of their pictures show them with real smiles.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "My first thoughts are high crime in the 1980s and the rise of the 24 hour news cycle."

    Right, crime rates and cocooning influence each other. First people come out of their cocoons, then shortly later criminals have an easier time finding vulnerable targets. That goes on until the population figures it's had enough, and they begin to cocoon. With fewer targets out in the open, with their guard down, criminals have a harder time and crime rates begin to fall.

    I elaborated a little more on it here:

    http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2013/09/mimicry-link-between-crime-and.html

    ReplyDelete

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