Can you follow this?

"What is this handwriting of which you speak?"

I was watching a show the other night, okay I’ll admit it, Americas Next Top Model….the new edition. This time (new network, new host, and new judges) the premise is to pick a winner by building the best “brand”.  The contestants are doing tasks and challenges to build their “brand”. It totally rotates around social media, how many followers they get, how many re-tweets etc… to somebody who doesn’t get it, this seems ____. I’ve inserted and deleted quite a few words but decided not to offend anyone so pick what you want.

They are all beautiful creatures and I looked up their bios, all a bit old for traditional new face models. Most are from regular towns with regular jobs but they are blessed with egos and confidence that most of us would consider a bit much, but in the business they wish to succeed, necessary qualities. Just what that business is, I have yet to figure out. They want to be famous for being famous by doing nothing of importance for the welfare of anybody else. They want people to follow them because of “who they are and how they look”.   They don’t really want a “job” where you have to show up and get dirty and be accountable. They want the “job” of being who they are because others want to be them. What happens when they are 56 like me? We have come a long way from the John Glenns and Jane Pittmans of the world.

I should have turned it off, but like a train wreak one must rubberneck. Now these are young women, our daughters and sisters and future female leaders right? They are in their mid 20’s, prime time to start making a difference (minus the pantsuit of course, I won’t abandon fashion that far). So on a recent episode they had to do some task of which I can’t remember but one poor thing was so flustered because (and I will quote as best I can remember)…

“OMG this is so hard! I wish I was back in LA. All you have to do is look cute and you get invited to all the best parties and get to be with the important people. New York is too hard, they expect you to talk to people! I have to talk to them to get them to invite me, but I’m cute, come’on, it not fair, its too hard.”

I am sure my text is missing a lot, I was too shocked to get it word for word. This is what we want for our youth? This is the LA point of view?  Now I have to somehow justify all this with what is happening in my own world, the online one I am attempting to build which unfortunately does revolve around fashion and image and social media.  At least my art roots are firmly ahold of this other world of mine. I see colors and textures and composition in what is being made and pictured. I don’t give a rats ass if anything is “on trend” (I hate that phrase with a passion because it is all BS). I prefer to deal with reality as in don’t go too short if your birthday candles take too long to blow out. Or tights…..they ARE NOT PANTS!!!! I am having a blast playing grown up Barbie with what I make and what I have to make what I make look good in a photo. Did you make it to the end of that thought? The only part of me you will see in a photo might be the toes of a gnarly sock that I forgot to crop out.

I guess I am no better than these waffle heads on the TV show. I am trying to build a “brand” I guess. The trademark for Hoard Couture has been approved and will be official posted this week by the US Govt office that does that stuff. I just pay the bill from the lawyer. I have a Pinterest page now for the fashion, a Fine Art America and Pixels pages for the art and production of products related to that, I have an ancient website for my career works that was what we all needed back in the day when exhibitions were my focus, and I have an online shopping site to market the Hoard Couture fashions both original and reimagined designs. There is also a Facebook page just for me, a Facebook page for the fashions and soon a Facebook page connected to Instagram only (or so I am being advised by my intern). All this means passwords and daily postings and managing data…. Heaven forbid anyone buys something then I will have to go into complete panic mode and find my paypal account and the item and put on some clothes to go to the post office!  Oh yeah, I have this site too and I know I am forgetting something, there is another place I am supposed to be but I can’t remember. I think I even forgot the point of this post.

Oh well, I’ll just end it now while I have some train still left on the track. I think my point was that all this social media stuff has changed our world in ways we cannot even begin to understand just yet, we need another generation to go by for comparison. But it is changing who we are, what we value, who we want to become and not necessarily for the better. There is a part 2 to this but that is for another post later.  In the meantime, if you want to find me, I am evidently all over the place, just not where you can really see me….and I am still in my jammies!