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Duck Lips: Selfies from SelfPortraits Alessandra Panizza
Duck lips. While I can’t personally see its aesthetic value, the thing that disturbs me the most about the entire phenomenon, is that the second most prominent thing about it (aside from the visual itself) is the constant ridicule directed at young women from grown-ass men. In a very Baudrillardian way, it is not the original duck lips themselves that I remember, but its simulacrum, its imitations by the ‘funny dudes’ I’d watch on YouTube, like Ray William Johnson or Smosh or whoever else. And, in a feverish attempt to rise to their extremely refined standards of social critique, I would laugh along at these silly vain girls. I never once questioned the fact that people who had entire YouTube channels consisting of videos where the camera is pointed at their performative face were demeaning young girls for their performativity.
directly to do with selfies, and I suspect it was named as much just to exploit the pop-cultural capital of the word ‘selfie’. It essentially used it to title a show that re-inforces the notion that the non-traditional route of achieving social and financial security through one’s image is inherently shameful – because that is supposedly not what strong smart people do. What this assertion conveniently neglects to consider, is the prominence of the selfie – more traditionally known as the self-portrait – throughout art history. Have you
This is a general trend I’ve noticed: the shame around selfies and their association with vanity, self-absorption, and attention seeking. I think it’s appropriate here to quote directly from a recent Instagram selfie caption of mine: “When I was like 13-18(?) I thought selfies were soooo shameful and vain or whatever, but now I know that’s just internalised misogyny and this is way more fun”. There you have it! Article over. Well, not quite. There is some interesting evidence in favour of this conclusion: have you ever heard of the TV show Selfie? It’s awful, so don’t bother. Basically, it’s about a girl who is social-media obsessed. A successful ‘marketing man’ converts her into a good old classy woman and, in the process, you guessed it – he falls in love with her, or more accurately, who he is turning her into. The programme itself has nothing
1. Above: https://visitcanberra.com. au/canberra-region/national-parks-and-nature-reserves 2. Left: https://waldina. com/2017/03/30/happy-164thbirthday-vincent-van-gogh/
trekked through the Brindabellas to get to the Yankee Hat indigenous rock art site, and while you were there, did you snicker at their vanity: all the art they could have drawn, and they drew themselves and their marital ceremonies?1 Did you call Van Gogh vain while admiring his plethora of self-portraits?2 Perhaps I am getting a little too ad-hominem here, but allow me this: if the difference is that the examples I just gave are skilful works of art, since when did the National Portrait Gallery get bulldozed?
