Post-Feminist Paper Doll
interactive, Fall 2007
Here, Then Gone: Achim Weiland
Soundmarks: Rafael Attias
Tags: asshattery, cynicism, gender, irony, mock-heroic, pop culture, snark
Overview
- A self-help website that allows young women to re-create themselves as internet superstars.
- A project that attempts to deconstruct the mentality that women need to fashion themselves to fit a certain stereotype, and pose for stereotypical pictures for public display in order to get approval for their own sexuality.
- A monster-beast of a Flash game, complete with voice narration, that became my final project for two courses during the Fall of 2007.
- Making fun of Cool People™.
Process
After spending so much of the Fall Semester of 2007 examining dominant media messages aimed at convincing young men to turn themselves into ripply-chested Rambos, I decided to spend the final 5 weeks looking at what the corporatized-counter-culture is selling to young women.
Here’s what I found: They want us to take our clothes off and model for them, and they want us to think we enjoy it.
When there’s all these corporate entities out there telling you that getting naked and posing for provocative photos is a cool / subversive / alterna-punk thing to do (SuicideGirls, MySpace, Girls Gone Wild, American Apparel, etc.) then it inherently ceases to become one, at least in my opinion. (If it ever was one to begin with, which is also a debatable topic.)
I ended up honing in on SuicideGirls and American Apparel specifically. Both have a professional, well-designed identity, and both encourage “amateur girls” to submit photos to be displayed and consumed by their customers. They also both seem to have this culture around them that if your image is selected, then you’ve been somehow validated as a member of the in-crowd.
These sites have a formula for physical attractiveness, and there seems to be no end to the amount of young women who fit or mold themselves to fit that formula who happily sign up to display themselves. (Essentially, SuicideGirls are American Apparel girls but with punky hair and tattoos.) On SuicideGirls, the models also keep blog diaries of their lives, which become tediously formulaic after browsing even a small selection. They’re all living the hot mess dream: partying constantly, drinking to excess, spending all their money on tattoos and beer, seemingly just waiting in a sparsely-furnished, slightly-rumpled bedroom for some dude to come save them from themselves. (The fantasy of a “suicide” girl.)
Form
A lot of online games and forums have an avatar generator. You set up a profile, choose a model from a pre-set selection of forms, and set it to supposedly look like you by selecting skin tone, hair color, etc. I thought that a “service” I could offer young wanna-be SuicideGirls and American Apparel models would be an avatar generator that falls within the tolerance of what both sites deem acceptable.
Of course only one body type is offered, but she can be customized by altering her hair color, skin tone, tattoos and clothing. You can also select from a variety of popular personality traits. A narrator plays the role of the older-girl who knows what’s what and guides you through the process.
And at the end, of course, are links to American Apparel’s catalog and the various (mostly) lad-mags that endorse their products, as a cynical reminder of why porn is pushed so heavily as part of the culture of coolness.
Interact
Interact with the Sex-Positive, Post-Feminist Online Persona Generator. (Flash 8 player required. Please turn your volume on for best experience.)
