My Problem with Selfies.

On irrational beliefs.

Hi everyone!

Welcome, welcome. Today is a bit of a pick n’ mix of thoughts, so let’s dive in and see what we come up with.

“Take a Selfie!” Fuck Off.

In recent weeks, I’ve had two separate professional development courses encourage me to take “unflattering selfies” and post them.

The selfie is not the point. Instead, the goal is to challenge your comfort zone and do something that you fear might invite ridicule or portray you (literally!) in a bad light.

It sounds trivial, but for many people — including myself — it requires a bit of courage. Even writing that sounds dumb. Does it really take courage to post a picture?

The irony is that for me, and for most of my life, the answer is yes — but not for the reason you might think.

First, some context: I have a phobia of balloons.

(Yes, you read that right.)

Not all balloons: mylar are fine. What frightens me is the jump scare of a sudden balloon pop, and there’s actually a rational explanation for it.

Before an early birthday (3rd? 5th?), my mom was blowing up a balloon, and I was cradling the end of it with my hands.

And then it popped, and my phobia began.

For many, many years — even into middle school — I could not stand any sudden noise or even light. People blowing bubble gum made me uneasy, and camera flashes were a no-no. Even the click of a camera with the flash off was ick, though I could handle that better.

So, my poor mom had to fight for the few dozen of photos we have from a lot of that time, and in quite a few photos my eyes are either completely or halfway closed. The best photos were those in which I was posed to look down or away.

What began as a noise phobia has morphed over the years into what my brilliant and beautiful friend Aubree Nichols calls “Face Hate™.”

And again, I can point to a handful of moments where that crystallized. In this case, they’re actual photos.

Moon Face

The first was my 12 year-old passport photo in 1992 and the second was from pictures of the wedding between my mom and my stepfather in 1999.

In both, I have what’s called the prednisone “moon face.” Prednisone is a corticosteroid (as opposed to the anabolic steroids abused by people looking to build giant muscle mass quickly), and prolonged use of it causes the body to release abnormal amounts of cortisol. Cortisol causes swelling and weight gain, and for some reason it impacts the face most of all.

Because I was on major doses of prednisone (40 mg) for weeks or months at a time, my moon face was gargantuan. In my passport photo, my eyes are almost swallowed by the fat on my cheeks (and it’s actually fat deposits, not just water retention). The word that came to mind when I looked at it was “whale.”

As for the wedding pictures, I bought a really cute outfit with the help of my stylish friend, Heather, while spending the summer on Martha’s Vineyard. I had a cute white tank with some spiky tulle around the collar, armholes, and waist, and then a beautiful long black skirt with a red, yellow, and orange Indian-style appliqué with some small round reflective pieces. I thought I looked great! And many people told me I did.

But then I saw the photos, and I saw my moon face and my sausage of a torso, swollen and round. I looked terrible. And the guests, many of whom were Mom’s colleagues, would have known just how sick I was, all because of my face.

I felt I had ruined Mom and John’s wedding photos. And the rest of my life has been in part an effort to lose enough weight to have a thin(ner) face.

Sadly, my face is not a naturally thin oval, like my mom’s. It’s square, and has a bit of a natural double chin. Even decades after I last took prednisone, I can’t see anything pretty about my face. People love my smile. They say I have nice eyes.

All I see is moon face.

And while there are many ways to cloak the size of your body, short of wearing a burqa or a mascot head or a paper bag, you can’t hide your face.

That’s not entirely true: I do mask indoors to protect myself from Covid-19 and other viruses. And it does afford me an opportunity to hide a lot of my face, which is nice — though not at all why I do it.

In daily life, I’ve made peace with my face by avoiding mirrors and especially by refusing to be in photos. Over time, it’s become something of a joke: I rarely appear in the historical record of my own life. Friends and parents beg for just one shot of me to prove I was somewhere. I usually oblige, as much as I hate it.

And I do. I hate it. I’m not photogenic, even without the moon face. The current profile photo I use was a very expensive, gussied-up version of myself that does match me at all. I mean, it’s my face. Yet, it’s not. It’s my face shoved forward to erase my double chin. It’s my face covered in false eyelashes (which are weird).

That looks — okay enough? But I’m just not a fan of my features. The button nose, the chubby cheeks, the double chin. It’s a weird, odd face. One thing I will say for it is that it makes me look far younger than I am. Now, when I’m about to turn 45, that’s good. When I was 18 and people thought I was in middle school, not so much.

So even when I’ve lost a bit of weight — I’ve yo-yoed over the years — and the double chin and extra fat is gone, looking at my face is still just kind of gross.

I Know, I Know.

And before you point out that I’m exaggerating and that I don’t look as terrible as I think, I know. I mean, I don’t agree with your assessment on an emotional level, but I also concede that if someone made a list of the ugliest people in the world, I would not rank as low as I think I deserve.

Nor am I alone in this — I mean, Aubree is writing a book on this very idea of “face hate” as an underreported but widespread phenomenon made especially terrible in this age of airbrushing and filters.

And mostly because I’ve given up on dating and am pretty okay with that — if something happens, fine; if it never does, that’s okay except for the general difficulty of navigating a lot of things without an immediate support network — I also live quite comfortably with my face hate. I don’t have to look at my face, which is the silver lining of having it.

But trying to feel pretty or beautiful is just an Everest I don’t have the equipment to climb. The few times I try, I’m disappointed by the result. So disappointed it discourages me from trying again. Which, again, is kind of nice: while studies show that people who are considered attractive make more money, get more job offers, and generally are given more chances in life to succeed, I know I’m not so ugly I’m losing out on job opportunities. So, I don’t waste my effort on a futile pursuit of beauty.

(Though, I recently started one thing I’m proud of: properly moisturizing my face. It’s easy and is a nice thing to do for my skin. I can’t see any results, but I’m sure it’s doing some good.)

There is one downside I’ve just realized, though. Because I tend to avoid photos, I’m not good at taking them for my job. When I do take photos for fun, it’s places I’ve traveled. But the photos that do well for journalism are ones with people. Not me, of course; I’m the writer. But my habit of not taking photos means I’ll leave a reporting trip and realize I didn’t get a shot of anyone. I probably feel guilty about siccing something I hate on other people.

Anyway. None of this is an attempt to invite compliments or have a strew of comments saying, “But you’re so cute!” (“Cute” is what I get the most, and I hate it. “Cute” is not “beautiful.” It’s never “beautiful.” And it’s infantilizing. And slightly creepy? If you like “cute,” does that mean prepubescent children or young teenagers turn you on? That’s not cool. I’m not here to be a legal Lolita fantasy.)

It’s interesting to reflect on this selfie situation and recall that my relationship with photos is far more complex than just “I don’t like my face.” I still blink rapidly if someone takes my photo with an SLR, or any camera that makes a loud(ish) noise. Or even a phone photo with flash.

It’s like food. Thanks to my Crohn’s Disease and kidney disease, something that brings joy to a lot of people is frankly a nightmare for me. I kind of hate food. I mean, I like delicious food and sort of enjoy eating it. But if I could just swallow a pill and not feel hungry, I would. It does not give me enough pleasure to outweigh the discomfort.

And just like with photographs, this behavior peaked when I was a toddler. I used to get hysterical when it was dinner time, because I didn’t want to interrupt my playtime. (My gut was also not okay, which we didn’t fully understand until my Crohn’s diagnosis at 10 years-old.) And with foolproof toddler logic, I would resist eating at the table and therefore extend dinner time far longer than it needed to be. Had I just swallowed a couple bites and asked to be on my way, it would have gone much faster.

Even now, I eat far too fast. But that’s because I want the eating part over with. Eating is not in my comfort zone, I guess.

Mirrors. Photos. Meals. Next thing, I’ll have issues with breathing. (Which I have with my new horrible allergies but….let’s not go there now.)

But it’s time to do the assignment and take an “unflattering selfie.” So here I go, smile and all:

(Yikes! Even my smile is now outshone by the eye wrinkles. Man, getting old is annoying.)

Looking at that picture makes my throat tighten. Suddenly that plastic bag seems like a good idea. Though the longer I look at it, the more its power dulls. It’s just me, and I’m not willing to spend shit tons of money on plastic surgery to change it. I don’t love it, but I can accept its existence. Best of all, I don’t have to look at it.

Is there a hidden benefit to this face hate? I don’t spend oodles of time trying to make myself look good outside of exercise. Which isn’t a huge time waste if you enjoy it, but I don’t. And while this whole “take a selfie” business has made me dwell on my face hate, I generally don’t think about it. I’m more okay with myself as a fleeting glimpse in a mirror. So, no selfies, no strife. Simple enough. I don’t hide away from the world so that people don’t see my face. Strangely enough, what everyone else thinks about it isn’t actually important to me. (Unless I have spinach trapped in my teeth. Then tell me.)

I will point out that there are benefits to not being beautiful. Mostly, I don’t invite the unwanted attention of men. I recall a time in the 2010s when women were posting footage of walking around New York and experiencing not just constant cat calls but even men following them around for blocks. (They started videoing the situation in part for protection.)

That NEVER happened to me. I can count the number of cat calls I received over nine years living in New York on two hands. I didn’t want it to happen to me. But I never understood why it didn’t.

Let me be clear: men cat call and worse to women and girls of all shapes, sizes, and looks. So even as I type the words “was I too ugly to cat call?” I know that’s not true.

But I remain puzzled. If cat calling and the like is about power, well, I’m a shorter-than-average, smaller-than-average woman. You’d think I’d be a prime target. Was I somehow threatening? Do I have such powerful “resting bitch face” that it created a force field? Does my face convey “I have emasculating comebacks memorized and am not afraid to use them?”

I don’t know. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

I should also note that I don’t even hate every photo I’m in. Here’s one of my favorites, from when I ran into Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, the strongman who played “The Mountain” in Game of Thrones, at a gym in Melbourne. I was there doing some bar work, and he was there getting an interview before a competition. I asked for a photo because I thought the contrast would be hilarious, and it was:

Body looks pretty good. Face looks, well, like my face. But what a fun photo. Keep in mind: Björnsson is almost a decade younger than I am. His calf is the size of my head. Awesome.

Here’s also one from the same trip. I’m holding a koala, which scientific research says makes every picture one million times better:

And here, we’ve perhaps reached the moral of the story: koalas make everything better. Even our faces. (Just don’t pick them up without consent, like Lady Baby Wombat Thief.)

Hurricane Helene: Ways to Support Recovery

Love Asheville From Afar. This one-stop shop features Asheville businesses that desperately need money to survive the slow winter season. From coffee and food to art of all shapes, to simple donations, you can get a range of thoughtful gifts for just about anyone in your life.

Asheville Goods. Another site where you can buy themed boxes featuring a bunch of local shops — or customize your own!

Help Catye Gowan Feed People with Dietary Needs! This chef has been out there on her own since the storm began cooking food designed for people with severe dietary issues like Celiac and dietary preferences like veganism. She’s a force for good, and every dollar helps!

BeLoved Asheville. These folks are the best in the world — the ultimate model of mutual aid and greeting the world with love. Check out what they’ve been doing, and donate, here.

The Deep End of Hope in the Wake of Hurricane Helene: 40 Days and Nights of Survival and Transformation. A Ground Zero view of the storm’s devastation — and a community’s resilience — from a trauma chaplain who lived it.

L.A. Wildfires: Opportunities to Help

World Central Kitchen. They were unbelievable for us here after Helene. I don’t know the grassroots organizations running in LA right now — LA readers, feel free to share so I can include them! — but I can vouch for the amazing-ness of World Central Kitchen. A hot meal means everything in such difficult moments. I’ll add more links as I hear about places doing great work.

Support Karen and Ingin’s Recovery from the Eaton Fire. I was asked to share this GoFundMe for a journalist of color. If you can, check it out and give.

This Week’s Dose of K-Pop: ENHYPEN (엔하이픈), “Sacrifice (Eat Me Up)”

I’ve gone with an ironic K-pop song, since this one is all about feeling good about yourself: “I can melt an Igloo / yeah ‘cause I’m dang hot.”

I may not feel hot, but I love this song. It’s just SO GOOD. Full of sass, great choreography, and just a good song. Enjoy! I always do.

Love y’all,

Sara