The selfie is a crime against humanity I have learned to live with. You want to take pictures of your face as if the whole world is excited to be your mirror? Fine. Do it. It's an immutable law of the universe by now.
Have you noticed pictures of people's feet becoming the new thing? Sometimes people will take a photo of the ground with their really trendy shoes in frame? Or someone's vacationing and they take a great shot of the scenery with their feet in it? I can't do it anymore. Your face was bad enough but at least the face has evolved to be pleasant enough to look at.
What is with these photos? Is it a declaration of relaxation to the world because I know for a fact that some of those angles are damn hard to get a foot in but there it is, a foot to be looked at by a stranger. A barefoot against an ocean backdrop; am I supposed to marvel at the beauty of God's design or look at the ocean? How can I decide when I'm distracted by a perfectly footish foot?
Sometimes people take pictures of the ground which, by itself is weird, but they always make sure to have their shoes barely peeking out at the edge. Why? To remind us they are there? To give us perspective on which way the camera is pointed as if we were too stupid to be trusted with the conjecture that since the ground is down, the photographer must be looking down with the camera lens pointed down. You know what? Fuck it, let me just put my feet in it so no one confuses the sidewalk with the sky.
I'm in a hotel room. Such great hotel art!
This photo pretends to be about the shag carpeting but really it's a cheap ploy to get you to compliment my socks.
Totally on vacation. Notice my foot relaxing.
To really illustrate my point about the ridiculousness of these photos, I enlisted two people to take pictures of me taking pictures of my feet.
Below, a picture of a foot with a great view. You might find this on anyone's Facebook profile who is vacationing or who just wants you to be jealous that their view isn't marred by a Whataburger.
But below we can see that I am actually not at all relaxing. To get the perfect foot shot I had to suspend my body in a way that could only temporarily defy gravity before my nonexistent ab muscles gave out and I broke my ass on the carpet.
Below you can see a foot shot of Nina taking a picture of me taking a foot shot.
Is my complaining about this social media phenomenon just a sign that I am growing older and will soon yell at kids to get off my lawn? Maybe. Is the fact that I'm writing about social media phenomenons a sign that I'm an out of touch youth writer for the New York Times? I wish.
Today I went into Target and couldn't buy a button up shirt in the men's section because they all appeared "too youthful." Then I passed by the kid section and all of their button up shirts had designs that an old curmudgeon could appreciate. No prints of dancing tacos, no prints of fish flying out of the water, just straight-up plaid with colors that matched. Men try to dress like boys and boys try to dress like men.
There's no place for this bearded, bespectacled dickhead in a Target.
Unrelated: Look! A new Eating & Reading!
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