Hey, You! I Like Your Face!

Dude, this sucks.  Florida.

Do you know what I’m absolutely mad about?  Profile pictures.  I love them.  They’re awesome.

You hear all about auditory learners and the like.  I’m very visual.  If you say, “Yo, Mercedes, where are your red and black stripped leg warmers with the cute little brass skully buttons?”  I will first say, “Did you really use the word ‘Yo’?!” and then I will close my eyes and draw you a picture with my hands.  “Go down the hall to my bedroom.”  (demonstrates opening the door.) “Now you’re inside. Go to the left” (waves hand vaguely left) “bottom drawer” (pantomimes the drawer) “on the left side, under the black knee socks and the fishnets.”  I have to see it in order to tell you.  Otherwise it isn’t real.  Otherwise I throw my hands in the air and exclaim, “I have socks?!”

So if I am anchored visually, then your forum/facebook/bio picture anchors me to you.  It gives me somebody to picture as I type.  It doesn’t matter if you think you’re fat or thin or hate your hair or look like a crazy man.  I just need the visual.  I don’t want to imagine you as a disembodied being or the cover of a book.  Because that’s just creepy.

But pictures are daunting.  Especially since I just put the pressure on you and said that’s how I (and everybody else) is going to imagine you.  How do you want to be known?  Seriously intelligent?  Fun?  Mysterious and brooding?  Sexy and outrageous?  I’ve scrapped all of that. I’m usually just shooting for Non Geeky, and if it’s a particularly fine day, Non Homicidal.

I feel ultra lame in front of the camera, and I know a lot of other people who do, too.  But I also appreciate those who bite the bullet and take that blasted pic.  I like knowing what people look like.  It just seems much friendlier that way.

So I want to hear about you guys.  All of your profile pics, all of your author’s photos.  How do you decide?  Do you love them?  Hate them?  Do you enjoy seeing other people’s?  Would you rather everything be left to the imagination?

Also, remember my old Broken Laptop, mascot of this blog?  We fixed that sucker enough to pull all of the pictures off of it.  I’m extremely pleased, and will be posting them with wild abandon.  Hope you like pictures of sharks and blossoms, that’s all I can say.

10 Comments on “Hey, You! I Like Your Face!”

  1. I love my artsy-fartsy collage pic (my blogger profile picture). One of the art classes at school did it from a photocopy of my face. The original was about 6’x6′ and hung on a wall.

    Other than that, yeah, I have another “serious?” picture floating around. B&W of course. I look better pre-1950.

  2. Ha, Aaron, I love that picture! A 6×6 would be both terrifying and impressive.

    Natalie, I have you pegged by your facebook pic. And Jeremy, I’m extremely sorry to tell you that you’re a zebra with “I’m the King of New York” music going on in the background. That’s from Newsies, where the main character’s name is Jack Kelly. This is what happens when I’m left to my own devices. 😛

    At least you have your own theme song.

  3. Pictures of other people are great! Pictures of me, not so much. I prefer to show off my cute kids. So does everyone else. lol

  4. I have half a face and it was agony putting it up, one day I may have a full face (as long as it’s covered by a mask).

    I have one LJ pal who uses female movie stars as avatars and I keep thinking ‘she’ even though I know he’s a he. 🙂

  5. I can’t bring myself to post an actual pic. I’m never satisfied, cameras do not like me. Vanity doesn’t help eiter. I’ve posted my own self-portrait drawing on my front page side bar. That I can live with. Hope you find yours…I know it’s tough.
    Peace…Jenn

  6. Hey Mercedes! I’m a prairie dog who reads your blog and thought I’d say hi.

    And I adore my profile pic, even though it is less than human. I’ll prob switch to a human one once I tire of the chubby rodent/mammal/thing. But I’m not sure if that will ever happen…

  7. I want a pair of those leg warmers.

    I just picked a picture of myself in which I wasn’t pregnant or didn’t have a child’s head half-blocking mine. They are few and far between.

  8. i’m utterly spoiled because my brother is an absolute genius photog. I figure if big-name magazines pay him for pictures, he’ll be able to eke out a good picture of me… regardless of how shy i’m feeling.
    So my two cents are: have a competent photog who you utterly trust and who has the ability to DRAW “the look” out of you.
    My advice? http://www.jbund.com/ that’s all.

Leave a Reply to Aaron Polson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *