LUKE DAVIS
DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
MASK Project
In this project, we covered socialization, and how we have been socialized. On my mask, I did a beige skin tone, and glued on fake flowers, to represent beauty, and how artificial beauty covers up who we really are. I feel that I have been socialized as a male, Gay teen in america, and in my essay I focused on body image, and how that effects a lot of the LGBT community, and males in general. I loved this project because I was able to talk about things that I feel so passionate about.
TKAM Socratic Seminar
Key ideas:
I think that a lot of the main ideas that I remember is how for most of the time we were focusing on racism, (African American), but I remember how there was a lot of underlying tones of gender discrimination. Also one of my favorite things that I said, was we were on the topic of the N word and I was talking about how those words do not affect people of color, so it is not their place to declare whether or not it is an appropriate word. But i think that a big idea that so many people dre away was just putting yourself in others shoes.
Response:
One of my favorite things was my fried zoe brought up the “ Kill all the bluejays you want, but remember that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird”, and what she thought of that was how not to mess with things if it is only going to cause harm in the end, and she said more but I was amazed with how deep she went with that quote, and I really loved it.
Effort:
I feel that I came into the seminar really prepared. I put in the work, I read the book, straight up, I did the work. And I feel that I worked hard, going into break, I didn't have the book read before break so I sacrificed some of the time that I could have spent doing something elses, and read this. I enjoyed that we had an agreement and we never shut or were closed minded to anyones ideas, and it was very peaceful and I really felt that I worked really well.
Does this book matter?
For me, yes and no. I think that in today's society it can be relevant based on what you take away from the book, but I personally don't think that this should be taught, not because it should be banned, but for me there was something about it that just rubbed me the wrong way
Mask Artist Statement
Luke Davis
1/10/18
Sellers 1/2
Mask Artist Statement
Growing up in an era of technology and communication, often i find that, especially in today's youth, there is a certain amount of self image that tends to get distorted. Though it seems to happen organically, no matter what generation you are in, teens today have this image of beauty that is extremely unachievable. Why?As someone who uses apps like snapchat, instagram, youtube, my body image somewhere got distorted. For years in my life I chose to hate myself, because I felt I wasn't good enough. And the media didn't help. Things like Anorexia, Bulimia, etc. are often recognized as “Female” problems, and while I cannot deny the fact that women are more likely to have these eating disorders, I didn't know how to deal with my body image because people like me were not represented. Like the drag queen’s Valentina, Sasha Velour, And Shea Coulee Talk, one episode during RuPaul's Drag race, the contestants opened up about eating disorders, and how this really affects the LGBT community because of the high beauty standards that the LGBT holds up itself. This personally affects me because I am apart of the LGBT community, I feel those pressures on myself as well.
The reason I chose to put flowers on my mask is because I feel these pressures as well. And not only do I think that this is the unreasonable expectations, I think that is the people that we chose to represent us. { Us meaning it is LGBT community, Male or Female, Etc.} Rarely do I find someone in media that I feel can diversly represent me, and other people. It’s like when a movie features one african american person, and they call it diversity, it goes the same for the LGBT community. We come in all shapes and sizes, for example, if you ask 100 LGBT people the same question, you will get 100 different answers. And in movies, television, there is a common archetype of a gay character. Usually they are male, white, either wealthy or poor. Most of the time they are this fabulous character who loves fashion, known as the “Feminine” gay character. And there are the Gay women, who normally are considered “Butch”, they are as most would say “‘Just one of the guys” type character. They like football/sports, have short hair, Etc. And not to mention bisexual characters, who I don't think I can name even one.
I also chose to put fake flowers on instead of real ones to represent the impermanence of superficial beauty. All of the plastic surgeries, lip injections, makeups, all of it, can't last. I think that the reason we feel the need to not be happy with what we have is because we don't know what it feels like to truly and unconditional love ourselves. Because if you can love yourself in all of your worst moments, vulnerable moments, that is true beauty to me. But to each your own, take away what speaks to you.
Project Reflection
In this project we focused on general socialization and how that affects us as people. From watching documentaries about feral children, to reading to kill a mockingbird, we covered a lot of agent of socialization, { things that socialize us} Like religion, family, media Etc. So the task for this project was to understand how we have personally have been socialized, which brings in the literal mask or how we are socialized.
For this project, I think that for the most part I was on top of my responsibility, accept for To Kill A Mockingbird, and while I did finish it, I am someone who will go to the ends of the earth to avoid doing something that I don't like, and that's how it was for this book, but I think on things like my mask essay, and mask, I cared, and I advocated to write something else other than an essay, which really worked for me, and I am for the most part proud of this project, but in the end i wish that I had pushed it even further than what I did, but given the situation, I am proud of what I got done.
I feel that for this project, something that i really took interest in was when we looked at feral children, and how the lack of human interaction can cause harmful backlash on children. Even though this wasn't the whole project, I really though that was interesting and I would like to dive deeper in to what it means to be human, because I believe that is at the root of this conversation.
Technology Op-Ed
Get your pitchforks out, get angry, because I’m about to tell you why social media is not the root of all your issues, specifically body image. With increases in suicides, depression and anxiety, and eating disorder diagnosis rate going up, it is the easy to blame the newest and biggest thing in our lives-social media! You have it, we have it, it is very rare to come across someone who doesn't have an instagram or snapchat in this generation. But is it really to blame? Well, actually, I would go as far as to say that social media can have no effect on someone's eating and body image.
The key here is critical consumerism! Critical consumerism is conscious decisions made by your own political or personal views on the product {whether it be phones, food, beauty, skincare, clothes etc.}. It is not to say every aspect of social media is amazing and perfect for us, but to put this in perspective let's look on a HUGE scale. Guns. Recently, so much of news outlets have been focused on gun control, sparked by the tragic parkland shooting. When someone fires a gun, is it the guns fault for being shot? It is the same thing is social media. Social media is merely an outlet, and the rest is up to the consumer. This is where critical consumerism come in. And also going along with this analogy, guns can be used for arguably good reasons such as defense against intruders, hunting and gathering if needed- but you would give a gun to someone who didn’t know how to use one.
With everything whether it be a brand, people, you are accepting both the good and the bad in that certain thing. It is no different for social media. On one hand, there are beautiful inspiring things that can come out of according to a eating disorder clinic in Chicago in 2014 concluded that 35-50% of the teens that used their services used social media as a way of tracking and helping their eating disorder. On the other hand,there are more negative and potentially harmful things like websites like ProAnna.com where teens and adults {Mostly women} post their journey in anorexia. This is where it start to get dangerous.
Every 62 minutes on average one person dies as a cause of an eating disorder. At least 30 million people in the united states have an eating disorder, all ages and genders. Most times you won't even realize you have an eating disorder. That is why this issue is important. And this is why we need social media to use not for things like thinspiration, we need to let people know that there is nothing wrong with the bones they have, or the skin, or the hair, it is enough.
It can be your sister, Brother, Cousin, Mom, Dad, Aunt, Uncle, and you. Body Image affects everyone! Eating disorders and body image knows no gender, age, and race. Whether you have positive, negative, or somewhere in between body image, it affects you. Have you ever compared yourself to someone popular? And no matter what you do to yourself, it is never good enough for even you? No matter what you do, you are too thin, too fat, your bone structure is off. To get straight to the point, body image is an issue that affects everyone.
So, what is the solution? Well, there isn't just one. Everyone can only go so far to make someone feel accepted, and at the end of the day, everyone makes their own decisions. But we can do things to help prevent.
We need to let this generation know that they are not alone. Things like the times up movement and body positivity were made to bring awareness, they were made to let everyone know they do not have to struggle alone. So, you can sit back, point the finger all you want, but at the end of the day, social media is not going anywhere any time soon.
So don't point the finger, because if used with good intentions, social media can be an amazing outlet for awareness to all body types, and letting everyone know that they are no alone. Unity. Never division.