Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Through the OTHER side of the Looking Glass..

Ive got something to say.
After all this time i thought of something.

I had an epiphany the other day, in Half Price Books.

When I first got seriously into modeling, and began to have some degree of success, I thought to myself "i cant believe I'm doing this/seeing this/cant believe I'm here." I thought that I was finally doing something interesting, finally had a world that someone would want to look into. And so I should move from obsessively documenting the things that pass me by in notebooks to obsessively displaying it in blogs. because its interesting. People want to read this. Live vicariously.

Well, the other day I went to the fashion section of Half Price Books, looking really for this Japanese street fashion book that I can't think of the name of, or at least something visually inspiring. But all they really had was a handful of books about models, certain models, or models in general. Things with titles like "Model: Life Behind the Lens".

And I involuntarily though something to the effect of, "How boring."

It caught me off guard, that thought. I remembered that I used to be one of them, I used to attempt to create exactly this kind of media. I used to think these things were interesting, right? It hit me.. I don't think I ever did think the soulless documentation of models because they are models was interesting, in and of itself. I thought it was interesting because I was trying to do it, and trying to find a way to sell it, so I looked for examples.

"Its only really interesting to the people who would rather be there instead of you."

Its funny how much I've changed, how much I don't even wish for the thing that not so long ago I hated giving up. I see girls I know who are still doing it, and I don't feel a wistfulness about it anymore, I think, if anything, I almost feel a relief when I see facebook posts - back and forth, telling industry people how great they are, using the vocabulary of friends just a little over-zealously to put in place a relationship that does not yet exist but is desired. I'm glad it isn't me, that I don't have to do that anymore.

A little caveat: I am not saying that I look down on modeling, or find everything about it boring. Only that at one time, I thought it was enough to make a story interesting and now I think it isn't enough. There are some people who can tell the story of their lives modeling with a vision that makes it interesting - there's at least one on my blog roll. This is more an arraignment of myself and the particular way I bought into it than anything else.

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