Modelling

Acting Natural

When you think of modelling, what do you think? I think being told to “act natural” but with the unspoken understanding that you are supposed to act naturally super cool with whatever the latest vibe of cool is which varies, and sell whatever the heck you’re wearing, whether that’s sunglasses, or ski jackets and people are always staring. I think of Zoolander and satirical faces. I think of hellaciously ridiculous parties at exclusive places. The best and the worst, all so creative and diverse.

When I first started modelling- it was a different time for that industry. I recall feeling as though you didn’t have to be a model 24/7, like any job, you took your hat off at the end of the day. I mean, you weren’t expected to model the whole life and film it like a reality tv show. You were a model at the castings. You were a paid model at the shoot. You were a model in the print catalogue. But elsewhere, you were just yourself, who works as a model as your job. You could socialite about it; go out and get the best table at a restaurant about it. A major change involved was entirely related to everyone’s phone in their pocket and the phenomena of “instagram models”.

I started modelling in 2012. There were no such thing as “instagram models”. You were signed to a modelling agency and other people negotiating your schedule/rates/meetings with modelling brands, clients, photographers, etc. That’s still a thing today, but totally different still, than it once was. We had giant books with our photoshoots printed out and displayed in them for castings. Haha, y’know it sounds so old fashion but this was how “content” was produced. Some modelling agencies were even known to charge girls different prices for their “modelling book”. Also whether or not you were set up on free test shoots with photographers when you just signed or if the modelling agency charged you for that. Just a silly tidbit of the dramas back then haha.

Within my second year of modelling, Instagram started to grow beyond the novel photo filtering app. Brands began asking you to list your instagram handle on casting sheets so clients could see your latest modelling photos there and your days-in-the-life photos of you as a “real person”. The app was still just photos and some filters. Selfies were a real novelty. So many campaign photoshoots I did between 2013-2015 would have me pose like I was taking a selfie with a prop phone haha, just “acting natural”.

Over a decade 2012-2022, typical modelling rates lowered in favor of social media celebrityism and influencers. Brands started editing out model’s faces for cheaper rates. Body positive ideas led to people with “normal jobs” to do modelling spontaneously for bigger brands. Brands started hiring models from apps where they could produce a shoot significantly cheaper and without negotiating with agents. Everything oriented to edits, captions, likes, numbers, data analytics, and perception on small screens iNsTaNtAnEoUsLy, rather than quarterly presentations strategized years before. Usage for a season even changed. So much less media even in print. Digital apps with location data, designed for modelling privileges related to free stuff and discounts at restaurants, started popping up.

As a career, “modelling” changed immensely because everyone suddenly was one, to varying concepts, on that instagram app. When covid happened… photographers really went on zoom with girls “modelling” for them, telling them how to pose while taking screenshots of their laptop screen. It was spooky how reliant everyone became on keeping a following. How quickly it all becomes like a full time socially embedded thing, and not just a job. I correlate it heavily to how lame sociality has become.

I know covid chaos contributed plenty to that. Everyone, everywhere, all at once, so confused about what’s real, on their pocket screens. Sociality went from what people do, typically for fun… to what people do to network, take the most advantage of their career, friends, freaking anything they can… Love for the game?? Perhaps. Still… sooooo ugly & lame.

Of course, this phenomena didn’t just affect the modelling world of things, but it definitely leveraged it extremely, considering it’s all about imagery selling product… oh and such a fine line to selling the human and the lifestyles while you’re at it...

Suddenly, you gotta film your whole day and cross pollinate with someone else’s filming of their whole day and whilst having your hair done and being an actress at that point.

You gotta have like social media circles engaging with your content and wah wah wah. Unfortunately, my head just boils over at how much free labor and free data and wah wah wah. Anyways. Pocket social media screens changed the modelling industry entirely that’s for sure, and plenty others, of course.

It has changed the Human Being. It happened really fast… It’s still happening really fast…

What infuriates me is how it works so well… just because the social media slip stream is so fast, so overstimulating, so distracting, that so few can see that water is so shitty. They’re not putting it through any sewage treatment strategies… That’s what the human being is used for.

Performing the whole life as a job… is something nobody is getting paid well enough for and it is doubling as surveillance.

The Kardashians are paid well enough… Personally, I can’t stand how they’ve really sold the concept to women that they’re ugly, naturally, until they can afford the most unnecessary plastic surgery mutilation to feel some type of way about their status.

ITS SO BULLOCKS!!! Business dudes are like, “that is the real feminism we’re looking for! Look at that cash. Like yeah, lip kits and BBLS for the win”. Good one, guys.

Also, it’s so insane that when you open the tiktok app, not only does it try to give you ten cents for opening up the tiktok app, but its camera edits your facial structure to look different… It’s like built in body dysmorphia but everyone’s just cool with it.

Also Also, Facebook was built by a college kid capitalizing on the chemical reactions of involuntarily celibate men rating college womens’ attractiveness. The social media web is built on these reaction chemicals leveraged to capitalist extremes and it’s ruining our human beings.

DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE AI SLOP SPECIFICALLY MADE FOR GLUING BABY EYES TO THE SCREEN!!!! DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE NUANCES OF AI TECHNOLOGY AND HOW DANGEROUS GAPS IN COMPREHENSION ON HOW IT WORKS CAN BE ON SOCIETY! AHHHH.
All capitals for dramatic effect haha. I am annoyed there’s such a lack of leadership on such important futuristic issues.

Avoidance could be that celebrated trait of mankind that leads to our own destruction because we avoided facing how culturally embedded avoidance has become species-wide.

Classic me, being all like, “I’m going to write about modelling this morning. Oops, somehow, now it’s about how the world is avoidant and obsessed with controlling human dopamine systems.”

Oh gosh, now I want to write about how controlling human dopamine systems artificially with screens is probably related to the rise in autism and adhd. There’s probably a good biological reason for it, evolutionarily- and likely related to the autonomy of the dopamine system being hacked by foreign powers. MAYBE.
Or just a lil creative conspiracy. Tehe.