After Buzzfeed posted some ‘unflattering’ pictures of Beyonce during her Superbowl half time performance this year her publicist asked the site to remove them. The pictures are pretty funny because they catch Beyonce looking super fierce. Because she is super fierce. To perform in front of more than one hundred million viewers ya gotta get your fierce on. The Buzzfeed peice is praising Be’s fierceness! But instead of removing the pics, Buzzfeed posted the publicist’s request. Do-yoy! Super embarrassing for Be’once. Way more embarrassing then the photos themselves!
It made me think about all the times I’ve woken up to find terrible photos of myself posts all over Facebook, for the whole world (read: one or two friends) to see. The feeling of panic and embarrassment and fear the someone somewhere is seeing these photos and laughing, because now they know how ugly I really am, sets in. I’ve asked people to remove photos or detagged myself in the less terrifying ones… but why? Does anyone really care that my eyes are closed and my hair is all greasy after a night of dancing? And if they do… what’s wrong with them?
Bad pictures are meaningless. Beyonce’s people should have realized that. Her fans are not going to stop enjoy her music because she scrunches her face up while she dances. Your friends aren’t going to stop hanging out with you because one of your eyes looks super creepy in that one photo. The only thing bad photos are good for is inspiring laughter. If you can laugh at your own stupid face then, well, you’re laughing.
Next time an ‘unflattering’ picture of you hits the world’s newsfeed… take a deep breath and get over it. Ignore it, or better yet, own it. Laugh in the face of your ‘ugly’ face. Make a joke, “Oh woah, I look like a dinosaur” is a great comment. Be cool. Be fierce. It is amazing how much confidence can be found in letting go of simple things like this. Your face is your face. People know what you look like. One or two or twelve goofy monster photos aren’t going to change people’s perception of you as a human. Let’s all (Beyonce this means you too!) stop detagging, deleting and retaking photos just to adjust our public image.
P.S. Check out Buzzfeed’s ‘Ultimate Ugly Face Challenge’ to see a lot of confident ladies face-hamming it up!
(images: Image by LUCY NICHOLSON / Reuters)
