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How’re folks? [image description: me, Alison, in front of my bookshelf looking different directions. My hair is blonde and almost shoulder length on one side. Shaved short on the other. I’m back to orange lipstick but not bothering with foundation]

Originally published June 9, 2023

Me today. Bathroom selfie. Cafe bathroom. Despite the badass mild smile the last few days have been very fun. Grateful to be me and for my community. How’re y’all?

[image description: Alison, a fat white woman with blonde asymmetrical hair wearing red glasses indoors, in other words me. I’m wearing a yellow short sleeve top.]

Originally published June 10, 2022

One of the realities of my access related phone settings is that in bright sun I really can barely see what's on my screen at all. And so I present the following selfies that feel like a collaboration between me and my access settings.

[Image description 1: Me, Alison, a fat, white woman with red glasses, orange lipstick, and wearing a grey tshirt, under telephone lines with green trees, a street, a brick building, and a car in the background. My purple backpack straps are visible.]

[Image description 2: Me, Alison, a fat, white woman with asymmetrical curly blonde hair that in front of blue sky and trees in the distance.]

This is Selfitudes, a newsletter exploration of the selfie as if etude or attitude.

This is a space for explorations of photography, culture, and identity in broad strokes through the personal, the news, and monuments of art history.

I am a very young Gen Xer (many in my graduating class were elder Millennials); we didn’t take selfies. We all took photographs of groups at parties on disposable cameras, or shots of our friends together. Perhaps we went to glamour shots. We got our senior photos taken. As an older person I avoided them. They didn’t seem serious, or authentic, or even ‘good’ pictures. The vocabulary of the selfie is usually casual, but also silly or sexy or both. To be casual, silly or sexy on camera, with evidence in the prints back from the grocery store that might be left on the counter for everyone to look through wasn’t what was expected.

Over time, these are some of very reasons I’ve come to be fascinated with selfies as a genre, with writing and theory about selfies, and with duck lips and other poses.

I'm grateful to the friend who asked me offline about the image description on one of last week's posts where I described myself as a fat white woman.

I think there were really three components to her question, 1) why write an image description?, 2) why are you describing yourself as fat?, and 3) why bring up race?

Also, lots of my thoughts on these questions below, also, I'm glad someone asked me these questions. I felt curiosity in them, and an acknowledgement of lack of familiarity. I know my friends list is filled with folks with a variety of experiences with these topics, including some people who are probably more qualified than me to discuss any one of these topics, including people with a variety of lived experiences. I hope in this post and others I'm creating space for these conversations.

I'll leave an in-depth exploration of image descriptions for another time, but an image description is meant to provide information about the content of an image so that someone using a screen reader has the appropriate context. I describe myself as fat because I feel its a descriptive label and I would rather use a simple word for my body shape and size than use less clear euphemisms that suggest I'm uncomfortable with myself. I'm deeply grateful for all my body does and for my body. I was raised in a white American culture where hatred of one's body was as standard as dance class or lazing by the pool or at the lake on a summer day. There's a lot more that could be said about this, but bottom line I love my body, the one I have now, for what it does for me, for keeping going, for the transportation of walking, for joy in the summer breeze or an infinity of other delights, for being able to communicate with others.

As for race, if I wrote that the photo showed a person with asymmetrical blonde hair and blue eyes I'd be both implying my race and inaccurate (the photo shows my migraine glasses which obscure my eye color). As for implying whiteness with those attributes I'd be erasing black and brown women who have blonde hair and blue eyes. When I worked in an equity and inclusion department color-blind racism was one of the most common denominators in our work. I notice color-blind racism often even now, color-blind racism holds that there is harm, there is racism in discussing race. Part of why I include my race in self-descriptions is to combat the idea that being white is the norm.

[Image description: A selfie of me, Alison, a white woman with asymmetrical blonde hair wearing red migraine glasses, a yellow top with a blue polka dot sweater in front of greenery and an old brick building.]

Some headlines of the moment:

• “Porn Star Stormy Daniels Is Suing President Trump Over ‘Null and Void’ Nondisclosure Agreement,” Time, March 7, 2018

• “Lawyer: Porn star sues to clarify record on Trump affair,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 7, 2018

• “READ: Porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against Donald Trump,” CNN, March 6, 2018

• “Porn star Stormy Daniels sues Donald Trump,” CNBC, March 6, 2018

• “Donald Trump sued by porn star Stormy Daniels over agreement that stops her discussing alleged relationship,” United Kingdom’s The Independent, March 7, 2018

What do all these headlines have in common besides a lawsuit and names of parties to said lawsuit? The consistent echo of the phrase ‘porn star.’

Of course, not all coverage has used the phrase in the headline. However, this broad, quick survey from mainstream news sources reveals its overwhelming presence.