Scrolling through Instagram and seeing a representation of my face drawn by someone who doesn’t know me is something that happens to me every day. I don’t know how it happened, but my face is trendy right now. Despite the artistic differences, this girl is always vaguely Asian. This girl also usually has some sort of “Fuck You” agenda attached to her. Like: “Fuck You, I’m eating pizza and I’m still very hot.” or “Fuck You, I’m a babe and you’re boring me, please go away.” She is hot and she is powerful, and for a while, I was ecstatic about this kind of representation. How lucky am I that these artists are representing the exact kind of Fuck You Femme that I want to be, at the exact same moment in my life that I’m trying to be it?
There has been a direct correlation between the time frame that these images gained popularity and the time in which people have found me increasingly attractive. As someone who has always had my own face, I’m intimately aware of the public response to it. In 2008, when the ~trendiest~ faces belonged to tan, eyebrow-less, paris hilton white girls, I was pretty ugly in popular opinion and, as a result, felt that way. Now, in 2016, mixed race girls are glorified for beauty. Our faces are trendy. We are becoming the mainstream idea of beauty. The things I was bullied for in middle school - huge eyebrows, big lips, big butt - are now the things that the white girls who bullied me want to have for themselves.
Should I be lucky that these white girls are drawing a very attractive stereotype of me? Or is this representation just a new form of exoticism, a shiny way for me to perform the sexually exoticized other? Is this who I actually am, is this what I actually want, or am I just successfully performing an exoticized stereotype that has been given to me? What if I am exhausted by my sex appeal? What if I find it a burden to have to perform a hypersexualized, fun, wild, Fuck You Femme image all the time? What if I feel trapped by this stereotype? What if I continue to do it anyway because I’m worried that soon these white girls won’t find me trendy, will stop drawing my face, and my time to shine will be over?
This is the worst feeling: that my attractiveness is in the literal hands of white people. I want to actually know - what’s your stake in the Half-Asian girl? Why her? And what about the people who feel like they have to write themselves into your narrative? Can I have some of the proceeds from your next exhibition? Beauty is normalized by the representations and preferences of the people who have the most power in artistic representation. I guess that means I’ll have fun with my face for however long they decide this should last.
origamiaround
kaledo-art
stormborns
jacobvanloon
andulkaphoto
