A Moronic Decision
July 2024
no photos of said event is worthy to be shown here until further notice
I knew I shouldn’t come. Yet, I did.
After numerous shootings and fallen flash kits, I need to say that working with a flash equipment is much more of a breeze when it’s indoors; outdoors, even if it means working in front of a indoors parking lot is just a hell of a mess. Winds blew my equipment like nothin’. My subjects/clients had to deal with that force. To be royally pissed off is a mandate.
And here I am, perhaps making the most moronic decision I’ve ever done this month; coming to an outdoor event in Senayan — Impactnation 2024 — that blasted me with fuck-tons of sensory overloads, bunch of Japanese idols speaking broken Indonesian, and winds galore. For some, it’s a blessing day when one gets the splendid chance of meeting their exquisite significant others, and for some too, for the lack of a better word, series of torment, or perhaps The Purgatory.
I knew it was gonna be pack of shits. I knew it was gonna let me down. Yet, like a nimrod that I might be, I came. I wasted my money and time coming there, only for the sake of Veritas.
Why did I come there anyway? Lemme check…
Photographing idols? I’d be damned! Finding even just one cosplayer of a certain character? That’s an enigma that surprisingly answered itself, as I finally met someone with said criteria. Photographing, again, idols? To be fair, most of the people coming there had the same purpose and… uuh… I have a rather complex explanation as of why I didn’t partake on this one.
Same old story, something something costume play. You see, after the photoshoot I’ve done in Setu Babakan, I kinda got a calling for bringing traditional dresses and ethnic aesthetics into the table. Beauty lies there too, and it’s a different kind of beauty rather than what idol dresses or cosplay can offer.
It’s a heritage passed by generations as a mean to highlight the unique aspects of what makes us human, what our struggles in the past were, and how do we define ourselves in the more diverse spectrum of our ever-growing global society.
It just has a unique appeal and nuance pop culture can’t offer. It was not meant to be something commercial or industrial. It was an identity, a sense of oneness with The Universe and The Big G. It’s sacred, and it deserves a better presentation, something more dignifying.
It starts to be clear that I, and perhaps you too, see what differentiates between a commercialized culture and a sacred one. You can see about four or five people cosplaying as the same character and see it’s barely has differences, with the only difference that is the dedication, if the cosplayer sees what they’re doing as a form of Art, a self-expression and therefore put a colossal effort to represent their characters and traits.
It shows. I’ve seen it multiple times. Something that, with keen eyes, can be observable.
Ethnic/traditional dresses showcase this even more. It’s not just Art; but an entire zeitgeist, only to be bestowed to those who belong to said ethnicity and those who have moral callings to preserve it. There are some special cases when outsiders successfully blend in and become the part of the zeitgeist and ultimately be eligible to don the traditional dress, and it’s a feat not comparable to cosplaying. Those are two different kind of feats, in which nuances heavily play on this conundrum.
You know what? Let’s talk about the commercialized or industrialized beauty, appearing almost often in parallel with idol and cosplay industry.
It’s still a zeitgeist — I think I overused this word, please help — but it’s on its own world, separated from the sacred world of human intellect. It’s a feat of human motivation to mass appeal, a form of control seen some times in Roman, Ottoman, or Mongol Empire. How would something be spreading rampantly and rapidly, if it does not somehow be able to utilize one of our species’ most vulnerable yet exploitable traits?
Or the same way how The Industrial Revolution came to be.
This brings us to the realm of economics, money, and profit, the fundamental aspects of capitalism, currently (and unfortunately) the only economic system that works.
Beauty sells, there’s no doubt about it. You would go ape just to get the latest facial/skin care products in which some of these fair-looking folks endorse.
Looking past my recent shots, I think I know why. Though I can say my beauty standard is as logical as a flying pig. I don’t know, but I also know.
Fair (pale, zero blemishes/texture, always accompanied by slim physique and defined curves) skin is currently what our species has sought after for the last few decades. Some theorize that it may stem due to how we biologically perceive fair skin as a clear sign of health and fertility and some also explain that it has something to do with one’s status and class.
To take some examples from YouTube comments, white skin — in Asian societies — is deemed to be a skin of nobles, who don’t have to work hard outside and be filthy, and therefore it has been a sign of glamour and charisma. If you have fair skin, plus fair body shape, you get all you want.
And this theme shows a lot. These East Asian girl band idols, their fans go Havik over them. They have some sort of divine calling to be just like them, or be able to admire them in person, appreciating them in the three-dimensional plane.
Their appeal doesn’t catch up to me, as I just don’t know why they’re that dang popular. Even my teenage self would ask the same thing.
Though this particular case, not the branding of said idol groups, interests me.
We can pinpoint a certain point here: fair skin. I’ve later read on other various sources that indeed, companies behind these supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ladies/girls understand to exploit our biological trait to find potential mates, that is by manipulating some parts of their talents’ body — and even physiology — to appeal to this biological plot hole.
Neotenous faces? Check. Refined cheek bones and lower jaw? Check. Nose-chin ratio? Check. Placement and size of moles? Check. Hair follicle density? Check. Overall body ratio compared to Vitruvian Man? Check. Low BMI number? Check. Balanced breast size compared to overall body size? Check. Zero physical anomalies (or abnormalities, if you may) present in body parts most strenuously used in physical choreographies? Check.
To play the Devil’s advocate, these kinds of preposterous measurements exist to help keep the masses engaged, as in you always want her, you want her to look like her, and we can give you her. That’s what I was typing about: an industrialized beauty. It has standards and requirements.
Come to think of it, this also was played out during the times of our past when only the most beautiful person will deal with the divine. Aztec and Inca people sacrificed their most beautiful society members to the gods as some archaeological evidences have pulled out. People in Central Asian societies will pick the most beautiful daughter(s) for the man that will be their son-in-law. Some religious figures have been noted for their splendid appearances.
We are always be intrigued by beauty, and there’s nothing we can do about it. And for the better or worse, our modern economics have helped to amplify it, and finally that brings us to this idol fracas.
There’s no one-size-fits-all conclusion for this, as some cultures do promote a desire to mass-produce beauty. And as I start to go halfway through Veritas, I start to see what beauty really means to me. It’s something that we should appreciate, but not to ourselves. It leads to exploitation and shaming, and any other egocentric problems that manifest in our modern society. We appreciate beauty as a sign of something outside of us, be it our wonderful Blue Marble we live in, The Universe Beyond, or the divine power that regulates our Dharma and Karma.
Beauty can be a blessing as it can be a curse. It can be everything whatever Homo sapiens need to interpret. We have such innate desire for beautiful people and things that it almost always leads to moronic decisions. And that includes me coming to this year’s Impactnation.
From my broken umbrella, I’m signing off.
