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PART#2

By Quiksilver “It” Girl Krystal Simpson

…continued from last weekThankfully she forced me into college for a bit. I hated most of it, but found a new freedom in writing, and majored in creative writing and poetry. The teachings of my freethinking, open-minded professors were severely countered when I began writing for larger publications that had their own agendas in place, independent of anything I could ever say. I first encountered this creative hold after I left my job as a columnist at a newspaper, and the Editor of The Homestead Review for a larger publication. Where the newspaper allowed me carte blanche, and control of my own subject matter, the larger allowed much less, and I surely had to follow the mass-market media opinion.
When I got the opportunity to be cast in the reality TV show “I’m from Rolling Stone,” to air on MTV, I was exposed to the world of celebrity intimately where the focus lay almost entirely in external looks in all subjects, another rigid, and invisible constraint. Also it hurled me head first into the spotlight, and I was up for worldwide public discussion—and keep in mind, this is still a show about writers, although looks and clothing choices can still be judged. Before the show even aired, there were endless blogs, message boards, and commentaries on the cast popping up all over the Internet. I have a whole closet full of clothes I bought from that time that I can’t even stand to look at because I bought them trying to appease the masses after those judgments got in, and made me feel unworthy—and the worst thing is I allowed that diminishment to happen. I put away all my favorite things in fear of judgment, and I even grew out my Keith Richards mullet that I loved to a more suitable mainstream length, and did I mention somewhere along the way my regular blonde was traded in for platinum? I sure did fit the bill, but I had turned into a pawn in the game, but like I said before, I allowed it: I allowed my image to run my life.
Pop culture and media has become a subject of such supreme importance, and also supreme stress for women who are imprisoned by it through the fear of acceptance. These words “beauty” and “ugly” are human creations for judgment and control, and nothing more—but if allowed, they paralyze an individual with fear into either complying with the masses, or being labeled a freak of some kind, and cast off into some sort of worst dressed list out there. The effects of this are everywhere; women being pitted against each other in the silent contest about who’s physical body, and its garments are best, which directly corresponds with aging; men are only considered more desirable and attractive as they age. All those “silver foxes,” and “distinguished gentlemen” that are glorified endlessly, and women turn into “cougars,” that’s all we get– a desperate, hungry cat on the prowl. Women are trained to fear age almost above anything else, because it ties into our survival. We fear birthdays, wrinkles, being dried-up, and undesirable to the population, while men become “seasoned,” and only more desirable.
I honestly started fearing and resenting my birthdays after I turned 21! I nearly had a heart attack at 25—or “over the hill” in model years. I though, “Oh boy, this is it, time to go to the convent, or just whither up and die—it’s all over now,” what a farce. When the industry insists on employing and casting 13, 14, and 15 year olds to sell clothing on their starving lithe frames to the populous, the standard of beauty is completely unreachable. And it is those impossible standards that silently dictate what is acceptable, and worse, normal to people everywhere—skin that hangs off the bone, size 2, flawless. So now we have youth and beauty inextricable combined. This subjugation of women is so acceptable, in fact, it is desirable; it’s taken on an attractive mask in the form of attractiveness; all those products to keep you young and pretty, all the surgeries to stretch your skin tighter, make your breasts bigger, lips fuller, injecting poison to hide wrinkles of time, all the fad diets to keep you in an acceptable eating disorder, the clothing that constricts, the shoes that cause foot problems—and more importantly, the damage that is done to the spirit of the people who think that this is the only option they have.
We are at a point where there is really no freedom of creativity, and if there is, you better believe that someone is going to label it to fit into some preexisting category so it flows along with the rest of the social-norm that has been corralled. That need to judge, label, and weigh undermines the creative confidence of people everywhere, and thus undermines the self-confidence of the entire population that buys into the judgmental attitude. So by the time we are adults, we are so afraid of being judged, hurt, or lessened, that we are so hardened to nearly everything, and wear around masks to hide our true self from other people to avoid being the subject of someone else’s judgment. So we give our power away, we stop doing the things that give us joy, and we let someone else create our reality for us. We let other people dictate what it is we should love, hate, buy, do, how we look, how bad everyone else looks who isn’t an “original” like we all are—and our own creativity is long gone, to the point where we fear having an opinion separate from the finely tuned publications, TV, film, and music that has taken over our free-thinking culture. No wonder we are so scared to put ourselves out there. They convince us through the selling of acceptance, that if you comply with the airbrushed beauty they are putting out, you too can be acceptable, and desirable. They’ll tell you how to dress, “must-buy’s of the season,” and “what you better throw out this season” if you don’t want to be laughed at, “how to please a man in bed,” and “hair and makeup trends to follow,” I mean, I’m quoting actual magazines here, this isn’t made up—they even say they want you to follow! And if you don’t “follow” as they warn, you’ll end up as a don’t with a black box over your face, on a worst-dressed list as a “fashion don’t,” and you’ll be reminded that you most certainly cannot ever belong to the exclusive club of stylish “individuals” that heeded the words and followed in hot pursuit—no matter what it cost them, mentally or monetarily, it doesn’t matter, as long as they weren’t judged.