Month: April 2020

Reflective Passage fanghui lin

Since very early, I started to feel people treat me differently when I dress up and wear makeup. When I am with my glasses and in an oversized t shirt, apparently some people assume that I am a quite boring girl. But when I post photos in which I dress up well, I could easily receive many compliments. My followers message me and keep telling me how sexy and pretty I am. And I also got some nudes which I didn’t expect to see. So here is the question, which is the real me? The dedicate one or the one who look just like a normal college student ? Or neither of it? Do people or audience online or around me really know about my character? Are they just seeing the illusion of who they want me to be?

There are three parts of my research, which are all about undercover life of different communities. In 1991, the documentary Paris is Burning follows a group of predominantly Black and Latinx people who perform and compete at balls across Harlem, where a gritty, glittery ’80s and ’90s nightlife scene welcomed marginalized queer folk.Young African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community “walk” and compete for prizes and trophies. They looked just like every normal individuals on the streets in the day time. But when darkness fell, they took off their uniforms and suits and dressed up themselves to become a member in the house and to win their glory.

As a negative case, the story of hostel exposes that some wolves are under sheep’s skin. Rich clients paying to kill and torture people isn’t just a story. In 2017, a 20 years old model was on an dark net actuation. Rich people around the world bid for her. Those successful ones, who look so friendly and sympathetic on newspapers, are actually having fun from abusing innocent people.

My last example is an interview of a Japanese porn star. People may have bias on sex workers, especially in Asia. But behind those exciting and sexual porn, she is just a lovely and optimistic girl who loves her job. And her professional spirit is honorable.

The cases above may seem far away from our daily life. So I did a survey online about followers’ impression on me. The conclusion is the real me is different from imagination of me which most people assume. Their judgment is a bit inaccurate. To better let people understand this, I took a video of me making up on plastic bags which were wrapping my head. Layers of plastic bags are like different faces of me in my life. They are also like restraint surrounding me and stop people from seeing the real me. I posted it online and wish my audience could understand it is too superficial to know about a person by their looks and behavior. Every individual’s inside world is complex. Making a judgement is more complicate than we think.

In short, my change is to making those who believe they are seeing the world clearly and correctly to rethink about how to understand others profoundly. Because sometimes blind judgment doesn’t only hurt others, but yourself.

Reference:
1.En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Ball Culture. [online] Available at: <https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_culture> [Accessed 14 April 2020].
2.Oprah Magazine. 2020. Half Of The Slang You Use Came From This ’90S Documentary. [online] Available at: <https://www.oprahmag.com/life/ a23601818/queer-cultural-appropriation-definition/> [Accessed 14 April 2020]. 3.Balcetis, E. and Lassiter, G., 2010. Social Psychology Of Visual Perception. New York: Psychology Press.
4.En.wikipedia.org. 2020. First Impression (Psychology). [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impression_(psychology)> [Accessed 14 April 2020].
5.Hostel Wiki. 2020. Stuart. [online] Available at: <https://hostel.fandom.com/ wiki/Stuart> [Accessed 14 April 2020].
6.backpackers, I., 2020. Is Hostel Based On A True Story? Honest Movie Review For Backpackers. [online] HostelsClub.com. Available at: <https:// www.hostelsclub.com/en/magazine/is-the-movie-hostel-based-on-a-true- story-fact-vs-fiction> [Accessed 14 April 2020].


SURVEY

I did a survey on instagram to know followers’ impressions on me. The result shows that not many people really know about what I am like or want to be, which means mostly people have wrong judgement. The question which gains highest accuracy is about sex orientation.

Some followers sent me message about how surprised they are. I believe by doing this enquiry, some of them would start to think of I am might totally different from who they think I am. I try to be honest with everyone and I am not ashamed to tell them I am just me, and I will always be who I want to be. I may have different images or appearance, but they are all me.

3. AV STARS IN JAPAN – GIRLS NEXT DOOR

Many young Japanese girls chooses to become a porn star and they feel satisfied with the life they are having now. By all means I don’t have any discrimination towards them. However some people do. Before they see this video, this pretty and innocent girl is like a high school student. But after they realize she is a porn star, their attitude would be changed. Actually my thoughts changed too, but not because her job, it is because her professional spirt and optimism. In her porn she is very sexy and seductive. However, jumping out of the screen, she is just a normal girl who loves her career and life.

4. FIRST IMPRESSION RESEARCH

We define first impressions as the initial perception and formation of thoughts about another.

we might consider social thought. From there, we go on to the upper cortex-that part of the brain that most separates us humans from other primates and in which the information takes on a meaning that is truly social. Finally, we end with the processing of this information in the frontal and prefrontal cortices. This is where the information drawn in from the outside world becomes fully processed and crosses the barrier into what we think of as consciousness and the mind. At that point, our impression of another is formed, and this is where we begin to have ac- cess to that impression via our conscious thought. At consciousness, the rest of what is discussed in this book begins-our impressions of others and the concomitant, and resultant, behaviors, processes, and complex relationships that color our social world.

The first step in the person perception process begins with perceptions derived from various sensory systems. Although the neural correlates of touch (Deibert, Kraut, Kremen, & Hart, 1999), taste (Norgren, Hajnal, & Mungarndee, 2006), and smell (Shepherd, 2006) have all been explored, arguably the principal senses for perceiving other peo- ple are sight and sound. Therefore, we consider the starting point of person perception and first impressions to lie within the domains of the visual and auditory cortices, with both human behavior and the neuroimaging research tending to focus on the former (sight) over the latter (sound).

The tone of voice has been consistently shown in behavioral studies to signal cues to identity (e.g., Gaudio, 1994), emotion (e.g., Johnstone, van Reekum, Oakes, & Davidson, 2006), and intent and thought (see Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001). Hence, perceptions of others’ voices play an important role in forming first impressions, as well.
The social and cognitive neuroscience of vision has received much more attention than the social and cognitive neuroscience of audition, largely owing to the technological limitations of imaging auditory acti- vation in the noisy environment of the fMRI scanner.

It takes just one-tenth of a second for us to judge someone and make a first impression.Research finds that the more time participants are afforded to form the impression, the more confidence in impressions they report. Not only are people quick to form first impressions, they are also fairly accurate when the target presents him or herself genuinely. People are generally not good at perceiving feigned emotions or detecting lies.Research participants who reported forming accurate impressions of specific targets did tend to have more accurate perceptions of specific targets that aligned with others’ reports of the target. Individuals are also fairly reliable at understanding the first impression that he/she will project to others.

Upon seeing photographs of straight, gay, and bisexual people, participants correctly identified gay versus straight males and females at above-chance levels based solely on seeing a picture of their face, however, bisexual targets were only identified at chance. The findings suggest a straight-non straight dichotomy in the categorization of sexual orientation.

REASERCH

1. BALL CULTURE – CROSSDRESSERS IN THE NIGHT

The TV series POSE is an American drama television series about New York City’s African-American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene in the 1980s and, in the second season, early 1990s.

Ball culture, drag ball culture, the house-ballroom community, and similar terms describe an underground LGBT subculture that originated in 1920s New York City in which people “walk” (i.e., compete) for trophies, prizes, and glory at events known as balls. Ball culture consists of events that mix performance, dance, lip-syncing, and modeling. Events are divided into various categories, and participants “walk” and compete for prizes and trophies. As a countercultural phenomenon, ball culture is rooted in necessity and defiance. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, members of the underground LGBTQ+ community in large cities began to organize masquerade balls known as “drags” in defiance of laws which banned individuals from wearing clothes associated with the opposite gender. ^[

Participants are mainly young African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community. Although some balls were integrated, the judges were always white, and African American participants were often excluded from prizes or judged unfairly.^[ In the early 20th century, African Americans and Latinos started their own balls. Ball culture then grew to include primarily gay, lesbian, and trans blacks and latinos.

Attendees dance, vogue , walk, pose, and support one another in one or more of the numerous drag and performance competition categories. Categories are designed to simultaneously epitomize and satirize various genders and social classes, while also offering an escape from reality. The culture extends beyond the extravagant events as many participants in ball culture also belong to groups known as “houses”, a longstanding tradition in LGBT communities, and racial minorities where chosen families of friends live in households together, forming relationships and community to replace families of origin from which they may be estranged.

In 1991, the documentary Paris is Burning follows a group of predominantly Black and Latinx people who perform and compete at balls across Harlem, where a gritty, glittery ’80s and ’90s nightlife scene welcomed marginalized queer folk (and notably, at-risk transgender women). Held at various locations, people would freely organize by their “house”—a figurative term used to describe the chosen families of those exiled from their own—and then pirouette down runways and celebrate each other. It was then, during a time in history remembered for the AIDS crisis, rampant racism, and transphobia, that much of the “queer slang” we know and love today first came to be; the same queer slang that can spark contentious conversations about cultural appropriation.

During 1980s to 1990s, African American and Latin American LGBT community chased their dreams by this special approaches. They looked just like every normal individuals on the streets in the day time. But when darkness fell, they took off their uniforms and suits and dressed up themselves to become a member in the house and to win their glory.

2. HOSTEL – A WOLVE IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING

Hostel II follows three American female art students in Rome who are directed to a Slovak village where they are kidnapped and taken to a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill people.

Hostel movies: where is the truth?

As soon as the movie came out, the main question on the viewers’ mind was “is Hostel based on a true story?”. Sure enough, it’s a very common reaction after seeing movies like Hostel: the fear that what you just saw at the cinema could actually happen to you in real life it’s what hunts our worst nightmares. However, in this case the fictional story has a lot of things in common with the real world!

The truth behind ‘Hostel’ has indeed its roots in the side-open spaces of Thai villages. Here, society is ruled by powerful, organized crime syndicates that, taking advantage of people’s poverty, lure the youngest away from their family with the promise of well-paid jobs. But what awaits them is a life of crime and abuse. They are usually thrown in arenas and forced to endure physical and mental abuse to please the psychotic gambles of rich people, who are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to see people kill each other.

The movie Hostel is above creepy and scary because it reveals a truth – The devils are hiding under sheep’s skin and may watching us in the darkness. And we may still think they are such good and believable friends. Even they may act like a really nice and sympathetic person like Stuart, it doesn’t mean he is harmless. On the contrary, a bad guy like Todd, he might finally comes to sense and starts to feel guilty. Blind first Impressions, in some way, could be a bid threat to your safety and life.

TOPIC & BACKGROUND

Since very early, I started to feel people treat me differently when I dress up and wear makeup. When I am with my glasses and in an oversized t shirt, apparently they assume that I am a quite boring girl. But when I post photos in which I dress up well, I could easily receive many compliments. My followers message me and keep telling me how sexy and pretty I am. So here is the question, which is the real me? The dedicate one or the one who look just like a normal college student ? Or neither of it? Do people or audience online or around me really know about my character? Are they just seeing the illusion of who they want me to be?

I kept receiving those messages, and I am trying to understand the reasons behind them. Actually not only on the internet, in the real life, I also feel bothered when I put on a ‘sexy’ dress and step into a club. People easily have a fist impression on me that I am horny and looking for hooking up on a Saturday night. And it is difficult to turn their mind around. These kind of impressions based on how people look or dress sometimes have no difference from prejudice.

Above is an instagram influencer called salvjiia. I showed her posts to my friends and they are very impressed. Some of them think she is like an alien or a freak. But then I showed them the ‘normal’ photo of her. They suddenly realized that she is a quite pretty girl and very stylish.

I deeply doubt she might isn’t like none of their description my friends are thinking. Seeing through a person’s inside world might be much more complicate than we think.

So for this project, my change is aimed to letting people know judging others by their looks or even behavior is way too superficial. We shall stop imposing impressions that seems very reasonable on others.