People react to being called beautiful.
December 4, 2015 9:08 PM   Subscribe

 
Aw, that is lovely. I was worried this would be cringey, but the artist pulls it off and I just want to give each of these kids a big hug.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:16 PM on December 4, 2015 [8 favorites]


O the miserableness of high school.
posted by Miko at 9:16 PM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


damnit...why is it so dusty in here!!
posted by shockingbluamp at 9:17 PM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


That is so sweet.
posted by blob at 9:22 PM on December 4, 2015


Oh hey I know the girl who breaks into a great grin and says "cuuutttieeeee!" in response. Love it.
posted by naju at 9:27 PM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love the honest humility in a lot of these shots.
posted by inconsequentialist at 9:31 PM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


Again. Love this whole internet thing.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:45 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


"I'll cut you in the face" girl was the best.
posted by The Gooch at 9:49 PM on December 4, 2015 [17 favorites]


I needed that.
posted by drnick at 9:57 PM on December 4, 2015


Wow. What a grinner.
That was great.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:39 PM on December 4, 2015


"I'll cut you in the face" is a more modern way of saying "Aw, shucks, no!"
posted by fredludd at 11:03 PM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


I felt bad for the kids who felt so ugly they couldn't believe her. I want to give them a big hug. Been there, kiddo.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:11 PM on December 4, 2015 [18 favorites]


well, I'm crying
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 12:18 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


Retrospectively, I really understand what an idiot I was when I was in high school, shoe gazing endlessly when I should have told the girls I had a crush on some smooth talking 101 tripe like this.
posted by nicolin at 12:43 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I know one of the other girls in this...loved this video.
posted by jeanmari at 1:00 AM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


nicolin I fear you have completely misapprehended the point of this and are now making an ass of yourself. Did you even watch the piece?
posted by Doleful Creature at 1:22 AM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]


Very cute, love the variety of faces and reactions.
I wouldn't underestimate the flattering effect of the photographer being a girl and a beauty herself. I can't really picture a guy pulling this off the same way, with girls and guys alike.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:18 AM on December 5, 2015 [8 favorites]


What a wonderful video to wake up to.

I felt bad for a couple of the boys. They really need hugs.
posted by james33 at 2:37 AM on December 5, 2015 [6 favorites]


Doleful Creature: "nicolin I fear you have completely misapprehended the point of this and are now making an ass of yourself. Did you even watch the piece?"



Making an ass of myself ? I guess I am, but really, do you think that internet + camera = you can tell people kind of intimate things in public places and record how they react ?... I guess the internet allows you to find that innocent place where the completely obvious stuff seems fresh again. And I have to say that the idea of a social experiment conducted in real life that turns into a vid that everyone can watch is rather strange to me.
posted by nicolin at 2:50 AM on December 5, 2015


do you think that internet + camera = you can tell people kind of intimate things in public places and record how they react ?

How does that relate to your initial objection? This has nothing to do with smooth talking or sexual advances.

Also, it's fine to film people with their consent, even if you don't specify every part of the interaction first. It would be a dick move to use the footage without further consent to publish after the recording was made, but there's no reason to think that happened here, unless there is something I am missing...
posted by howfar at 4:01 AM on December 5, 2015


I can't really picture a guy pulling this off the same way, with girls and guys alike.

That's what a society in which the male gaze acts to objectify and control will do for you, I'm afraid.
posted by howfar at 4:04 AM on December 5, 2015 [26 favorites]


This is really charming, but also oddly painful. Being a teenager involves such an awkward combination of defensiveness and vulnerability; you could see so many of them going back and forth between the two, and the few poised ones who just said "thanks!" stood out as unusual. But it was lovely to see so many genuine smiles.
posted by Aravis76 at 4:09 AM on December 5, 2015 [7 favorites]


I think there were a few who felt like she was making chumps of them. I can't reach inside the creator's head to read her inner thoughts, but I hope she was making genuine selections based on her public statement of intention. If someone in high school did this to me, my reaction wouldn't have been as aggro as "I'll cut you," more likely "what's your game and why are you fucking with me like this?"
posted by Meatbomb at 4:11 AM on December 5, 2015 [19 favorites]


Oh Jesus I am crying so hard right now and I have so much to do today I hope you're all happy. Thank you for this. My awkward, acned, bad-haired, chubby teenaged self is waving shyly at you.
posted by billiebee at 4:15 AM on December 5, 2015 [8 favorites]


MetaFilter: really need hugs.
posted by Fizz at 4:30 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think there were a few who felt like she was making chumps of them.

My self-confidence at that age was so terrible (needlessly terrible, of course) that I would have thought it was a prank, not an art project. But the video was really sweet and I loved the moments of reaction. The absolute best is of course the "I'll cut your face" woman, though humor aside I also feel for her. There's no way to know, but my assumption is that someone has had some rough experiences if that is their first reaction, so I saw that as a really sad moment in the video.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:53 AM on December 5, 2015 [11 favorites]


xcelent!
posted by telstar at 5:05 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Clearly, a happy smile is the best cosmetic. And wow, there are some stunningly beautiful faces in the piece. I had to wonder if some of those people had ever been called beautiful before. Well done.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:32 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


What struck me was that each person, each reaction, if for only a moment, revealed a such a real, powerful, unmet need to hear something nice about themselves.
posted by klarck at 5:34 AM on December 5, 2015 [16 favorites]


A huge sadness as I watched some of the responses... seeing such strong personal surprise that anyone could affirm their beauty...how many years have they believed otherwise...
posted by HuronBob at 5:39 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


What an incredibly touching video. It was amazing to see so many faces light up with happiness after being told they were beautiful. It was also interesting to see the guys react to the compliment, as 'beautiful' isn't really the kind of compliment most men ever receive*.

* IME (YMMV), handsome, rugged and cute seem to be the more commonly used terms to compliment people who present as male, whereas beautiful, pretty and gorgeous are traditionally used to compliment people who present as female.
posted by stubbehtail at 6:00 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


howfar: "do you think that internet + camera = you can tell people kind of intimate things in public places and record how they react ?

How does that relate to your initial objection? This has nothing to do with smooth talking or sexual advances.

Also, it's fine to film people with their consent, even if you don't specify every part of the interaction first. It would be a dick move to use the footage without further consent to publish after the recording was made, but there's no reason to think that happened here, unless there is something I am missing...
"

My initial objection was just to point out that teenagers are really uneasy people, and that approaching them with the "you are beautiful" angle to create an art / social experiment is maybe somehow intrusive, whatever the outcome. But ymmv, and there is no judgment on my part, which is maybe why I expressed it through an awkward joke, not to be taken literally. I think the word I was looking for was "cringey" - I had to google it - as stated in the first comment ("not cringey"). Anyway, I remember from my teenage years that I was really edgy, and reluctant to do whatever adults expected from me. So I'm pretty sure that I would have told her to go away.
posted by nicolin at 6:07 AM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


This was great - thanks for posting.

"Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'
Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives
with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?"
-Hafiz
posted by jammy at 6:21 AM on December 5, 2015 [13 favorites]


Nicolin, they weren't filmed by an adult. It was a classmate.
posted by Windigo at 6:23 AM on December 5, 2015


the completely obvious stuff

It's anything but obvious to many high school students that they are beautiful.

If someone in high school did this to me, my reaction wouldn't have been as aggro as "I'll cut you," more likely "what's your game and why are you fucking with me like this?"

Ah, a fellow Gen Xer.

Just kidding. I had the same reaction. I found myself really wondering why she picked who she picked and how she manages to read as trustworthy - also, how many clips were edited out because the reaction wasn't what she was after. Also, I wondered about her criteria. She certainly went outside the bounds of what's promoted as conventionally attractive, but there's always some selectivity and I couldn't help but wonder how she evaluated people as potential subjects. Was she looking for people she really thought would be surprised?
posted by Miko at 6:55 AM on December 5, 2015 [6 favorites]


Windigo: "Nicolin, they weren't filmed by an adult. It was a classmate."

Sure, let's make it "reluctant to do whatever people expected from me". They're beautiful, of course. Still, it's a little intrusive.

Miko: "the completely obvious stuff

It's anything but obvious to many high school students that they are beautiful.

The completely obvious stuff is that by stating such a thing you're de facto beyond their defenses.
posted by nicolin at 6:57 AM on December 5, 2015


The flm maker did an artist's statement.

It was a senior class project, filmed a few years ago for/at a performing arts highschool in Chicago. The filmaker was a student and while some of the subjects she knew, others were just people she's seen around the halls. She originally had "social experiment" in the title but later changed it.

I kind of get where nicolin is coming from and as much as I love every single reaction, I feel better knowing that the kids who are appearing this are all now a few years older, hopefully in college or otherwise realizing their dreams. Highschool has to be the most vulnerable time of life. Also, the filmaker is a very conventionally attractive person, so I can imagine that it might have been at least a bit intimidating for some of the kids.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:00 AM on December 5, 2015


"what's your game and why are you fucking with me like this?"

I don't want to be cynical. I desperately want to believe this girl is genuine, because if she's just doing this as a feel-good-about-herself stunt, I have nothing but bad feelings.

In my freshman year, the most popular guy in my class--one of those triple threat rich, athletic, future Ivy-attending types, but also you know, cute and funny and so far out of my league I couldn't even imagine having enough confidence to crush on him--asked me to dance at Homecoming Dance. His line to me was that he was asking the prettiest girls in school to dance. I spent those few moments--the entire length of The Bangles "Eternal Flame"--in this wholly gobsmacked state of wonder in which I danced with him, aware of absolutely everything and nothing very clearly, my hands shaking, my head spinning. And after the song ended, he kissed me on the cheek, said "Thank You" and walked away. I stood there like a slack-jawed puddle of wet jello, wondering if this meant we were dating, if it meant I was actually pretty and if I could reasonably expect to date a guy like that guy. I went back to my corner, where I didn't have any friends and no one was talking to me, basking in What Ifs until the next slow dance, when I puffed myself up and waited for Popular Guy's approach. Instead, I watched him walk up the bleachers to another pariah, a girl people made fun of in the halls and the bathrooms, a girl that had been the recipient of loads of bullying. He asked her to dance.

There were, like, five more slow dances that night. Popular Guy systematically picked girls no one else would pick. The weird, the ugly, the unloved, the grotesque. At least that's how it looked to me, as I realized (though I guess I'd always know) that I was myself so undesirable, so unpopular, so unlovable that the most popular guy in my school saw me as an object of pure, pathetic, pity, to whom he could hold his nose and patronize for the length of a pop song and then feel like a fucking saint for the rest of the semester. And I realized this would endear him to students and faculty alike. This would polish his already sterling credentials. He would probably write a college essay about it. "That time I danced with the weird fat girl at Homecoming. I thought it would be totally gross, but I think I learned something about humanity"

Feeling some perfect combination of rage, humiliation and sadness, I left the dance (no one noticed). I went to the lobby and called my mother from the payphone to pick me up. While I was waiting, Popular Guy came out with his actual girlfriend. He apologized for not dancing more with her. And she was like, "No, but you're such a good person. Those girls might never have a chance to dance with someone ever again." Maybe they noticed me. Maybe not. I should have been furious. I should have yelled at them. I should have shot that self-satisfied prick down the first time he looked at me. But the thing is: I believed them. I believed all of it. And it would take me a very long time before I stopped.

Manipulating someone else's self confidence to make yourself look better is the worst. Nobody wants to feel like a check box on your service project.
posted by thivaia at 7:02 AM on December 5, 2015 [61 favorites]


That is terrible that happened to you, and I am sorry.

But maybe this girl actually did approach people she admired? Its an art school, full of the offbeat and weird and quirky. I'm not saying there's no social hierarchy of course, but taking the most cynical outlook isn't really fair to this girl and, well, you might be projecting your own experience. I saw nothing that suggested she was picking the people she felt sorry for, as there were people of all attractiveness levels.

I guess I choose the believe she picked a combination of friends and people she had always been fascinated by as she passed them in the halls.

I guess I personally hate the idea of everyone just passing by each other, nothing ever said, no one ever trying to connect or break the bubbles of self-perception we each have.
posted by Windigo at 7:34 AM on December 5, 2015 [11 favorites]


Let me be clear: I'm not accusing this girl of being manipulative. I actually think she isn't doing this to pat herself on the back (or if she is, she probably doesn't realize it). She's a kid. I think it's a project with a good heart, but like most things we do as teenagers a bit clumsy and a little self-absorbed in its execution.
posted by thivaia at 7:44 AM on December 5, 2015 [5 favorites]


If you watch her statement, she says she wasn't trying to make people feel better, just to tell them how she felt in that moment. Some were her friends and some were people she didn't know but just saw in the hall at school. She also said it wasn't really about their physical appearance, but about something she sensed, like their energy or their spirit.

I didn't get a self-congratulatory vibe from the video. Maybe I'm naive, but I was really touched.
posted by tuesdayschild at 7:54 AM on December 5, 2015 [7 favorites]


I also think that the Popular Guy's asking girls to dance is much more intrusive and awful than what the artist is doing here, as well as being more self-aggrandising. It's so dishonest and so arrogant at the same time; you're pretending to relate to a person on basically an equal footing of mutual liking/friendship/attraction, but actually you aren't seeing them as a person but using them as a tool in your personal fantasy, which is ultimately All About You. Whereas taking someone's picture is less personal, I suppose, and I feel like the artist was basically honest with her subjects. She wanted to capture images of some very photogenic people, told them that's what she wanted, and did what she said she was going to do. I don't think she selected people on a basis that is pitying or pointed at all - some of the kids are obviously very attractive in the conventional sense, and all of them have distinctive and interesting faces. The video tells you much more about the people it portrays than the artist - it wants to tell you that they're beautiful, which they are, and it also showcases their surprise at the thought in a way that is slightly painful but is ultimately intended to be part of the portrait of them as individuals. I think it is slightly teenagery in its earnestness and eagerness, but I don't find it self-absorbed.
posted by Aravis76 at 8:05 AM on December 5, 2015 [9 favorites]


Thivia, I liked your comment because it was such a powerful story, but I will say I felt like something a little different was going on in the video. Namely, I thought she did capture beauty. Over and over, I was like, wow, that's what we mean when we say a face lights up: this sudden glow. And it's so *rare* to see real faces, shot in close-up, without makeup or filters or fancy lighting tricks, without all their 'imperfections' masked, looking happy like that, and it does make them beautiful.

I mean, zits! When was the last time you saw a person with zits smile into a camera, looking happy? Or braces? Or, to take a more personal example, I've got a kind of wonky bite that gives me a super gummy smile when I grin, and I've been really self conscious about it lately for some reason, and in the middle of the video this girl with the same smile as me smiled, and I was like, wow. Actually, that smile, which changes her whole face, is actually super fucking charming, and maybe that's what people see when they look at me, as opposed to yuck, that lady needs some adult orthodontia, which is how I've been feeling every time I see a picture of myself. The genuineness of the smile *did* translate into beauty to me. I responded to it with that same kind of heart-jump more traditional beauty provokes. And it was cool to find that in myself, and to realize that the kind of beauty and physical appeal we're used to being sold is just a tiny sliver of the actual beauty out there.

It's just a genuinely more expansive definition of beauty, one that reveals how parched and bland and limited our cultural offerings are.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 8:11 AM on December 5, 2015 [35 favorites]


Yeah, it was the transformations of the slightly defensive or unsure expressions into smiles full of genuine surprise and happiness that touched me.
posted by billiebee at 8:31 AM on December 5, 2015 [10 favorites]


pretentious illiterate, I'm taking snips of comments I find beautiful:

Actually, that smile, which changes her whole face, is actually super fucking charming, and maybe that's what people see when they look at me, as opposed to yuck, that lady needs some adult orthodontia, which is how I've been feeling every time I see a picture of myself. The genuineness of the smile *did* translate into beauty to me. I responded to it with that same kind of heart-jump more traditional beauty provokes. And it was cool to find that in myself, and to realize that the kind of beauty and physical appeal we're used to being sold is just a tiny sliver of the actual beauty out there.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:36 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


madamjujujive- and reading that, I totally just made the face those kids make in the video, even though I'm sitting alone in my house!
posted by pretentious illiterate at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


That's what a society in which the male gaze acts to objectify and control will do for you, I'm afraid.

The HETEROSEXUAL male gaze, dear. Maybe a boy would get away with this at this arts magnet high school, but in the real world and at any of the other public high schools in Chicago absolutely, he would be murdered for approaching male students. He would be dead. Slaughtered.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 9:45 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


The HETEROSEXUAL male gaze, dear.

I actually thought about trying to discuss this distinction myself, and it is significant, but it's also complex in its relationship to both sexuality and to Mulvey's original concept of the male gaze in art and subsequent applications of the concept more broadly. More complex than I feel up to doing justice to, at the moment, if I am honest. Suffice it to say that I think there are points of interaction between the functioning of homophobia and of the male gaze as means of oppression and control that could be usefully and interestingly discussed at length.
posted by howfar at 9:56 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


I like this video because maybe I can think of it instead of reflexively hating everyone in this school and their parents when I try to ride my bike past it and all the parents picking up their kids are double parked in the bike lane. /grump
posted by misskaz at 10:04 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


Here's a curious story from last week's This American Life about the teenage behavior of communicating beauty in social media (http://tal.fm/573/1).
posted by xtian at 12:54 PM on December 5, 2015


I agree with the wariness, because high school is brutal and insincere kindness is almost worse than straight up unkindness. But I didn't get a sense of insincerity from her in the presentation of the thing. I guess my reaction to this was informed by the "it's a performing arts school" so the kids are probably more accustomed to art projects, talking about beauty, people wearing their hearts on their sleeves, etc than a regular high school. Plus the sense that most of them know her. (I do feel a bit bad in case some of the kids had a momentary flash of "wait, is she saying she LIKES-me likes me?" and then felt let down that it was something she was doing with a range of people.) But I assume the kids who are in the final cut agreed to have their bit in there.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:03 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love the way that being told the kids were beautiful madethem beautiful, because those smiles and expressions just transformed them.
posted by lollusc at 1:21 PM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


Wow, this REALLY reminded me of my high school. I went to a weird artsy alternative school and a video almost exactly like this exists where a person everyone liked goes around saying "do something cool!" and then compliments the person. Someone just dug it up a few months ago and it was a completely shock and really cute to watch it again.

I think there were a few who felt like she was making chumps of them. I can't reach inside the creator's head to read her inner thoughts, but I hope she was making genuine selections based on her public statement of intention. If someone in high school did this to me, my reaction wouldn't have been as aggro as "I'll cut you," more likely "what's your game and why are you fucking with me like this?"

I was made fun of and harassed a lot in high school. And unless it was someone i knew/trusted, i would have assumed they were selecting people they wanted to laugh at later with their friends or something if one of the kids i didn't really know came up and did this routine to me. I definitely wasn't surprised there was an aggro reaction in there. I would have immediately been suspicious as hell and wondered how this was going to be misrepresented/used against me/etc with good reason.

Ugh, i do not miss high school. I had some good times, but jesus fuck were a lot of people assholes to me.
posted by emptythought at 3:39 PM on December 5, 2015


As a non-American, I find it both interesting and upsetting to read how much many people's experiences of this video are shaped by absolutely horrific experiences of school. I mean, I was a geeky kid with a marginally visible disability who had to carry a laptop to every lesson, and I got my share of bullying on and off in secondary education, but Jesus I hate to think what my life would have been like living in the US, given the experiences people here describe. Something to count myself lucky for.
posted by howfar at 3:46 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


I had a decent time in HS. Shitty education, but socially I was ok. Middle school is the one that sucked for me. I have no contact with pretty much anyone from HS (25 years ago) because I've nothing in common with them anymore. I suppose I feel more alienated from them now than I did back then.
posted by persona au gratin at 4:22 PM on December 5, 2015


Middle schools are pretty universally terrible, as far as I can tell. I taught in the middle school of an international school (one of the ones in Beirut) for a while, and socially it seemed like an utter disaster. I felt so sorry for some of the kids; a few of them looked like they were on the verge of tears a good quarter of the time. Miserable.
posted by howfar at 4:26 PM on December 5, 2015


Middle school is the worst. And to be honest, my terrible high school experience improved substantially after my freshman year, when I was lucky enough to transfer into a new school (small, private, full of fellow oddballs). I actually rather enjoyed the rest of high school, impossible as it may have seemed at the time.
posted by thivaia at 4:47 PM on December 5, 2015


Okay, well, if it makes you feel any better...one of the girls in the video has been a baby sitter to my kids. Her mom teaches at my kids' CPS school. The video was made last Spring. It seems sincere, according to girl and her mom. In fact, her mom had posted the video on her FB page and that is how I found it. I asked her mom about it and her daughter's reaction because, after reading this thread, I wondered about my impression of it and if it was different than theirs. Here is what she wrote (with names changed to protect identities.)

"The project was breathtaking. I had tears in my eyes. S-- showed it to me without telling me she was in it. I thought it was beautiful without her in it and when I saw her in it, my heart just fluttered. S-- thought it was absolutely wonderful! She was one of the kids that the girl didn't know! It made her feel great about herself. It also made her look at the other kids in the video and discover how they were beautiful."

Is it how all of the kids felt? Who knows. But I loved it. I loved the people the artist approached, I loved their reactions, I loved all of their beautiful faces--even the ones who can't seem to see their own beauty. Probably because I look at pictures of myself in high school and feel very tender towards a 16 year old me, who also couldn't see her own beauty.

There is some amazing stuff happening in public schools in Chicago. I know the press and the mayor want you to think otherwise. But there really is. Like these amazing kids from Curie High School. Or these kids at Crane. You can follow along with some of beauty that still happens in Chicago, despite the challenges, here.
posted by jeanmari at 8:20 PM on December 5, 2015 [16 favorites]


lollusc -- I had the same experience-- actually even before the smiles, these kids--zits, braces, and and awkwardness included--all seemed beautiful to me. As someone in middle age (just turned 45), I have had the experience of seeing photos of myself from that time in my life--even from times in my 20's and early 30's----and thinking, wow, I looked kind of handsome back then. But I felt very differently about my looks at the time.
posted by Cassford at 11:32 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


The facial transformations were wonderful, and by the end of the video I had a grin so big my face hurt. Thanks for posting this.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:33 PM on December 5, 2015


ChiArts is a contract school (kind of like a charter but different), not a traditional CPS. It is housed in a building that used to be a neighborhood elementary school that was closed, which was not without controversy.

Still a lovely video, though.
posted by misskaz at 12:26 PM on December 6, 2015


@misskaz , yes, CPS is a contract school. It is a CPS school as it is part of the Chicago Public School system. The kids who attend it live in Chicago. The fact that it is a contract school has nothing to do with the video, so I'm not sure what your point is?
posted by jeanmari at 4:43 PM on December 6, 2015


Just an aside, hence the small text, as is the convention on Metafilter.
posted by misskaz at 5:09 PM on December 6, 2015


I was referring to the "Still" in the phrase "Still a lovely video" which implies "even though...contract school"?
posted by jeanmari at 8:25 PM on December 6, 2015


I was a pretty dorky dude in high school, butI had some oblique association with one of those "triple threat" guys that everyone was always talking about. You know, attractive, athletic, tall, bound for Harvard.

Well, this guy actually wrote in my senior yearbook that he really looked up to me and admired my individuality, the fact that I had never apologized for who I was. He told me that it inspired him to try harder and to be more honest with himself. It was very flattering to me at the time.

He actually did go to Harvard Law, and he's now a successful lawyer at an international firm. I still think about what he wrote in my yearbook. I think he genuinely meant it. Even though he had more social, cultural, racial, gender, and economic advantages than 99% of his classmates he was still just a kid and completely oblivious to those advantages. He was a good person and was honestly interested in the lives of his fellow classmates. That he lacked the awareness --at age seventeen!-- to understand how privileged he truly was, doesn't diminish the fact that he wanted to do good in his world.

In short, the kids are alright and I really like this video.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:18 PM on December 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


Reminds me of my favorite Roald Dahl quote:

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

That's what we see in this video, the surprise and pleasure shining out of their faces. Made me tear up a little.

Coincidentally, this project also validates the quote I chose for my high school senior yearbook quote, by Edna St. Vincent Millay - "Beauty is whatever gives joy."
posted by Devika at 1:27 AM on December 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


« Older Macs and Cheeses of the Internet   |   Ark and flood in one package Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments