[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today, we're going to talk about Tameka Norris's art
assignment, "Become Someone Else."
This is the challenge.
First, before you anything, take a selfie.
Then get one transitional item, like a mustache, lipstick,
a tie, whatever it is, a wig.
Then go out into the world.
Check the mail.
Go get a coffee.
Go take a ride in your car.
In the process, take another selfie and that's it.
We gave it that title because it's short and catchy,
but of course it's kind of an impossible idea
because on the one hand, you can't really
escape your own body and become someone else,
and on the other hand, you're always
psychologically in the process of becoming someone else.
So to those of you who took on this impossible challenge,
thank you.
And to everyone else, let's look at these responses
and try to answer the question, can you become someone else?
Tameka mentioned red lipstick as a transitional item that
makes her feel like someone else, and some of you
thought so, too.
Soleil the Singer went this route
and said two sides of Soleil, underlining the idea
that one person can contain multiple selves,
and she makes it look quite easy.
Haveyouseenmyfez also used makeup to transition
and thought about the difference between how
she looks most of the time and how she presents herself
online.
She says, the first image is a selfie
I would not post on social media and the second
is my current Facebook profile picture.
What this project has encouraged me
to think about is who exactly am I
creating this version of my identity for?
Am I selecting image two to share on social media
because it is the way I want others to see me,
or is it the way I want to see myself?
There was a consistent refrain in the video comments about how
this assignment doesn't even really have
to be done per se, that most of us do this kind of thing
all the time.
It's just that we don't usually pay very close attention to it.
Like here, we see dental assistant Laura,
who is a morning person.
She's very confident, good with kids,
and she knows how to do everything
that is expected of her.
But comp sci student Laura is not a morning person
and is much less sure of herself professionally,
though both are comic book and sci-fi fans.
Rebecca also shared her home self and work self.
She says, my home self tends to be
quieter, reserved, focused on drawing or knitting or reading.
But take off the glasses, add some contacts and makeup
and I become work self, the perfect waitress
at a crowded brewery.
I pitch my voice higher, smile bigger,
walk quicker, back straighter.
I exaggerate every expression and reaction.
Neither self is the true me.
That person resides somewhere in the middle.
Murderbyrosestem also identified a way they transition naturally
in the course of their week by going to chem lab saying,
when I put on my coat and goggles,
I feel myself transform into someone who is smart.
I'm a freshman in college aiming for a plant sciences
degree and aim to get a PhD, but sitting
in orgo, chem, and calc while feeling totally lost
can be discouraging.
And once a week, I get to put on my coat and goggles
and feel like I'm going somewhere.
We see other ways these different identities
we present can be constructive.
Like theemencyclopedia shows us their regular persona and then
their slam poet artist persona, saying slam
is all about vulnerability.
So to keep myself protected, I invented this persona.
I make myself as inhuman as possible in order
to distance myself from my work.
But while some of you have clear feelings
about your public versus private personas,
others thoughtfully described a real ambivalence.
Like Meg, who said this is the transition that
takes place between the night and day, from frantic,
exhausted, and unsure to seemingly confident
and put together.
I'm very fortunate to create content I'm passionate about,
but to do it, I have to become the person that
can do all the things.
That doesn't come naturally to me.
I often wonder if this transformation is bringing
self-improvement or if it's actually
going against my nature.
But at the same time, we have David Elliot Narcisse,
who shows himself in two different styles of clothing
and with and without facial hair but says about it,
still me and then still me.
We see someone who feels comfortable presenting
themselves in contrasting ways.
One of my favorite aspects of this assignment
is to see the shifts in facial expression that
happen between selfie one and selfie two,
like Kyle Berry, who goes from no glasses
to glasses, or notcrazyjustcatholic, who
goes from no pregnant belly to pregnant belly,
or Flavia Louise, who goes from no head scarf to head scarf,
or Jskennedy, who shares an image from
before she lost her mother to pancreatic cancer and after.
And it's not even clear to me which is the before
and which is after.
These hugely life shifting things happen within ourselves
and are very often undetectable.
These facial expressions sometimes tell us something,
and sometimes they really don't.
Here, we see echojardini who goes from wearing a chest
binder to wearing a bra.
Echo had worn a binder for about a year before
and describes their daily effort to pass as non-binary,
but for this they put on one of their old bras
and said, from the moment I put it on,
I began to feel absolutely disgusting.
It was hard to breathe, I began to sweat,
my hands were shaking, and I felt nauseated.
Still I persisted and walked out to the community
areas of my dorm.
The free movement of my chest made me feel even worse.
Still, it was so easy to exchange pleasantries
with the people I encountered, to pretend like nothing was
wrong because nobody except for myself ever seems to notice
whether I'm binding or not.
This was making me feel pretty badly for my part
in putting this assignment out into the world,
but Echo was able to find a positive note
in the experience, and that was the feeling of relief
when they took the bra off and put the binder back
on saying how doing this reminded them
of how much the binder helps them go about life,
regardless of whether it changes the way they're
perceived by others.
These responses made me think a lot
about whether or when discomfort like this can be productive
or when it can just make you feel terrible.
But it seems like most who have done
this exercise have found it valuable in one way or another.
And more importantly, this emphasized for me
how many of us don't get to choose what
our transitioning item will be.
I really appreciated this response
by justthewet, whose first picture was taken
the day before their paralyzing rock climbing accident,
and then the second was taken 13 months later
and is the first selfie that includes their wheelchair.
They say, the last 13 months has been
a journey in learning who I am as a disabled woman.
It's a new part of my identity that isn't going away,
but I purposefully wore the same shirt
to show I'm the same me with more life added.
The wheelchair doesn't make me less.
It deepens me as a human.
I'm still learning who I am in the wheelchair,
but I'm learning not to be ashamed of it.
I spent almost a full year avoiding people
taking pictures of me that showed the chair,
but cripplepunk helped me to start embracing it
as a beautiful part of me.
The become someone else assignment is powerful
because it not only shows how an external change, however
small or large, can usher in dramatic internal
transformation.
But also because external change happens to us no matter what,
even if we do our best to prevent it,
and we're constantly having to adjust to that reality.
Tameka really said it best.
How do you perform your new self that you are becoming?
So I would tell you to keep doing this assignment.
But you're doing it anyway, so keep up the good work.