My flu face

I was taken out by a rather potent strand of flu a few weeks ago. Having not had it before, my body reacted pretty badly and I barely moved from my bed for the first few days. Come day 3, I'd booked the train home so I could be properly nursed back to health with home-made soup, tea, medicine and above all, the care of my Mum.

But this is all slightly besides the point I wanted to make.

What I really wanted to address was the fact that I willingly caught the train looking very much like a heroin addict. Well, maybe not so bad, but it was a severe case of 3-days-of-unwashed-hair and no-make-up-face, that's for sure. I slept quite a lot of the way (between stints of emotional outbursts and an uncalled-for change at Westbury), but overall, I noticed that people were looking at me quite a lot more than usual. Were they judging me and my anti-make-up face? Or did I really just look either high on drugs or anticipating my next fix? Or was it merely a case of me being more self-aware than usual, without my usual outer identity there as a reliable safeguard?

Considering I was on the brink of death (or at least I thought I was at the time...), I didn't give a hoot about what other people thought about my appearance. However, in any other situation (i.e. in better health), I can guarantee that I would've been utterly embarrassed and ashamed about what messages my appearance presented to others at that given time. This is self-explanatory, really - impressions are largely based on the visual, so in order to deem ourselves as respectable human-beings, we must take care of ourselves and a certain amount of upkeep in terms of our outer appearance is thus necessary.

Above anything else, our culture and society is based around the visual. I'm the first to admit I'll judge a person by their outer appearance, and how they present themselves on a day-to-day basis. I'm sure we all do it.

Image sourced from talent.itv.com 

A great example of this from (very) recent television would be yesterday's showing of Britain's Got Talent, whereby a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl came out to introduce themselves (as an act) to the audience and judges. The reaction? Muttering, whispering, exasperated looks from strangers in the audience and a sarcastic comment from Mr Simon Cowell ("just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...").

The reason for such reaction? Basically, the boy was obese. He went against the regulated conventions deemed normal by our society. Based first impression, it would seem that he didn't take proper care of himself and his health/wellbeing. However, two minutes later and the audience are giving the boy and girl a standing ovation, and Simon Cowell is singing his praises. Goes to show that the visual is everything, at least by first-impression and no doubt more so in the television and media industry. It is crutial. We must be pleasing to the eye, or else we risk being remonstrated by the culture and society we live in.