Padding, Spandex, Social Profiles, and Other Bits of Fakery

Maybe I’m dense, but I just don’t get the fakery trend in our culture. It could be just our continuing infatuation with shallowness and outward appearances, I suppose, but it kinda bugs me.

Several different types of fakery have recently annoyed me popped up in my world, and because I’m a monkey with a keyboard and an internet connection, I’m sharing them with you. [Caution: Snark alert]

Fakery with Padding:

A couple of weeks ago, we ended up at a big department store because our oldest (12-ish) needed wanted some new bras. Having worn the ‘sports bra’ style previously, she wanted something that looked more like a bra. It took me a while to get that fact, and to relate it to my own attempts to look or feel older as a boy, instead of pointing out the obvious, that there wasn’t a need for it. So we cruise through the young women’s department until we find the underwear section, and what do we find?

With the exception of 3 or 4 bras, they’re all padded. As in, they look like boobs already, just from hanging on the rack. My first thought was “What the hell?”

What’s the point of a padded bra for a young girl? To make it look like you have bigger breasts, right? Or maybe it’s really protective padding? It’s dangerous to be a young girl?

Appearing to have bigger breasts is not what I want for my daughter at her age (at any age, actually). We had a discussion about the issue with her, and we eventually found some that were acceptable to both her and us, so our shopping trip had a happy ending. But I left the store shaking my head, wondering “Why do our little girls need fake the size of their breasts?”

And if girls are wearing these types of bras, what about those young boys who are their peers – what are they thinking when they see their classmates with inflated chests? As a former 12 year old boy, I can just imagine the types of conversations that are sparked by those magically enlarged boobs…

Fakery with Spandex:

Girdles for men? Body sculpting built into clothes? What a bunch of bullshit.

If you’re tempted to buy into this, let me clue you in: Nobody is fooled by this. And if you can take an honest look at yourself in the mirror, you can stop fooling yourself as well.

The same types of people who look at athletes and say “I wish I could do that” while sitting on their couch seem to be the same types of people who will shell out the bucks for some fancy underwearthat disguises the body, the same way that wearing lots of makeup disguises the face.

The way I see it, if you’re carrying around some flab, you’ve got two options. Option one, accept the way that you look, be proud of it, flaunt it even. Option two, ditch the junk food, get off your ass and start getting physical (cue Olivia Newton-John). There is a third option, you can go under the knife. We have a friend living in Australia who says that plastic surgery isn’t just for women anymore, there is a doctor who advertises couples discounts saying “Get a Male and Female Body lift in Sydney together.”

If you go with option one, kudos to you for accepting yourself as you are right now. Please move on to option two unless you want to be that guy for the rest of your life.

If you go with option two, congratulations on your decision to accept that for the most part, the way your body looks is dependent on what you eat, how much you eat, and how hard you play.

I decided some time ago that I wanted to be fit enough to keep up with my (future) grandkids, and that I don’t want my fitness level to limit my activities – I want it to increase the number of things I can do. And you know what? It doesn’t take hours in the gym to get and stay fit, as I used to think. My current workouts are short and intense, focusing on functional fitness, not building a better bicep.

Your mileage may vary. Of course, I’m wrong at least as much as I am right, so maybe the Standard American Diet and a spandex undershirt is better.

Fakery in Profiles:

I spend a lot of time on the web, and I’ve noticed another disturbing fakery trend in the ways that people choose to represent themselves in their profiles and profile pics. Many times in the last week, I’ve been on social media sites and clicked through from someone’s profile, only to find a completely different “face” for them – such as looking 20 years older.

If you don’t always look like you walked out of Glamour Shots every day, don’t post that as your profile picture. If you don’t wear a tuxedo all the time, don’t post that picture either. Skip the cartoon-ization too.

And in related fakery…

Fakery in Titles:

You can’t call yourself an expert, guru, maven, or thought leader. Other people can refer to you that way when you earn it, but introducing yourself to me as an expert is not the best option. Just sayin’.

I want to know what you do, not what you know. If what you do is compelling enough, I’ll want to know what you know.

Don’t be this guy.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…