A couple months ago, I saw a YouTube video entitled “People react to being called beautiful,” and absolutely loved the concept of it. I decided I wanted to use the same idea, BG edition.  My primary purpose was to see what it felt like to be the person getting those reactions out of people when I told them they were beautiful.  I think so many people today forget how beautiful they are, and it’s a nice reminder, especially when it’s coming from a stranger.  I chose to tell everyone that they were beautiful because something as simple as, “You look very nice,” focuses only on outer appearance, while being beautiful is, in my opinion, a quality about someone that is more than skin deep.  Calling someone beautiful allows them to reflect upon their own beautiful qualities, and I think for most, it brightens their day.

 

Some of the people in the video I knew, but most I did not.  I simply stopped them outside and asked if I could take a picture, then let them know I was taking pictures of things I found beautiful.  Contrary to what I was expecting from watching the original video, most people did not have strong reactions, and instead were almost taken aback and sort of confused, which demonstrates my point further that we don’t compliment people enough.  I especially found the males interesting because “beautiful” is not commonly an adjective attributed to men. Society makes us believe that beauty should be coveted by females, while ruggedness or manliness should be coveted by males.  I disagree with this, and believe in breaking down societal gender roles that make it strange for men to be complimented.  Everyone has some beauty about them, and we shouldn’t let gender, age, weight, race, or anything else stop us from letting others know that.

 

Though I thought completing this portion of the project was going to be really awkward (which it was at times), I actually found myself enjoying getting out of my comfort zone and spreading the love.  Even if the people didn’t have much of a reaction or walked away thinking I was weird, I hope that I made at least one of their days a little bit better by reminding them that they are beautiful.

 

Beautiful People (in order of appearance):

• Meg Burrell

• Lana Neff

• Sarah Doughty

• Michael Serena

• George Ramirez

• Dannica Culler

• Brianna Kalnasy

• Rebecca Brunner

• Chris Smith

• Paul Garbarino

 

After I filmed the reactions, I wanted to explore further the concept of beauty and how different people interpret the idea of it.  I created a survey, which I made anonymous so that respondents would feel comfortable being completely honest.  I “how do you feel when your friends compliment you?” vs. “How do you feel when a stranger compliments you?” From these reactions (several of which are shown below), it made sense why the people I knew whom I called beautiful shrugged me off or laughed (i.e. Sarah, who rolled her eyes and said, “Oh my God”).  The survey provided me with deeper context and understanding of the concept of beauty from different perspectives.  Below you will find a brief summary of the full results of the survey.

 

For the background music, I chose to use an instrumental version of the song “Blackbird” by The Beatles.  This is one of my favorite songs and one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.  I think there can just be so much pessimism and hate in the world, but we need to take what we have and turn it into something beautiful; as Paul sings, “take these broken wings and learn to fly.”

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Survey Summary

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What is your definition of beauty?

• Beauty is something that everyone is, no matter shape/size/gender/orientation.

• Something aesthetically pleasing in a physical or emotional sense.

• Inner confidence and self love, someone could be physically beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside. Beauty is from within, "pretty" is on the outside.

• When something is beautiful, it means that it has a quality or a way about it that makes it stand out in a positive way.

• Something that makes you smile when you see it

• Having the qualities that seem perfect to other people. Or being able to have comfortable silence, sipping tea on a sunny day while listening to nature outside... those things are physically beautiful but the feeling it gives you is the most beautiful thing that nobody else can "see" except for yourself.

• I think beauty is, as the quote says, in the eye of the beholder.