"The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion, but cosmetics are easier to buy."
—Yves Saint Laurent
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When most people look at makeup, all they see is "good" and "bad".
But chances are, dear reader, you are not one of those people. You may have stumbled onto this blog through the vagaries of fate, but if you've stuck around, it is because you see more than just a lipstick. You have opinions. And they all matter, these fine, exquisite nuances you are so sensitized to: pigmentation and finish, undertone and overshimmer, longevity versus slip, the subtly judged scent, all the way down to the satisfying click as the lid snaps shut, the weight of the tube signifying luxury in your hand. Thousands happily swipe on Dolce Vita, nary the wiser to anything more significant than a popular lipstick. While the beauty community resounds with a collective wail at the discontinuation of Dragon RAL, driving a mass hoarding frenzy, spawning FOTD challenges on MUA, inspiring rhapsodic odes on blogs, or, if you're a rancid snob like me, festering with petty insults flung ever so turd-like at the bourgeois aspiration that CHANEL, as a brand, so manifestly represents, it is a sobering realization that the world of commoners has registered no seismic disturbance whatsoever. To them, Dragon never even existed.
The Japanese have a wonderful term for this, one poorly captured by our English language, otaku, which William Gibson once defined as "the passionate obsessive, the information age's embodiment of the connoisseur", but in Japanese conveys a sense of reeking geekiness that borders on insult, usually ascribed to compulsive anime fanaticism.
As for myself, I've seen very little anime. I've mostly approached them as one would approach a foreign film, as if it were art: Miyazaki Hayao, Watanabe Shinichiro, and Otomo Katsuhiro limn the extent of my experience. So it was somewhat an accident that I stumbled on Genshiken, an oddly ekphrastic work by Kio Shimoko, an anime about anime, or more specifically otaku culture. Since Genshiken belongs to the "slice of life" genre, no one has blue hair or claims expertise with katana. The characters are drawn more or less accurate to real people—you can smell how geeky these guys are even in animated form—and they face mundane challenges, like finding a job after graduating from college. Certainly, Genshiken exploits the more outré and offputting aspects of otaku culture for broad comedy, such as Madarame's declaration he has no "regular porn" but only hentai. Since I'm not Japanese, I could hardly know how easily the stereotype of closet perverts who traffic in extreme anime porn could be misapplied. As Kasukabe (the girl), who represents the majority of the Japanese population, makes absolutely clear: it's considered equally weird in Japan.
Genshiken invites understanding. Down the line, Madarame, the most hardcore otaku of them all, ends up falling for Kasukabe, who is already dating one of his friends. Genshiken doesn't exploit the tension as dramatic device. It happens as it would happen in real life. He grapples with what limited emotional tools he has—revisioning himself and Kasukabe in an ero-game—before running away to the bathroom to face the facts. He knows it'll never happen. He would never try to make it happen. After the slapstick that has preceded it, the recognition of his emotions is quiet but intensely poignant. There is a huge difference, Genshiken points out, between pornography, which depends on fantasy, and the realities of human relationships. And you can only judge people on their behavior, not their interests.
Now, Genshiken did not inspire me to become an otaku. My interest in anime remains as circumscribed as ever. Nevertheless, its underlying theme, how people with shared interests can form a meaningful community, and use that community to act out defining moments of their lives, did ring true. Because, if I may appropriate otaku from its original context, it so perfectly describes the beauty community. In all our varied appetites and specialized jargon, typical of rarefied consumers, ultimately it's not the makeup that matters, but that we share a collective obsession. Some people specialize in vintage makeup, others in swatches and product porn, still more in tutorials, others in reviews, some in information. As Genshiken puts it, "Otaku isn't something you try to become. You just are one before you know it." There's a hierarchy—and I do not know what better confirms a social structure than a pecking order. You can join the currents of the hive mind, if solidarity is your desire, or go against them, just to hone your Ego—or both as the whim possesses you. For the "commoners" who judge our community, we've got haters and trolls, not to mention plenty of incestuous cattiness, both overt and hidden. I suppose we can be ridiculous, at times. But we find, too, surprising warmth and rewarding friendships.
We may be aligned, in a superficial interest, but we are not limited by it. The object of this obsession is quite beside the point; I don't usually wear makeup, and when I do, it's the boring naturalistic stuff, so the basis is hardly a concrete one. Makeup is simply a means. This has always been for me, a way to connect to you.
And if you do not believe we are otaku, I wonder how many of you instantly guessed my lipstick even without prompting? And if I continue further, and explain how I sought to balance the glamourous precision of Dragon with a messy, deconstructed black pearl eye, Shiseido Caviar, dabbed on haphazardly as a base, with Benefit Mermaid layered also haphazardly to pick up the subtle green thread in Caviar—why, you would all understand me.
To everyone who read me over so many years: thank you, thank you very much.
Labels: benefit, chanel, culture notes, genshiken, nars, shiseido
11/30/2011 [16]
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