Please tell me the social services are coming...

A mother forcing her child to look like the inside of a mango for 'her own good'.

I'd like to know how this can be considered a good upbringing for a kid? Forcing them to carry out your own failed dreams of being Miss Universe is not my idea of good parenting. But then again, what do I know...

The greatest mix of humour/depression is the ticker tape along the bottom of the screen. The mother persuades her "You wanna be just like Lindsey Lohan, right?"

And at the same time in the ticker tape "Lindsey Lohan arrested on cocaine charges."

*Thumbs up* Well done.

I just don't understand the tan=pretty mentality. Tan means one thing...you look more tan. It looks good on some people, and bad on others. Being the "tannest girl in your class" doesn't really mean very much.

On the plus side of the video, at least it was a fake tan, and her mother didn't bring her to a tanning bed.

In fact, tanning is skin damage, so being tanned says nothing but 'oh hey I want skin cancer!'. Score!

*edit* Goddamit Pete sign out of your account, you bumeyes.

Love Kim.

Although a tan is basically skin damage, there is some sense in tans being attractive - it used to mean (before fake tanning) that the person goes outside more, therefore they were more likely to be healthy, therefore they were less likely to die during childbirth or to be a good provider. For the hunter-gatherer Caucasians of the world, a tan meant an improved chance that your child would survive to pass on your genetics.

America seems to be very good at taking things to extremes (lots of people + collected areas of secluded people = really weird stuff). Maybe it's like the giganticism and dwarfism that happens on islands - there are such extreme examples of social seclusion that the culture develops really strange peaks of behaviour. The very rich don't understand the meaning of their wealth, the middle-of-nowhere town people don't understand global politics, or the need for religious tolerance, tanning gets isolated from being a thing related to nature and becomes some freakish competition.

Personally, I think pale and interesting is often more attractive, but I have known people who really suit a tan. I've never known anyone suit being orange, but I've seen people in sci-fi totally rock having blue skin. If tanning salons start spraying people blue (I bet it won't be too long) then... No, I still wouldn't do that.

Glad to hear it! I've been putting that Nivea Sun lotion on for about 5 weeks now and altho I looked tanned for me I don't looked tanned next to anyone who has a tan I'm actually translucent blue in real life

I think pale is 'in' this season isn't it?!?

I don't do sun tans as I am worried about skin cancer to a point that I lied to a salon about a pre-booked session of tanning bed sessions that I wouldn't need them as I was going abroad. I faked me own holiday just to get out of taking the sessions and get my money back!!

Hah, I find it funny that the indian side of my family all are obsessed with being pale (well.. the girls are anyhow). They use skin bleach to try and look more pale and stuff. It's funny to see them have completely the opposite obsession as hardcore tanners. I don't know if it can be considered an innate thing we like since more people in the world want to look pale than want to look tanned if you take, china, africa and india's population into the numbers (Those are the three countries where being pale is considered attractive (yes even in africa)).

Could it be a case of the grass always being greener, do you think?

Even though I am english through and through, I tan like I am mediteranian (although slowly and safely) and it lasts until October time.

Yeah, Witless, I have a friend who used to live in China who tells me I should be a model there. I'm quite pale. It's pretty weird. I have gotten used to being pale and am almost irrationally proud of it - I just have to remember the sunscreen

I don't think it is a case of grass being greener. In Africa and India at some stage in the countries history caucasians have sort of taken over the country, in some cases enslaved the people, who happened to have darker skin. Then the white population thrived and became a raging success. Where as Blacks or Indians had very few options, therefore being paler would be better.

There are examples of how having pale skin made peoples lives easier, e.g. the slave trade, slaves with paler skin worked in the house and those with darker skin had to work the fields. Some say this is because the mixed race slaves were the illegitimate children of slave owners and therefore were treated better, but the fact still remains they had paler skin and had easier lives.

During the Apartheid if you were classified as "coloured", you could try and get reclassified as white and because your skin would be paler you have a better chance of being reclassified than black person, therefore being pale would pay off...

Then even now if you look at Black women who are uber successful celebrities like Beyonce, they too have pale skin or a more western appearance, therefore blacks equate success with having a lighter complexion, and because one generation feels that way it gets passed down the generations.

I don't understand the fake tan phenomenon, it seems a bit silly, the celebrites that have launched this new fashion only did it to hide stretch marks etc. It seems silly to me that people would rather walk around orange or worse streaky instead of just having their normal pale complexion

Precisely, that look like be a concern for "caucasoidness" and not tan.

Pale is in, because pale represent the opposite of what Mata said about tan. The person doesnt go out much. That means he/she studied more, and work on a closed place, prossibly an office. Also indicates the person might be more intelectual, as opposite as the college jock model.

It has to do also with the hip of clubbies, that go out all night, and therefore spend the day sleeping.

Anyway, a multitude of factors, actually.

Can't believe I'm about to be the one to say this but... perhaps we're over thinking this slightly.

Perhaps it is just a fashion thing, I can't say I think "wow that person must be a really studious person" because they're pale. I just think.. "oh.." and carry on my day. Some people like pale some don't. I find it very difficult to believe we innately like one thing or another.

A lot of black people wouldn't be seen dead dating a white person and still prefer paler members of their own race. While racist white people still sun bathe to become as dark as they can.

Any attempt to try and understand the why of it is likely going to be an over complication.. or cover way too few people (for example, where does stick to your own mentality fit into black people/indian people wanting to imitate caucasions?). There's going to be some level of imitation among some people... but quite frankly it doesn't really fit too often.. or explain why the fashions change decade by decade.. they should be a lot more constant if it were race imitation.

I think it's a lot simpler than evolutionary reasons, or history. I think it's just another manisfestation of fashion. Like how it's fashionable to be skinny as a rake now while it was more fashionable to be plump 100 years back. Times will change and then people will be going down some other peculiar fashion route. I am hoping people start looking like Chiana from farscape. She looks awesome, I'll be content with a fashion change in that direction.

I'm with Witless on this, I don't think there's anything more to it than fashion. That probably makes it all the worse. There's no excuse other than "Won't all the other children be jealous of you imitating a junky?"

I don't really have an issue with people doing stuff like this if it's their personal choice. I mean I dress in black every day, wear big boots, a trench coat, and am pretty pale. I do that because I want to, not because my parents forced me to look like militant-mimes out of fear of mockery when I was growing up.

Yes, we were analysing the subsounscious levels that lead those "fashion" trends.

No one actually thinks about the reasons why someone is paler or tanner, it´s all buried deep withing their minds.

Or, if could be just fashion.

I don't know if there is a subconcious thing that leads to this particular trend other than "I see someone I like looking like this, therefore I want to look like this." The adult version of playground in ground mentality basically.

Logically speaking europeons should really find pale people more attractive. Since according to the theory of evolution the only reason europeons became any more pale is because paler and paler people were out surviving and out breeding darker skinned people in europe. But well they don't they follow trends instead.. and people don't even follow trends for that long in the grand scheme of things. Trends rise and die in a single generation (within a year sometimes).

Just seems too far fetched in my head to believe deeper subconcious tuggings are happening simultaneously in the minds of people across multiple continents than the simple "wanting to be like people they admire". That one thing is the one constant about 'most' (I use the word most.. so don't try and say I am saying everyone is like this) people.

I find it amusing because fashion trends often become so desirable that they overide people's sense of rationality. When stilleto heels were bigger than they are now (though I fear they'll be as big as they were in the 80s again soon from the look of things) is for me another case of the 'game' of keeping in with trends, and even modifying our perception of what is attractive to suit the current situation. If you were going to design shoes to be worn in leisure time, often to shoe off your attractiveness or even to go out in the evening to places with dance floors.. shoes that hurt your feet, that are difficult to keep your balance in, in front of the people you'd least want to lose your balance in front of seem perhaps a little bit foolish. But they are huge, and repeatedly come back into huge popularity over and over again quite a wayes back.

I find it funny, but I still don't think it really goes any further than a misfiring of wanting to be admired, so mimicing admirable people. The scary folks are the ones that start trends, they often deliberately conciously start trends.. although my guess is that a great deal many more start by accident, or are other trends that get modified in an almost chinese whisperesc way perhaps.

"Danger! Danger!, Witless is rambling, sound the ramble alarm!"

*robots come in and pull him away from the computer and stop him continuing this post*

High heels were made so you looked taller, your calf muscles were taught (so therefore more toned looking), and your bum was also taught- therefore raised and tighter. Not wobbly and flabby.


/shoe spam

It's not really a recent thing actually. Fake tan has been around for years but AMEN for hiding stretch marks. If it makes me feel more confident about my body then that's only a good thing. Mind you I'm not stupid enough to tan myself orange

Ditto to Pixiegoth - a tan hides a multitude of sins.

Like Pixie, I'm pale to the point of blueness. Due to my fashion preference and hair colour a full on tan is a no go for me; additionally the whole Cancer concern since my Dads death. However, I don't want my overwhelming whiteness to reflect the sun and blind people in the summer. Two words - tinted moisturiser.

Ditto. Hurrah for a mongral race!

/spam

I really dislike people who tan easily

*throws stuff at SPS*

If I ever get off of my computer, I tan easily too...

There is truth in beauty being tied to wealth - in ancient times, the fatter you were the better, because it showed that you had the money to buy more food and work less. In the 1800's being pale was the pinnicle of prettiness, because it meant that you weren't working in the fields, nor were you dirty from working in factories. Other parts of attractiveness generally come from displays of health and/or fertility.

*ties pgrmdave to computer chair and throws stuff*

I'm tired of people asking me if I'm ok because I look so pale. I'm FINE people. I'm just pale. Not ill, pale I've tried fake tanning and I still look pale. Grrrrr

Don´t use fake tan. and don´t complain about being pale. Look at XIX century nobility, instead ^^

Or at LGG (praying for another episode, btw)

I'm not complaining about being pale more about people assuming it's because I'm ill and not just accepting that people can be pale

Which makes that double spam.


And this triple spam! Will the madness never end!!

/me avoids taking the bait...


...or does he?