#I love how palettes look but it takes me 87 years just to find the right scenes to use

[beardcore-blog]

A Princess Diary

"What’s Wrong With Cinderella?"

I finally came unhinged in the dentist’s office — one of those ritzy pediatric practices tricked out with comic books, DVDs and arcade games — where I’d taken my 3-year-old daughter for her first exam. Until then, I’d held my tongue. I’d smiled politely every time the supermarket-checkout clerk greeted her with ”Hi, Princess”; ignored the waitress at our local breakfast joint who called the funny-face pancakes she ordered her ”princess meal”; made no comment when the lady at Longs Drugs said, ”I bet I know your favorite color” and handed her a pink balloon rather than letting her choose for herself. Maybe it was the dentist’s Betty Boop inflection that got to me, but when she pointed to the exam chair and said, ”Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?” I lost it.

”Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. ”Do you have a princess drill, too?”

She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.

”Come on!” I continued, my voice rising. ”It’s 2006, not 1950. This is Berkeley, Calif. Does every little girl really have to be a princess?”

My daughter, who was reaching for a Cinderella sticker, looked back and forth between us. ”Why are you so mad, Mama?” she asked. ”What’s wrong with princesses?”

Diana may be dead and Masako disgraced, but here in America, we are in the midst of a royal moment. To call princesses a ”trend” among girls is like calling Harry Potter a book. Sales at Disney Consumer Products, which started the craze six years ago by packaging nine of its female characters under one royal rubric, have shot up to $3 billion, globally, this year, from $300 million in 2001. There are now more than 25,000 Disney Princess items. ”Princess,” as some Disney execs call it, is not only the fastest-growing brand the company has ever created; they say it is on its way to becoming the largest girls’ franchise on the planet.

Meanwhile in 2001, Mattel brought out its own ”world of girl” line of princess Barbie dolls, DVDs, toys, clothing, home décor and myriad other products. At a time when Barbie sales were declining domestically, they became instant best sellers. Shortly before that, Mary Drolet, a Chicago-area mother and former Claire’s and Montgomery Ward executive, opened Club Libby Lu, now a chain of mall stores based largely in the suburbs in which girls ages 4 to 12 can shop for ”Princess Phones” covered in faux fur and attend ”Princess-Makeover Birthday Parties.” Saks bought Club Libby Lu in 2003 for $12 million and has since expanded it to 87 outlets; by 2005, with only scant local advertising, revenues hovered around the $46 million mark, a 53 percent jump from the previous year. Pink, it seems, is the new gold.

Even Dora the Explorer, the intrepid, dirty-kneed adventurer, has ascended to the throne: in 2004, after a two-part episode in which she turns into a ”true princess,” the Nickelodeon and Viacom consumer-products division released a satin-gowned ”Magic Hair Fairytale Dora,” with hair that grows or shortens when her crown is touched. Among other phrases the bilingual doll utters: ”Vámonos! Let’s go to fairy-tale land!” and ”Will you brush my hair?”

As a feminist mother — not to mention a nostalgic product of the Grranimals era — I have been taken by surprise by the princess craze and the girlie-girl culture that has risen around it. What happened to William wanting a doll and not dressing your cat in an apron? Whither Marlo Thomas? I watch my fellow mothers, women who once swore they’d never be dependent on a man, smile indulgently at daughters who warble ”So This Is Love” or insist on being called Snow White. I wonder if they’d concede so readily to sons who begged for combat fatigues and mock AK-47s.

More to the point, when my own girl makes her daily beeline for the dress-up corner of her preschool classroom — something I’m convinced she does largely to torture me — I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching her. I’ve spent much of my career writing about experiences that undermine girls’ well-being, warning parents that a preoccupation with body and beauty (encouraged by films, TV, magazines and, yes, toys) is perilous to their daughters’ mental and physical health. Am I now supposed to shrug and forget all that? If trafficking in stereotypes doesn’t matter at 3, when does it matter? At 6? Eight? Thirteen?

On the other hand, maybe I’m still surfing a washed-out second wave of feminism in a third-wave world. Maybe princesses are in fact a sign of progress, an indication that girls can embrace their predilection for pink without compromising strength or ambition; that, at long last, they can ”have it all.” Or maybe it is even less complex than that: to mangle Freud, maybe a princess is sometimes just a princess. And, as my daughter wants to know, what’s wrong with that?

The rise of the Disney princesses reads like a fairy tale itself, with Andy Mooney, a former Nike executive, playing the part of prince, riding into the company on a metaphoric white horse in January 2000 to save a consumer-products division whose sales were dropping by as much as 30 percent a year. Both overstretched and underfocused, the division had triggered price wars by granting multiple licenses for core products (say, Winnie-the-Pooh undies) while ignoring the potential of new media. What’s more, Disney films like ”A Bug’s Life” in 1998 had yielded few merchandising opportunities — what child wants to snuggle up with an ant?

It was about a month after Mooney’s arrival that the magic struck. That’s when he flew to Phoenix to check out his first ”Disney on Ice” show. ”Standing in line in the arena, I was surrounded by little girls dressed head to toe as princesses,” he told me last summer in his palatial office, then located in Burbank, and speaking in a rolling Scottish burr. ”They weren’t even Disney products. They were generic princess products they’d appended to a Halloween costume. And the light bulb went off. Clearly there was latent demand here. So the next morning I said to my team, ‘O.K., let’s establish standards and a color palette and talk to licensees and get as much product out there as we possibly can that allows these girls to do what they’re doing anyway: projecting themselves into the characters from the classic movies.’ ”

Mooney picked a mix of old and new heroines to wear the Pantone pink No. 241 corona: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan and Pocahontas. It was the first time Disney marketed characters separately from a film’s release, let alone lumped together those from different stories. To ensure the sanctity of what Mooney called their individual ”mythologies,” the princesses never make eye contact when they’re grouped: each stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others’ presence.

It is also worth noting that not all of the ladies are of royal extraction. Part of the genius of ”Princess” is that its meaning is so broadly constructed that it actually has no meaning. Even Tinker Bell was originally a Princess, though her reign didn’t last. ”We’d always debate over whether she was really a part of the Princess mythology,” Mooney recalled. ”She really wasn’t.” Likewise, Mulan and Pocahontas, arguably the most resourceful of the bunch, are rarely depicted on Princess merchandise, though for a different reason. Their rustic garb has less bling potential than that of old-school heroines like Sleeping Beauty. (When Mulan does appear, she is typically in the kimonolike hanfu, which makes her miserable in the movie, rather than her liberated warrior’s gear.)

The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother. To this day, Disney conducts little market research on the Princess line, relying instead on the power of its legacy among mothers as well as the instant-read sales barometer of the theme parks and Disney Stores. ”We simply gave girls what they wanted,” Mooney said of the line’s success, ”although I don’t think any of us grasped how much they wanted this. I wish I could sit here and take credit for having some grand scheme to develop this, but all we did was envision a little girl’s room and think about how she could live out the princess fantasy. The counsel we gave to licensees was: What type of bedding would a princess want to sleep in? What kind of alarm clock would a princess want to wake up to? What type of television would a princess like to see? It’s a rare case where you find a girl who has every aspect of her room bedecked in Princess, but if she ends up with three or four of these items, well, then you have a very healthy business.”

Every reporter Mooney talks to asks some version of my next question: Aren’t the Princesses, who are interested only in clothes, jewelry and cadging the handsome prince, somewhat retrograde role models?

”Look,” he said, ”I have friends whose son went through the Power Rangers phase who castigated themselves over what they must’ve done wrong. Then they talked to other parents whose kids had gone through it. The boy passes through. The girl passes through. I see girls expanding their imagination through visualizing themselves as princesses, and then they pass through that phase and end up becoming lawyers, doctors, mothers or princesses, whatever the case may be.”

Mooney has a point: There are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations. On the other hand, there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine beliefs — who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually nice and pretty — are more likely to be depressed than others and less likely to use contraception. What’s more, the 23 percent decline in girls’ participation in sports and other vigorous activity between middle and high school has been linked to their sense that athletics is unfeminine. And in a survey released last October by Girls Inc., school-age girls overwhelmingly reported a paralyzing pressure to be ”perfect”: not only to get straight A’s and be the student-body president, editor of the newspaper and captain of the swim team but also to be ”kind and caring,” ”please everyone, be very thin and dress right.” Give those girls a pumpkin and a glass slipper and they’d be in business.

At the grocery store one day, my daughter noticed a little girl sporting a Cinderella backpack. ”There’s that princess you don’t like, Mama!” she shouted.

”Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to meet the other mother’s hostile gaze.

”Don’t you like her blue dress, Mama?”

I had to admit, I did.

She thought about this. ”Then don’t you like her face?”

”Her face is all right,” I said, noncommittally, though I’m not thrilled to have my Japanese-Jewish child in thrall to those Aryan features. (And what the heck are those blue things covering her ears?) ”It’s just, honey, Cinderella doesn’t really do anything.”

Over the next 45 minutes, we ran through that conversation, verbatim, approximately 37 million times, as my daughter pointed out Disney Princess Band-Aids, Disney Princess paper cups, Disney Princess lip balm, Disney Princess pens, Disney Princess crayons and Disney Princess notebooks — all cleverly displayed at the eye level of a 3-year-old trapped in a shopping cart — as well as a bouquet of Disney Princess balloons bobbing over the checkout line. The repetition was excessive, even for a preschooler. What was it about my answers that confounded her? What if, instead of realizing: Aha! Cinderella is a symbol of the patriarchal oppression of all women, another example of corporate mind control and power-to-the-people! my 3-year-old was thinking, Mommy doesn’t want me to be a girl?

According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable. They believe that they have a choice: they can grow up to be either a mommy or a daddy. Some psychologists say that until permanency sets in kids embrace whatever stereotypes our culture presents, whether it’s piling on the most spangles or attacking one another with light sabers. What better way to assure that they’ll always remain themselves? If that’s the case, score one for Mooney. By not buying the Princess Pull-Ups, I may be inadvertently communicating that being female (to the extent that my daughter is able to understand it) is a bad thing.

Anyway, you have to give girls some credit. It’s true that, according to Mattel, one of the most popular games young girls play is ”bride,” but Disney found that a groom or prince is incidental to that fantasy, a regrettable necessity at best. Although they keep him around for the climactic kiss, he is otherwise relegated to the bottom of the toy box, which is why you don’t see him prominently displayed in stores.

What’s more, just because they wear the tulle doesn’t mean they��ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Plenty of girls stray from the script, say, by playing basketball in their finery, or casting themselves as the powerful evil stepsister bossing around the sniveling Cinderella. I recall a headline-grabbing 2005 British study that revealed that girls enjoy torturing, decapitating and microwaving their Barbies nearly as much as they like to dress them up for dates. There is spice along with that sugar after all, though why this was news is beyond me: anyone who ever played with the doll knows there’s nothing more satisfying than hacking off all her hair and holding her underwater in the bathtub. Princesses can even be a boon to exasperated parents: in our house, for instance, royalty never whines and uses the potty every single time.

”Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel Brown, an author, with Sharon Lamb, of ”Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes.” ”The issue is 25,000 Princess products,” says Brown, a professor of education and human development at Colby College. ”When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”

It’s hard to imagine that girls’ options could truly be shrinking when they dominate the honor roll and outnumber boys in college. Then again, have you taken a stroll through a children’s store lately? A year ago, when we shopped for ”big girl” bedding at Pottery Barn Kids, we found the ”girls” side awash in flowers, hearts and hula dancers; not a soccer player or sailboat in sight. Across the no-fly zone, the ”boys” territory was all about sports, trains, planes and automobiles. Meanwhile, Baby GAP’s boys’ onesies were emblazoned with ”Big Man on Campus” and the girls’ with ”Social Butterfly”; guess whose matching shoes were decorated on the soles with hearts and whose sported a ”No. 1” logo? And at Toys ”R” Us, aisles of pink baby dolls, kitchens, shopping carts and princesses unfurl a safe distance from the ”Star Wars” figures, GeoTrax and tool chests. The relentless resegregation of childhood appears to have sneaked up without any further discussion about sex roles, about what it now means to be a boy or to be a girl. Or maybe it has happened in lieu of such discussion because it’s easier this way.

Easier, that is, unless you want to buy your daughter something that isn’t pink. Girls’ obsession with that color may seem like something they’re born with, like the ability to breathe or talk on the phone for hours on end. But according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, it ain’t so. When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty. Why or when that switched is not clear, but as late as the 1930s a significant percentage of adults in one national survey held to that split. Perhaps that’s why so many early Disney heroines — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy, Alice-in-Wonderland — are swathed in varying shades of azure. (Purple, incidentally, may be the next color to swap teams: once the realm of kings and N.F.L. players, it is fast becoming the bolder girl’s version of pink.)

It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, when amplifying age and sex differences became a key strategy of children’s marketing (recall the emergence of ” ‘tween”), that pink became seemingly innate to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few years. That was also the time that the first of the generation raised during the unisex phase of feminism — ah, hither Marlo! — became parents. ”The kids who grew up in the 1970s wanted sharp definitions for their own kids,” Paoletti told me. ”I can understand that, because the unisex thing denied everything — you couldn’t be this, you couldn’t be that, you had to be a neutral nothing.”

The infatuation with the girlie girl certainly could, at least in part, be a reaction against the so-called second wave of the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s (the first wave was the fight for suffrage), which fought for reproductive rights and economic, social and legal equality. If nothing else, pink and Princess have resuscitated the fantasy of romance that that era of feminism threatened, the privileges that traditional femininity conferred on women despite its costs — doors magically opened, dinner checks picked up, Manolo Blahniks. Frippery. Fun. Why should we give up the perks of our sex until we’re sure of what we’ll get in exchange? Why should we give them up at all? Or maybe it’s deeper than that: the freedoms feminism bestowed came with an undercurrent of fear among women themselves — flowing through ”Ally McBeal,” ”Bridget Jones’s Diary,” ”Sex and the City” — of losing male love, of never marrying, of not having children, of being deprived of something that felt essentially and exclusively female.

I mulled that over while flipping through ”The Paper Bag Princess,” a 1980 picture book hailed as an antidote to Disney. The heroine outwits a dragon who has kidnapped her prince, but not before the beast’s fiery breath frizzles her hair and destroys her dress, forcing her to don a paper bag. The ungrateful prince rejects her, telling her to come back when she is ”dressed like a real princess.” She dumps him and skips off into the sunset, happily ever after, alone.

There you have it, ”Thelma and Louise” all over again. Step out of line, and you end up solo or, worse, sailing crazily over a cliff to your doom. Alternatives like those might send you skittering right back to the castle. And I get that: the fact is, though I want my daughter to do and be whatever she wants as an adult, I still hope she’ll find her Prince Charming and have babies, just as I have. I don’t want her to be a fish without a bicycle; I want her to be a fish with another fish. Preferably, one who loves and respects her and also does the dishes and half the child care.

There had to be a middle ground between compliant and defiant, between petticoats and paper bags. I remembered a video on YouTube, an ad for a Nintendo game called Super Princess Peach. It showed a pack of girls in tiaras, gowns and elbow-length white gloves sliding down a zip line on parasols, navigating an obstacle course of tires in their stilettos, slithering on their bellies under barbed wire, then using their telekinetic powers to make a climbing wall burst into flames. ”If you can stand up to really mean people,” an announcer intoned, ”maybe you have what it takes to be a princess.”

Now here were some girls who had grit as well as grace. I loved Princess Peach even as I recognized that there was no way she could run in those heels, that her peachiness did nothing to upset the apple cart of expectation: she may have been athletic, smart and strong, but she was also adorable. Maybe she’s what those once-unisex, postfeminist parents are shooting for: the melding of old and new standards. And perhaps that’s a good thing, the ideal solution. But what to make, then, of the young women in the Girls Inc. survey? It doesn’t seem to be ”having it all” that’s getting to them; it’s the pressure to be it all. In telling our girls they can be anything, we have inadvertently demanded that they be everything. To everyone. All the time. No wonder the report was titled ”The Supergirl Dilemma.”

The princess as superhero is not irrelevant. Some scholars I spoke with say that given its post-9/11 timing, princess mania is a response to a newly dangerous world. ”Historically, princess worship has emerged during periods of uncertainty and profound social change,” observes Miriam Forman-Brunell, a historian at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Francis Hodgson Burnett’s original”Little Princess” was published at a time of rapid urbanization, immigration and poverty; Shirley Temple’s film version was a hit during the Great Depression. ”The original folk tales themselves,” Forman-Brunell says, ”spring from medieval and early modern European culture that faced all kinds of economic and demographic and social upheaval — famine, war, disease, terror of wolves. Girls play savior during times of economic crisis and instability.” That’s a heavy burden for little shoulders. Perhaps that’s why the magic wand has become an essential part of the princess get-up. In the original stories — even the Disney versions of them — it’s not the girl herself who’s magic; it’s the fairy godmother. Now if Forman-Brunell is right, we adults have become the cursed creatures whom girls have the thaumaturgic power to transform.

In the 1990s, third-wave feminists rebelled against their dour big sisters, ”reclaiming” sexual objectification as a woman’s right — provided, of course, that it was on her own terms, that she was the one choosing to strip or wear a shirt that said ”Porn Star” or make out with her best friend at a frat-house bash. They embraced words like ”bitch” and ”slut” as terms of affection and empowerment. That is, when used by the right people, with the right dash of playful irony. But how can you assure that? As Madonna gave way to Britney, whatever self-determination that message contained was watered down and commodified until all that was left was a gaggle of 6-year-old girls in belly-baring T-shirts (which I’m guessing they don’t wear as cultural critique). It is no wonder that parents, faced with thongs for 8-year-olds and Bratz dolls’ ”passion for fashion,” fill their daughters’ closets with pink sateen; the innocence of Princess feels like a reprieve.

”But what does that mean?” asks Sharon Lamb, a psychology professor at Saint Michael’s College. ”There are other ways to express ‘innocence’ — girls could play ladybug or caterpillar. What you’re really talking about is sexual purity. And there’s a trap at the end of that rainbow, because the natural progression from pale, innocent pink is not to other colors. It’s to hot, sexy pink — exactly the kind of sexualization parents are trying to avoid.”

Lamb suggested that to see for myself how ”Someday My Prince Will Come” morphs into ”Oops! I Did It Again,” I visit Club Libby Lu, the mall shop dedicated to the ”Very Important Princess.”

Walking into one of the newest links in the store’s chain, in Natick, Mass., last summer, I had to tip my tiara to the founder, Mary Drolet: Libby Lu’s design was flawless. Unlike Disney, Drolet depended on focus groups to choose the logo (a crown-topped heart) and the colors (pink, pink, purple and more pink). The displays were scaled to the size of a 10-year-old, though most of the shoppers I saw were several years younger than that. The decals on the walls and dressing rooms — ”I Love Your Hair,” ”Hip Chick,” ”Spoiled” — were written in ”girlfriend language.” The young sales clerks at this ”special secret club for superfabulous girls” are called ”club counselors” and come off like your coolest baby sitter, the one who used to let you brush her hair. The malls themselves are chosen based on a company formula called the G.P.I., or ”Girl Power Index,” which predicts potential sales revenues. Talk about newspeak: ”Girl Power” has gone from a riot grrrrl anthem to ”I Am Woman, Watch Me Shop.”

Inside, the store was divided into several glittery ”shopping zones” called ”experiences”: Libby’s Laboratory, now called Sparkle Spa, where girls concoct their own cosmetics and bath products; Libby’s Room; Ear Piercing; Pooch Parlor (where divas in training can pamper stuffed poodles, pugs and Chihuahuas); and the Style Studio, offering ”Libby Du” makeover choices, including ‘Tween Idol, Rock Star, Pop Star and, of course, Priceless Princess. Each look includes hairstyle, makeup, nail polish and sparkly tattoos.

As I browsed, I noticed a mother standing in the center of the store holding a price list for makeover birthday parties — $22.50 to $35 per child. Her name was Anne McAuliffe; her daughters — Stephanie, 4, and 7-year-old twins Rory and Sarah — were dashing giddily up and down the aisles.

”They’ve been begging to come to this store for three weeks,” McAuliffe said. ”I’d never heard of it. So I said they could, but they’d have to spend their own money if they bought anything.” She looked around. ”Some of this stuff is innocuous,” she observed, then leaned toward me, eyes wide and stage-whispered: ”But … a lot of it is horrible. It makes them look like little prostitutes. It’s crazy. They’re babies!”

As we debated the line between frivolous fun and JonBenét, McAuliffe’s daughter Rory came dashing up, pigtails haphazard, glasses askew. ”They have the best pocketbooks here,” she said breathlessly, brandishing a clutch with the words ”Girlie Girl” stamped on it. ”Please, can I have one? It has sequins!”

”You see that?” McAuliffe asked, gesturing at the bag. ”What am I supposed to say?”

On my way out of the mall, I popped into the ” ‘tween” mecca Hot Topic, where a display of Tinker Bell items caught my eye. Tinker Bell, whose image racks up an annual $400 million in retail sales with no particular effort on Disney’s part, is poised to wreak vengeance on the Princess line that once expelled her. Last winter, the first chapter book designed to introduce girls to Tink and her Pixie Hollow pals spent 18 weeks on The New York Times children’s best-seller list. In a direct-to-DVD now under production, she will speak for the first time, voiced by the actress Brittany Murphy. Next year, Disney Fairies will be rolled out in earnest. Aimed at 6- to 9-year-old girls, the line will catch them just as they outgrow Princess. Their colors will be lavender, green, turquoise — anything but the Princess’s soon-to-be-babyish pink.

To appeal to that older child, Disney executives said, the Fairies will have more ”attitude” and ”sass” than the Princesses. What, I wondered, did that entail? I’d seen some of the Tinker Bell merchandise that Disney sells at its theme parks: T-shirts reading, ”Spoiled to Perfection,” ”Mood Subject to Change Without Notice” and ”Tinker Bell: Prettier Than a Princess.” At Hot Topic, that edge was even sharper: magnets, clocks, light-switch plates and panties featured ”Dark Tink,” described as ”the bad girl side of Miss Bell that Walt never saw.”

Girl power, indeed.

A few days later, I picked my daughter up from preschool. She came tearing over in a full-skirted frock with a gold bodice, a beaded crown perched sideways on her head. ”Look, Mommy, I’m Ariel!” she crowed. referring to Disney’s Little Mermaid. Then she stopped and furrowed her brow. ”Mommy, do you like Ariel?”

I considered her for a moment. Maybe Princess is the first salvo in what will become a lifelong struggle over her body image, a Hundred Years’ War of dieting, plucking, painting and perpetual dissatisfaction with the results. Or maybe it isn’t. I’ll never really know. In the end, it’s not the Princesses that really bother me anyway. They’re just a trigger for the bigger question of how, over the years, I can help my daughter with the contradictions she will inevitably face as a girl, the dissonance that is as endemic as ever to growing up female. Maybe the best I can hope for is that her generation will get a little further with the solutions than we did.

For now, I kneeled down on the floor and gave my daughter a hug.

She smiled happily. ”But, Mommy?” she added. ”When I grow up, I’m still going to be a fireman.”

– by Peggy Orenstein, for the New York Times Magazine (December 2006)

Posted by lukewho on 2007-01-01 19:50:52

Tagged: , fremont , christmas , 2006 , jacinto , princess , disney

The post A Princess Diary appeared first on Good Info.

[eggroll-sushi]

1-150 ask mem

first of all, fuc k yoou

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?

my mom??

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

outgoing around friends

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

u

4. Are you easy to get along with?

i dont know, ive heard that no one really hates me but like i find it difficult to find someone who i actually enjoy talking to

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

i dont really have any interest in anyone rn so... yes? id take care of myself

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

so far everyone that ive liked is a either a nerd or a pretty shitty person so like ,

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

no

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

in what way?? idk im still thinking of this oe guy he had his pants pulled up pretty high with a tight belt on and a big nose. im not thinking in a romantic way or anything i just... it was a weird combination. . ..his hair was ok i guess

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

uh yeah if its not in the brash or crude humor way

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

you

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

“probably”

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

killer - bastille, yeah i dont have any others that stand out particularly

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

i have curly hair so we just both suffer if they try running their hands through... but if i had a romantic s/o i probably wouldnt mind bein petted

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

yes? i think so

15. What good thing happened this summer?

i hung out with friends a lot.. .i think i dont remember

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

yeah i lovemy mom

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

scary either way.. but the universe is pretty big so i guess

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

not really theyre an asshole mostly

19. Do you like bubble baths?

i havent taken a bath in like 4 years.. but yes

20. Do you like your neighbors?

we do not talk

21. What are you bad habits?

being rude and disrespectful and aggressive

22. Where would you like to travel?

europe.. japan.. idk

23. Do you have trust issues?

no

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

sleeping and eating

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

i really dont know.. its like an all around tie.. .

26. What do you do when you wake up?

brush teeth and wash face, change into outside wear if im going outside, lotion my face and put on mascara, make tea/breakfast

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

overall just smoother.. like a more even tone.. but darker i guess

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

y ou

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

ive dated.. once but i didn’t even like the guy.. i just said yes because it was like. .mmkfkucin 5th grade and then he broke up with me (i didnt care tbh) and then asked me back?? it was weird because he told me he was breaking up because he found.. someone hotter or something and they said if he dumped me they would date him and they didnt.. .it was wild tbh i dont really know why they did this it was like 6th grade. ......... ... .anyways

30. Do you ever want to get married?

theoretically, yes? but idk it seems exhausting and i cant grasp the concept of someone actually liking me for so long

31. Is your hair long enough for a pony tail?

yes

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

fuck i dont know i dont really think about that buds

33. Spell your name with your chin.

gthhju-asnhhy

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

no unless robotics counts

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

tv

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

yes

37. What do you say during awkward silences?

i just try to do something funny

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

nice, a kind person, likeable, liberal, ,

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

tjmaxx, marshalls, burlington. i go stright to that mf clearance section

40. What do you want to do after high school?

perferably die, but thats unlikely so i wanna go into a good college, make friends, get a decent job

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

my mind says yes but my heart says no

42. If you’re being extremely quiet what does it mean?

1) tired 2) mad 3) i cant/dont wanna make conversation 4) im just .. zoned out

43. Do you smile at strangers?

if they smile first

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

im fucking terrified of both

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

i have to go to school or i feel like shit

46. What are you paranoid about?

every time im disrespectful, aggressive, or really any action that i make

47. Have you ever been high?

no

48. Have you ever been drunk?

no

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

sure

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

it was a brownish orange (a coat with a hood)

51. Ever wished you were someone else?

ye

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

give myself a massive sponge dick

53. Favourite makeup brand?

i dont really wear makeup.. i like ChapStick

54. Favourite store?

tjmaxx

55. Favourite blog?

@eggroll-sushi​

56. Favourite colour?

orange? either a peachy orange or a borwnish orange. but i can appreciate a good palette

57. Favourite food?

id say pho but i like a lot of foods

58. Last thing you ate?

oreos and milk

59. First thing you ate this morning?

blueberry english muffin with honey butter

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

recently my team won a robotics comp

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

no

62. Been arrested? For what?

jesus no

63. Ever been in love?

no

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

well ... my mo was telling me goonight-- (i havent had one)

65. Are you hungry right now?

yeah

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

my tungle friends are also my irl friends

67. Facebook or Twitter?

twitter (i dont use either)

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

tumblr? i hate it tho

69. Are you watching tv right now?

n o

70. Names of your bestfriends?

you know who

71. Craving something? What?

food.. savory junk food........olives, nachos, ,,

72. What colour are your towels?

white

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

two, but i have 3 on my bed

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

i just keep em on my bed yeah

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

4 on my bed (god bless your soul, okoshi, wherever you are) but like.. 10 total?

75. Favourite animal?

cat but i also like most animals

76. What colour is your underwear?

its currently gray

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

dark chocolate

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

blue moon

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

black with white text

80. What colour pants?

shades of gray

81. Favourite tv show?

su? i dont really watch any others

82. Favourite movie?

the man from uncle movie/ kingsman

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

mean girls?

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

mean girls i guess

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

idk

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

starfish

87. First person you talked to today?

mom

88. Last person you talked to today?

you

89. Name a person you hate?

protein shake (jk)

90. Name a person you love?

my mother

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

maybe

92. In a fight with someone?

im constantly in a fight

93. How many sweatpants do you have?

one

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

many, over 10

95. Last movie you watched?

Logan

96. Favourite actress?

janelle monae always looks stunning

97. Favourite actor?

uhhhhhhhhh dwayne is a friend

98. Do you tan a lot?

yes?

99. Have any pets?

no

100. How are you feeling?

sick

101. Do you type fast?

not really

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

yes

103. Can you spell well?

yeah i guess

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

yeah i suppose

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

i went on a camping enrichment?

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

no?

107. Have you ever been on a horse?

yeah

108. What should you be doing?

studying for histry quiz

109. Is something irritating you right now?

yes

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

no?

111. Do you have trust issues?

im pretty sure this was already asked

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

mom?

113. What was your childhood nickname?

ass (im still a kid, right?)

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

yes

115. Do you play the Wii?

when someone has one

116. Are you listening to music right now?

no

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

yes

118. Do you like Chinese food?

yes

119. Favourite book?

harry potteR?

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

yes

121. Are you mean?

yes

122. Is cheating ever okay?

no

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

no. once i stepped in a massive puddle and got wet like halfway up my calf

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

no

125. Do you believe in true love?

n..yes?

126. Are you currently bored?

yes

127. What makes you happy?

friends, having a good time, making people laugh

128. Would you change your name?

no

129. What your zodiac sign?

scorpio

130. Do you like subway?

yeah

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

we would both suffer

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

you (this is a repeat again)

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

//

134. Can you count to one million?

i could, yes

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

bro idk

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

closed

137. How tall are you?

5′4″?

138. Curly or Straight hair?

i have curly hair

139. Brunette or Blonde?

brunette

140. Summer or Winter?

summer

141. Night or Day?

cant choose

142. Favourite month?

november

143. Are you a vegetarian?

no

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

dark

145. Tea or Coffee?

tea

146. Was today a good day?

eh i guess

147. Mars or Snickers?

mars

148. What’s your favourite quote?

“you’re like shaggy from scooby doo; always alone”

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

yes? im scared of them so

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

“’You will blow your eyes out,’ said Nwoye’s mother...” (Things Fall Apart)

[jamiekturner]

100 Excuses for Designers

Sketch style guides can only get you so far, but designers like us still make mistakes.

Like… a lot.

No seriously… all the time.

So here are 100 [goofy] Excuses for Designers to help you cover your ass next time you make a mistake that you’re too afraid to admit.

Results may vary!

Regarding Inspiration

1. This is what Apple does. 2. It’s a Material Design thing. 3. _____ does it like this, and they have like 500M users. 4. This is how everyone does it. We should do it this way. 5. This is how everyone does it. We shouldn’tdo it this way.

Regarding Design

I wanted to try something different. 7. I saw a design on Tumblr that looks like this. 8. Whitespace looks better. It looks so clean! 9. We’re industry leaders. Sometimes you just have to take risks. 10. That must be an older version you’re seeing. 11. I [got a Masters/did online training/saw a tweet], so trust me on this. 12. I just read* a great article on Medium about this (*saw the title). 13. We’ll just revisit this after the launch (we won’t). 14. Our team loved the design. 15. [The most important stakeholder] loved the design. 16. Dribbble and Behance loved the design. 17. The old man sitting on the couch with me at Starbucks loved the design. 18. We can go with function or form, but not both. 19. We can change it, I’m not married to it (our honeymoon is tomorrow). 20. It’s like Uber, but for [super specific, unrelated B2B software app]. 21. It’s like [app no one has heard of], but for [some worse idea]. 22. We’ll just put some charts there.

Regarding Animation

23. It’s a delighter! 24. It’s not choppy on my screen. 25. GIFs are all the rage right now. 26. All the best companies use parallax. 27. Don’t you think it’ll look boring without it? 28. I’m not worried. A dev should be able to implement this pretty easily. 29. But if I make it a PDF then you won’t see the animation… 30. Computers are fast! Page size and load time aren’t an issue anymore.

Regarding Fonts

31. You must not have [that obscure font I used] installed. 32. Microsoft is notorious for bad font rendering. People don’t use Windows. 33. I can’t share TypeKit fonts, so you’ll have to wait until we present it. 34. The sharpness is probably just too high on your screen. 35. We won’t look premium if we don’t use [some obscure font]. 36. Too small? How can you not read that? 37. The text is already dark enough. I like it #FAFAFA.

Regarding Colors

38. Your [TV/phone/monitor/tablet/Palm Pilot] probably isn’t calibrated. 39. The brand palette is too limited for what we want to do. 40. It’s softer on the eyes this way. 41. I wanted it to really stand out. You know…super punchy. 42. It’s the Pantone color of the year!

Regarding Design Tools

43. InVision must be acting up. 44. You’re probably looking at a cached version. 45. It must not have synced to [Dropbox/Google Drive]. 46. That’s just a bug in Sketch. 47. It screwed up the design when I updated my app. 48. That’s probably a limitation of the app. 49. We’re still on the free version. 50. Sorry, I’ve been updating Adobe applications all day. 51. My design application keeps crashing.

Regarding Development

52. Dev must have screwed it up. 53. No one uses IE anyway. 54. That must be a bug in Chrome. 55. That effect should be supported in the latest nightly build of Chrome. 56. Just have dev draw it in CSS. 57. I think this should be really easy with a framework. 58. A user would never do that anyway (they will). 59. Our users all have MacBooks and use Chrome. 60. Oh come on, no one builds Android apps anymore.

When a presentation doesn’t look right:

61. What do you mean your projector isn’t 4K? 62. You shouldn’t have your screen brightness all the way down. 63. Hmm, it doesn’t look like that on my computer. 64. Isn’t your display retina?

When things went awry over email:

65. Maybe it got caught in your spam. 66. I’m guessing it just looks bad in “Preview” mode. 67. Ah sorry, the file is too big to send. I’ll show you next week. 68. Oh, I sent it to the wrong “Petr Rozhdestvenskiy.” 69. I just sent it over (lie). Did it not go through? 70. My colleague was supposed to send it (oh sh*t, I completely forgot). 71. I forgot to add you to that email thread (I didn’t).

When they want to see your progress:

72. I’m almost done, but don’t want to spoil it (I haven’t started yet). 73. We can figure out the details in code. 74. I’m not worried about that right now. 75. We have it designed on the whiteboard back at the office (I’m stalling). 76. I don’t want to distract you with low-fidelity. 77. It’s not what you asked for and I’m afraid you’ll get mad. 78. It’s taking longer than I thought (again…I haven’t started yet). 79. Sorry, my computer has been really laggy today. 80. Can we do a remote meeting today (so I can work on another project)?

When they ask why you haven’t started:

81. I can’t start until I have all of the requirements. 82. I can’t start until research is done. 83. I can’t start until we document all edge-cases. 84. I can’t start until we decide on a color. 85. I can’t start until we decide on a name. 86. I can’t start until all 29 people join the conference call. 87. I was watching the Apple Keynote.

When they don’t like the design:

88. We can always iterate on this (we probably won’t). 89. This isn’t the final design (lol, yes it is). 90. We should probably use a hamburger menu. 91. We’re definitelynot using a hamburger menu. 92. That wasn’t in the original requirements (I skipped that intentionally). 93. Design rules are meant to be broken. 94. Dev has really been holding me back. 95. You just haven’t seen it done this way before. 96. This is what your napkin sketch looked like, right? 97. I basically just did what my PM told me to do. 98. We’ll work on it next sprint. 99. It’s better than what we have. 100. We’ll just put it in a modal.

Next time you need an “uxcuse” (UX excuse), head over to uxcuses.com to find the perfect one!

Big thanks to Kamal Nayan for building uxcuses.com for us!

The post 100 Excuses for Designers appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/design/100-excuses-designers/

[offwithalicesheadx]

1000 Question Survey pt. 1

The Basics 1.) Your name: Alice

2.) Nicknames: Al, Beb, Crystal

3.) Do you like these nicknames?: Yeah

4.) Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom

5.) Age: 21

6.) Birthday: February 11th

7.) Zodiac sign: Aquarius

8.) Parents names: Claire and Mark

9.) Siblings?: Aimee, Declan, Peter and Charlie

10.) Pets: Charlie and Louis, both dogs

11.) Number of rooms in your house: 7

12.) Religion: Atheist

13.) If so-practicing?:  I'd say it's more not practicing haha

14.) Male or Female?: Female

15.) Is your family close?: Pretty close

What are your favorite 16.) Foods: Chinese, spaghetti, cheese, chilli con carne

17.) TV shows: Skins and Dexter

18.) Movies: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Moana, Requiem for a Dream, Lilo & Stitch, The Shining

19.) Actors: Bradley Cooper, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Colin Farrell, Michael C Hall, Leonardo DiCaprio

20.) Actresses: Scarlett Johansson, Kate Winslet, Kaya Scodelario, Rachel McAdams, Emma Watson

21.) Books: The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, John Green books

22.) Artists:  Arctic Monkeys, Jack Johnson, James Morrison, Red Hot Chili Peppers

23.) Types of Music: Musical soundtracks, indie rock, some folk/country music, acoustic

24.) Video Games: Super Mario Bros, Super Smash Bros, Just Dance, Grand Theft Auto

25.) Computer Games: The Sims

26.) Outfits: I love colours like burgundy and navy blue, I love the vintage style but I can't really pull it off, I tend to go for leggings/skinny jeans and oversized tops and jumpers with boots or Converse

27.) Stores: New Look, Primark and Lush

28.) Sports: I honestly don't really play/watch any sports

29.) Colors: Purple, burgundy and navy blue

30.) Numbers: 19

31.) Websites: Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest

32.) Cartoons characters: Peter Pan, Jiminy Cricket, Stitch, Moana

33.) TV Channels:  I don't really watch TV, more Netflix, but I like watching the crappy shows on MTV haha

34.) Made For TV Movies:  Gotta go for a Disney Original, The Lizzie McGuire Movie

35.) Comedians: Robin Williams, Karl Pilkington

36.) Comediennes: Ellen DeGeneres, Grace Helbig

37.) Hair products: Lush Beer shampoo, Aussie winter deep treatment, Got2B hairspray

38.) Makeup Products: Revlon Colorstay foundation, Naked 2 palette, Tanya Burr's matte lipgloss in Martha Moo, beauty blenders, Rimmel's eyebrow palette, Carmex lip balm... I actually need to stop or I'll list everything

39.) Kind of Pens: Staedtlr coloured fine tip pens

40.) Kind of Shows: Anything I find funny or addictive usually

41.) Pieces of Jewelry: My Pandora bracelet

42.) Kinds of Soap: Snow Fairy from Lush

43.) Kinds of Shampoo: Aussie shampoo, especially the winter one, I also love Lush's beer shampoo

44.) Game Systems: Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS

45.) CDs: Stadium Arcadium - RHCP, Humbug - Arctic Monkeys, Les Miserables soundtrack, Wicked soundtrack, Rent soundtrack

46.) Snacks: Doritos with salsa dip, nuts, popcorn, strawberries

47.) Past times: Watching Netflix, games on my phone, social media, listening to music

48.) Things to do on the weekend: Jesse and I will usually go out to eat or to the cinema or watch Netflix or something

49.) Magazines: Don't really read them

50.) Animals:  Tortoises and hedgehogs

Clothing 51.) Favorite Brand of Clothing?: New Look

52.) Favorite sweatpants: I don't wear sweatpants, I usually wear leggings or pyjama bottoms for comfort

53.) What is your everyday outfit?: Leggings and a big jumper with boots or Converse, or if I'm feeling fancy a nice dress (probably grey haha) with tights and boots

54.) Do you wear a uniform to school?: I don't go to school but I did when I went

55.) Do you like it?: Hated it

56.) What is your favorite clothing store?: New Look and Primark

57.) Do you try to dress like other people?: Sometimes I take inspiration from others but things don't usually suit me haha

58.) Do you consider yourself to be trendy?: Not really

59.) What kind of shoes do you wear?: Converse or black boots usually

60.) Do you like funky shoelaces?: Not really

61.) Do you wear hats?: Not really, they don't tend to look right on me

62.) Do you wear a lot of jewelry?: No, usually just my Pandora bracelet

63.) If so, what?: ^

64.) Do you wear belts?: Not usually

65.) Do you wear skirts?: Sometimes

66.) Do you wear revealing clothing?: Not massively revealing, maybe some shorter stuff sometimes or a bit of cleavage

67.) Do you like the Eskimo look?: Not really

68.) Do you wear big pimpin coats?: No

69.) Do you carry a purse or bag?: Usually either a little handbag or a backpack

70.) If so, what is it like?:  My usual handbag is burgundy and navy with a long shoulder strap, pretty small, my backpack is black with white polkadots

School 71.) What are your grades like?: I did pretty well I think, average-ish, I got a couple of A* grades in my GCSEs but mostly Bs and Cs and then in sixth form it was all Bs

72.) Do you wish you could change your performance in school?: Sometimes, I didn't pay attention in the first couple of years to some subjects I might have wound up really liking if I'd have tried

73.) Are you failing anything?: No, I'm not in education anymore

74.) Do you take a language?: No

75.) If so which language?: -

76.) Who is your favorite teacher?: My favourite teachers were Mr Lowe and Miss Creedon

77.) Do you decorate your locker?: I didn't, I don't think

78.) Do you decorate your bookbag?: I used to pin badges on it at one stage

79.) If so, with what?: ^

80.) Do you draw on yourself in school?: I did a lot, I'd doodle or write until I was told it gave me bad skin haha

81.) Do you doodle all over your notebooks?: I used to doodle sometimes on the inside but I was pretty neat usually

82.) Do you take art?: No

83.) Do you walk to school or are you driven?: I used to walk because I lived like 5 minutes away

84.) Do you like school?: I did sometimes

85.) How big is your school?: It was pretty big

86.) Do a lot of your friends go to your school?: When I was in school pretty much all my friends were from school bar a couple

87.) Do you wish you could change schools?: No I didn't

88.) Are you on the Honor/Merit roll?: We don't have that here

89.) Do you participate in school plays?: I always used to, even when I didn't make a part I'd help backstage and stuff

90.) Are you in any clubs/which ones?:  I used to be in the musical club because they did a big musical production each year, that's the only club I consistently went to I think

Your Room 91.) What color is your room?: Cream and brown mainly

92.) Is it messy or clean?:  Pretty clean

93.) What are on your bedsheets?: At the moment they're white with grey stripes and purple flowers and it has writing on it that says 'dream until your dreams come true'

94.) Do you have posters on your wall?: No, I have like a canvas though and a chalkboard

95.) If so, of what?: My canvas is a monochrome photo of a flower and my chalkboard says 'just keep swimming' on it at the moment haha

96.) Do you have a TV in your room?: Yeah

97.) A computer?: A laptop

98.) A radio?: No

99.) An alarm clock?: No

100.) A stereo?: No