Have You Noticed A Lot More Americans Look Like A Frightful Hot Mess? | In my town, it looks like public slovenliness and disarray have become more of a norm than a subculture in the last three years
... For Gen Z and others who didn’t catch the site years ago, the blog People of Walmart posts humorous pictures of people whose life choices clearly began going south many years before they ended up making a spectacle of themselves in public. ... This is notable because there is indeed a correlation between one’s outward appearance and our inner state. I’m not talking about the things people can’t control, like being born with Grandpa’s large nose or a broader body frame than most women. I’m talking about the things people can control... All people have better and worse versions of themselves, and lately it seems a shockingly large number of people are descending into the latter.
I've recently notice people in church (!!!) wearing pyjamas and was wondering if this is something like a new trend.
... But it’s obvious lockdowns accelerated, and likely amplified, terrible preexisting trends. It will take years to quantify the damage, but just go outside and look around. It’s visible in Americans’ bodies, in their clothing, in their behavior, and in their faces. ...
Yep. The collective psychological damage caused by lockdowns has not even begun to be assessed.
... But advertising and movies are now going far beyond showing realistic imperfections or the diversity of beauty to pushing truly repulsive images. We’re not being encouraged to find beauty in reality, but to believe that what’s ugly is in fact beautiful. ...
At that point, we've got from mental health (a physical thing) into spiritual health.
It's one thing to end up looking awful because of poor mental health; it's another order of magnitude to SEEK OUT that which is objectively ugly, and actively DESIRE it.
Beauty -- along with truth and goodness -- are all aspects of God. That which destroys beauty ON PURPOSE is obviously something demonic.
Thanks for the article and your commentary. I've been noticing this too, especially the part about advertising trying to screw with our perceptions of beauty. Noticing a lot of folks with widely-spaced eyes (no offence to anybody meant, just noticing that it's a trend) of a startling degree/distance. Desensitizing for an alien reveal? Mostly kidding about that...
Very true, and true for some time now, and in commercial architecture perhaps especially. To see some of the modern structures against classic ones in some city is a startling illustration of the attack on truth and beauty.
A friend told me once what he loved about modern homes & buildings: “they’re so poorly made, and made with such cheap materials, they’ll collapse or need to be demolished in a pretty short timespan. So we don’t have to suffer them long.”
(Though, sadly, there’s no guarantee what replaces them would be any better)
"folks with widely-spaced eyes"
It's because wide eyes are on prey like sheep. Narrow eyes are on predators like wolves.
Mostly kidding.