My name is Anna, I'm twenty three, I am less than x miles away and I am currently on Tinder. I wouldn't do me after learning only those four facts, but that's apparently all the convincing it takes in this beautiful day and age of the inter-webs. "Name that I will quickly forget: check, age that will not send me to jail: affirmative, a girl within reasonable driving distance- with my definition of 'reasonable' going up exponentially with the number of months it has been since I've gotten lucky (wait, so that would be seventy two multiplied by fifty six, carry the square root, math, math, math, then solve for pi)...fuck it, she's perfect!" Men are such advanced creatures. Hold on, I nearly forgot the most important factor: the photo. Those four little facts are nothing without photographic evidence to strongly suggest that you are not a deformed swamp creature. Ideally, it is photographic evidence in your skimpiest bikini that strongly suggest you are not a deformed swamp creature. If you're aiming for an absolute home run, it is photographic evidence in your skimpiest bikini that strongly suggests you are not a deformed swamp creature, while also strongly suggesting you have massive tits, big cans, and most importantly, huge boobs. Because I am a respectable artist and this is a respectable art blog, my photographic evidence really only fulfills the minor requirement of proving I am not a swamp creature. "Anna, is it really a respectable art blog if you have to keep reminding me it is a respectable art blog?" ...Yes, go fuck yourself. But then please keep reading my respectable art blog by me, the respectable artist. Anyway, as a respectable artist, my Tinder profile picture is part photo, part painting ("Anna, are you sure this isn't your Tinder photo because you're not cute enough to do one in your skimpy bikini?"...Not another peep, you imaginary blabber mouthing fiend! You are somehow managing to simultaneously make me sound schizophrenic and more importantly, hideous in swim wear.) Anyway, here is my photo on Tinder that pops up along with my riveting life story (recap: I'm Anna. I'm 23. If you start driving now you will eventually reach me.): Some say the picture is a master piece but they're probably still confusing it with Anna 2's work. If you don't know Anna 2, I suggest you read about her in my previous post because she is stunning (I'm trying to be nice but it's giving me an anaphylactic reaction. She's horrid.) The photo doesn't feature any big cans or huge boobs so it obviously hasn't been a mega success with the gentle folk. I'm sure some of you are wondering, "I understand not including the big cans and the huge boobs, but why no massive tits?" To that I would say, "keep up dummies! They're all synonyms! I fooled you before!" Alas, I digress. This is not an english lesson and we are here to focus on art; synonyms will have to be left for another day. While the photo hasn't made it big with the cave men set, it features a few advanced artist techniques, such as a pretty banging analogous color scheme, that make it great for like minded artists discussing art in a serious setting. Yes, paying for four (five) years of art school is a smart investment because now I can use color theory to make boys want to do me on the internet. "What the heck is an analogous color scheme ", you say? "Why does it have such a pervy sounding name", you say? I can't answer that second question, here's a quick art lesson: See the nice colors that go together so beautifully in the picture? That right there is a text book example of an analogous color scheme. These schemes use colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. According to the inter-webs, this makes for a soothing color scheme that make people convulse into fits of lust and desire until they have no choice but to fall madly in love with you. Didn't you ever wonder why Cupid operates in all shades of pink, purple and red? Now ya know. Below is a diagram I created to help explain (I stole this diagram from the internet): For those of you who have been living in a dark cave clinging to your flip phone a la Smeagol (or is it Gollum? I could never tell Mary Kate and Ashley apart either), Tinder is a smart phone "dating" app where you swipe yay or nay to a person based upon the above qualifications. If two people mutually swipe yes, the pearly doors to the promise land (not you, Jerusalem, it's not always about you) open, the angels sing, and you are free to speak to your one true love. By one true love I mean hoards of sexually frustrated men. These are men, I can only assume, who believe that their luck has finally changed. Under the protective veil of the internet, sleazy pick up lines that in the past they could only ever whisper to the pages of their well-worn dirty magazines (for a moment let's pretend men still read dirty magazines and the pony express is still how I send my mail) become somehow acceptable to utter to real, live human beings. Let's play a quick game of "yes or no" to quickly cover a few basics. Yes, I chose by my own free will to download this app. Yes, I was fully aware that said app was for meeting, hooking up, and possibly dating. No, I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. (No, I am not a crazy feminist.) No, I do not expect many serious relationships to come out of Tinder. (Yes, I shave my legs...if it's summer time.) Yes, I know that many guys download this app because they believe it is an easy way to find easy women...and they may be right. No, I still don't think it is acceptable for men on Tinder to send rude, crude, sexist, objectifying messages to the women who they are matched with. (Yes, I wear a bra....if I have to go to a religious event or will be jumping up and down more than usual on said day.) Point being: If you wouldn't walk up to a woman in a bar and say it, don't say it to her online. Period. While that point seems as clear as day to yours truly, the man-children of Tinder seem to be unable to grasp such complicated concepts. Apparently there is a secret clause that you agree to when you download Tinder that states that swiping "yes" to a person is a legally binding agreement that you will have sex with them. "Wait really", you ask? "That's what all that mumbo jumbo I didn't bother reading was about? Reading stinks. I just clicked 'accept'", you say? No! Of course not, you crazy people! Swiping "yes" simply means that you find the person attractive enough to be open to having a conversation with said person in order to determine if your personalities and/or interests mesh. That mutual interest could be meeting up at a gas station half the distance between where you both live in order to partake in a no strings attached threesome including you, your Tinder match, and that random elderly lady with blue hair you bumped into while waiting in line to buy the condoms (safe sex is happy sex, kids). That mutual interest could just as likely be finding someone to watch reruns of Survivor with (important side note: if anyone has the inside scoop on how to get on that show, hook a sister up @jeffprobst #dohashtagsevenworkhere). Maybe I'm just an uptight prude (sex is so icky), but that initial attraction- even if I was looking for that grimy gas station three way- has a funny way of flying right out the window the second a man's opening line to me is, "I wanna tongue punch you in the fart box". "Ooh baby, I love it when you talk about my fart box," has said no woman in the history of planet Earth. Yet that is an actual (gross) opening line from an actual (sad excuse for a) human being with an actual (pea sized) brain. Us ladies are told to act like good little girls and ignore messages like this...and then get the hell back in the kitchen to finish making that sandwich. Well sorry society, I guess I aint no lady, then. The only sandwiches I make are for myself (but how will my father ever find an elderly cousin to marry me off to with an attitude like that!?) and if a creeper on the internet sends me blatantly crude, rude opening lines I'm going to throw him back a little taste of his own medicine (really Dad, you should be thanking me for being such a terrible lady. You won't have to pay the dowry of one hundred camels now. YOU'RE WELCOME). Again, because this is a respectable art blog and I am a respectable artist (seriously, just go with it), I've decided to use art as my weapon of choice to combat these sad, sad little boys. Besides, responding by saying similarly overtly sexual things to these guys in an attempt to objectify them back wouldn't get the point across at all. Actually, they'd love it. "Score! My opening line of 'I love anal' is getting this chicky all hot and bothered. She's gonna give it to me good in the butt tonight! Wahoo," he would say. Then I would have to calmly explain, "no, no, no, you moronic dip shit. I am responding to your crude, objectifying line by sending you back an equally crude and objectifying line in order to make you feel the same way you are making women feel by speaking to them in this manner. It is a form of social commentary. Get it? Get it? GET IT???You're supposed to be upset. Why aren't you upset? Are you crying yet?" See? doesn't really have the desired effect (or is it "affect"? I think "affect" is usually a verb. I'm sticking with my gut and going with "effect". Man, ladies are so stupid). After quite a bit of soul searching- and by soul searching I mean giggling to myself in a corner about how to get back at these bozos as my friends debated the existence of my sanity- a little angel (or maybe devil) came to me with the glorious answer. These messages are juvenile, immature, and silly, yet still blatantly objectifying, offensive, and crossing a boundary. Well you know what else is just like that? NAKED DOODLES OF THESE MEN. Yep, that actually has a nice ring to it. "Oh, really? You like anal? Nice to meet you, too. Here's a drawing of you butt ass naked that I've put on the interwebs. Enjoy." You want to be sexually explicit right of the bat? Great, I'll be right back. Just finishing up that naked portrait of you. And no, you don't look sexy in it. You look how you actually look on the other end of this Tinder conversation. You don't have a six pack, you have a flaccid blob of a penis that women really don't find attractive, and your facial expression rests somewhere in between that of very constipated person's and that of a washed up old porn actor's. The men's responses to these drawings is mind blowing. In mere moments they go from spewing foul pick up lines to whining that the internet is no place to objectify people. By "people" they mean themselves. Maybe if they aren't completely selfish, by "people" they mean all men. To them I say, don't dish it out if you can't take a heaping helping of it yourself. If you feel violated by someone on the internet right off the bat imagining you naked, you should realize that same person feels violated when you imagine her right of the bat letting you "beat dat pussy like a spartan war drum". The mentality is that when a man says these things to a woman it's just "boys being boys", yet when a woman responds in a manner that isn't passive, she is a bitch, a troll, an evil succubus who baits poor, unsuspecting men into her horrible trap. This mentality is wrong and it only is going to perpetuate the conception that people can anonymously, without consequences say these types of things on the internet and that the responsibility falls upon the person who is having these things said to her (or him) to suck it up and keep their trap shut. Ignoring the messages will not solve the problem. Blocking these people only sends them along to the next woman to receive these same messages. I'm going to go ahead and make a sweeping generalization: keeping quiet has never solved anything. I hope one day I have no reason to draw naked men and post them on instagram, but until that day comes, I'm going to keep being that crazy lady in the corner doodling dicks and hoping it will make at least one person out there think twice before harassing a woman just for putting herself out there on the internet.
If we're not already insta-friends, feel free to check out the whole project @instagranniepants on instagram (instagram.com/instagranniepants).
10 Comments
Linzi C
6/1/2014 09:21:28 am
Eloquently written- keep up the fine work with your noble cause of teaching the creepers of Tinder some respect (and the importance of grammar.)
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David Woolley
6/2/2014 07:59:12 pm
I would like to crawl into a hole and hide I am embarrassed for my gender
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Alyson
6/2/2014 11:06:18 pm
I saw the article on buzzfeed and I think you are not only talented but very clever!! I just wanted to say Thank you on behalf of all the very sick and tired women out there!! ..... I know there are lots of great guys out there but my personal dating experiences (especially online) have been nothing but disgusting messages so this makes me very happy!
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Ryan
6/3/2014 09:54:46 am
HAHAH this makes my day. Thanks for the serotonin boost.
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david
6/4/2014 02:16:26 pm
That is the most awesome thing I've seen in a long time. I too apologize for my gender, and assure you that we're not all like that, despite mounds of evidence to the contrary. You are funny and adorable, and guys who think that these come-ons are EVER attractive deserve to be shunned for life.
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Robyn
6/21/2014 10:36:30 am
Wow I mean I do really love what you are doing but one bit of this post really kind of caught my eye. The bit about Mary Kate and Ashley looking like Gollum. Not something I would expect from someone trying to defend all women...
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ThisMakesLittle Sense
10/4/2014 09:56:30 pm
It`s a hilarious, creepy and a little confusing. Men wants to bang women. This cant be a surprise to you, it`s the one thing men have wanted to do since Adam and Eve. We see women and think "nice, I`d like to bang her from now `til next wednesday". Its nature, its what we are. You wouldn`t exist if it wasn`t for horny men chasing pretty women. But ok, maybe you dont `get` men. There`s another thing here that is very confusing; Tinder? do you use tinder and expect to not have guys drooling over you? Isn`t tinder the number 1 "bang me now" app? People use it to find people they can bang now. So what do you expect? I dont understand why you`re on tinder if you dont like to be hit on by perverts, that`s what tinder is. So what you did makes no sense, you went on a perv site and then complained about pervs. :) nice one.
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Ummmmmm.....
10/4/2014 10:09:04 pm
This needs to be said: if you told me you used Tinder, I would assume you were a pervert who spends all day looking for new and exciting perverted things to do with strangers. Just so you know. Could you have signed up to something you thought was a dating site but in reality is a perv site for the pervs? Thats what it looks like, around here Tinder means one thing; perverted sex with strangers in public bathrooms. So telling people you`re on tinder.....um.....well, you come off as being a pervert. :) Just so you know.
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10/9/2022 09:56:49 pm
Statement owner half try describe. Bad include born mouth. Control else anything view onto.
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