I Look Stupid - How to take a Web head shot

[BridgeTheGap]

Lately, the Internet has been trying—politely—to find out what I look like. Gmail suggested that I upload a photo "that everyone will see when you email them." My new Apple computer asked whether it could take a webcam shot for iChat. And Facebook was so annoyed with my question mark icon (where a photo would normally be) that it found a photo of me that someone else had tagged, surrounded my head with a red square, and asked whether it might make a good profile picture. The text-y era of the nobody-knows-you're-a-dog Internet is ending. You either have a head shot or you're invisible.

How to solve this modern problem? At times like this, it's best to turn to the wisdom of British journalists. This article in the Guardian classifies head shots into nine groups, such as the hand job, the gormless grin, I'm a star too, prop or gimmick, and making friends. I found the hand job—"A hand framing or supporting face is easily the most popular pose," says the Guardian—of particular interest, because, after grimacing in front of my web cam for a half-hour (and feeling like a high-school sophomore), that's the solution I came up with. Here's the Guardian's take: "Pro: Versatile, conveys quizzical image. Con: Can look camp or arch."

Remember for a moment how much attention people used to lavish on the perfect quote for their e-mail signature. Now that self-conscious energy is applied to a photo. There's nothing inherently bad about the rise of Web head shots. They just turn what was once a space for burgeoning Cyrano de Begeracs into a space for burgeoning Brad Pitts. Read the stark conclusion of a 2000 meta-analysis of beauty studies that tried, in a careful way, to discover whether beauty really was in the eye of the beholder:

The effects of facial attractiveness are robust and pandemic, extending beyond initial impressions of strangers to actual interactions with those whom people know and observe. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, there is strong agreement both within and across cultures about who is and who is not attractive. Furthermore, attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children and adults in almost every domain of judgement, treatment, and behavior we examined.

http://www.slate.com/id/2195142/?GT1=38001