Perhaps it would be more accurate to think of BarberвЂ™s project as a catalog of вЂњcapitalist things,вЂќ or вЂњlady things,вЂќ or a combination of both - the bourgeois вЂњladyвЂќ being, after all, the human embodiment of capitalism. Each represents a fantastical feminine ideal and its punishing relationship to the world. They are intended to transcend class - not only to reposition luxury goods as consumer items everyone might aspire to have, but to position women, or a very narrow subset of women, as a stand-in for the idea of women in the marketplace. Social media has only normalized making a commodity-spectacle of oneself, dutifully reproducing вЂњsexiness,вЂќ which Illouz defines as вЂњthe result of new ideologies of sexuality as a commodity form and of the self as image.вЂќ Young people, especially young women, have a breezy facility with creating highly artificial images of themselves for online consumption, posing and lighting themselves as if advertising something - and, often, happily self-objectifying, enjoying the satisfactions of making their lives, and themselves, look like luxury items.Д«arberвЂ™s Instagram account began as a catalog of Barber trying to do вЂњrich-people things,вЂќ but in fact these kinds of images are meant not only for rich people. ItвЂ™s always the original image that ends up seeming ridiculous and grotesque, not her. The more bizarre, awkward or hilarious she makes herself look, the better she comes off. But it makes some sense in the context of Instagram, where itвЂ™s not uncommon to see a gorgeous woman post a photo of herself without makeup, revealing the vaguest hint of a roll of fat, followed by a multiparagraph essay on how important it is to own oneвЂ™s imperfections - an obvious humblebrag. This might seem a funny thing to say about a woman who is constantly flailing around in bikinis trying to look as unsexy as possible. Barber has 8.4 million followers on Instagram and has won a Webby award, presented by Naomi Watts, who praised Barber for her empowering self-love. This shtick, which Barber calls вЂњChallenge Accepted,вЂќ began in 2015 вЂњas a fun experiment to see what it would look like for an average person to photograph herself doing rich-people things.вЂќ Six years later, it has spawned a book and a stand-up show. Her persona is that of an ordinary woman with no internalized shame about failing to satisfy an artificial beauty standard - someone who sees a gorgeous woman in a bikini and boots clutching a wall and simply decides to try it for herself. Barber looks ridiculous - not because she is failing to live up to an image, but because it is so ludicrous to even try. She posts a video of Gwyneth Paltrow waking up вЂњglowy,вЂќ thanks to her skin-care routine, then one of herself waking up in yesterdayвЂ™s makeup. In her take on a video of Britney Spears writhing beside the ocean in a bikini, Barber ends up tossed around by waves. In the version of that Kardashian video Barber posted to Instagram, she feels her way around a hallway in a skintight jumpsuit as someone flicks the lights awkwardly on and off.

She does this by guilelessly emulating the images around her, as though she fails to perceive their strangeness, as though they were the most natural thing in the world. For years, the Australian comedian and actress Celeste Barber has focused on something different: Rather than show how these lavishly stylized images distort reality, she shows how crazy it is to think theyвЂ™re depicting any kind of reality, any realm of normal human behavior, at all. But a photo comparison showing how the subjectвЂ™s waist was artificially cinched still works from the assumption that these images are trying to get away with subtly misrepresenting the real world.

People have spent a very long time attacking these types of glamorous images for being unrealistic - for altering, enhancing and modifying everything down to the modelsвЂ™ physiology. A woman straddles her open hatchback while wrapped in string. A video features a couple of Kardashian-Jenners palpating a wall illuminated by blinking neon tube lights.

In another image, a woman in a green bikini and thigh-high patent-leather boots clutches a wall as if suddenly realizing sheвЂ™s had one too many. The woman in one video emerges from a Rolls-Royce wearing nothing but underwear and sunglasses, her arm draped across her bare chest.

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