Good afternoon,

I had an idea for a theme based on the book I am reading (of which much more later). Then I was delighted to find some really good internet articles around that theme, some of which are actually quite recent.

It was only after that that I remembered that it is Valentine’s day this weekend so of course everyone is writing about love, but it’s too late, I have already written this email now, so please enjoy an uncharacteristically seasonal Fem Friday.

This is a lovely article about using technology to experiment with who you are. It’s also about falling in love as a wildly awkward teenager:

AOL appealed to me the way it did to most chubby, frizzy-haired teens who were not technologically inclined, whose crushes always went for their more conventionally attractive friends, and who had recently seen You've Got Mail. I changed the quotes in my AOL Instant Messenger profile almost daily, and fretted over the right combinations of font and color to make my IM voice look as bright and edgy as I wanted to be in real life. I started conversations with acquaintances who made me feel shy in person. I imagined I had inner beauty and wit, and that in chatrooms and AIM was where I could shine until that outer beauty showed up. And slowly, the IRL me started to become more like the me I allowed myself to be online.

http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/aol-instant-messenger-essay/

It’s ages since I’ve sent anything from Reductress! It’s still great. I laughed out loud, alone and in a meeting room, at this article. You want it in your life:

Double-texting might seem like the worst thing you could ever do to your budding relationship—and it is! You’ve made yourself seem way too thirsty way too soon. But there’s always hope for reclaiming your chill—all you have to do is send one to 12 more texts to fix the fact that you sent one too many texts. Here are the perfect follow-up messages to let him know you know you sent him too many messages.

http://reductress.com/post/follow-up-texts-to-send-him-after-you-text-him-too-many-times/

AND NOW, do you remember how much I wanted to read Reading Bridal Magazines Form A Critical Discursive Perspective? I got some Christmas money and found a discount code and bought it and now that I’m reading it it’s everything I wanted it to be. It’s also making me want to read bridal magazines again. Sharing some key quotations with you now that I’m past the mandatory chapter where the author namedrops Foucault; lots of this is about the drift of weddings towards being branding exercise for the couple in question, as we increasingly come adrift from the sorts of societies in which the main wedding traditions were born:

She goes in quite hard on the “Letter from the Editor” of You And Your Wedding:

The formulation that expressing your own personality is “[o]ne of the best things about being a modern bride” implies that there are many others, of which the reader should probably know. That the expression of one’s own style is accomplished by means of specific commodities is implied […]: “Hearing your guests say ‘That’s just so you!’ is the ultimate compliement to your dress, flowers, service and all other wonderful things that come together to make your big day so special.” Given the editor’s assumptive tone, she takes for granted that readers of You And Your Wedding consider reliance on the commodities enumerated not only obvious but also desired.

Lots of mentions of the “wedding-ideological complex”, which I enjoy as a phrase:

[T]he wider wedding-ideological complex […] reinforces the notion of bridal self-transformation through ‘self-branding’

Everything about the buying of a dress is interesting. By the way, if you are getting married, and are going dress shopping, I’d recommend going alone as your first choice or – if you don’t think you can do that – going with me as your second choice. Just let me know when is good.

The following example comes from an article about choosing the right wedding dress. It includes advice from a life coach:

Once you’ve chosen your look, trust your instinct. “If you lose the courage of conviction about a decision, such as which dress to buy, take a 10-minute timeout to clear your mind, then go back to the shop,” says life coach and hypnotherapist Caroline Carr. […]

Of course, there is nothing controversial about encouraging women to make careful consumer choices. Yet, the fact of by whom the advice is given constructs the purchase of a bridal gown as a practice of self, rather than a mere consumer choice.

This is actually quite a soothing thing to remember and think about:

Consequently, real-life weddings [she here refers to the magazine features about real life weddings] accommodate the paradox of the commodified self, which consists in pursuing individuality among mass-produced commodities and widely available services

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Alex.