Normal cool and pretty girls

[imomus]

Today I want to talk about cool and pretty girls. Normal ones with nothing commercial, heightened or enhanced about them. In fact, wouldn't it be great to have a blog that talked exclusively about cool and pretty normal girls, with nothing enhanced, a blog that just sought them out and celebrated them? Because, in this world, there can never be too many cool and pretty normal girls. And no, I don't mean Suicide Girls. I mean just normal cool and pretty girls, honky-donkeying around on their own blogs, and the blogs of their friends, mostly.

I've noticed that my friend Toog puts lots of pretty girl pictures on his blog. They're pretty pretty, very young and sometimes naked. But they're not quite the same kind of pretty girls I'd put here, if I were to make an entry called something like "Cool and pretty normal girls". They're a bit more the Virgin Suicides type. The Citizen K type. They look styled, ingenue, somebody else's wet dream. I prefer more normal girls, presented the way they choose.

Now, we might all disagree about what a cool and pretty normal girl is. We might express post-feminist doubts and qualms even about using the word "girl". We might worry that these girls, talked about all over cyberspace, would attract the wrong sort of attention and get cyberstalked. We might talk about who has the right to celebrate these cool and pretty and normal girls and who doesn't, and how old you have to be before you're a dirty old man. (The age after my next birthday, is the answer to that.) But, you know, let's not bother with all that, shall we? Life's too short, and we die. Let's just talk about cool and pretty normal girls today, girls who are putting their photos online because they know this makes the world a better place. We believe they are correct.

In theory I like the idea of the Flickr Wardrobe Remix Pool quite a bit. Girls (and some boys too) put their today's outfit up there, day in, day out. But I've only ever seen one really cool girl on that -- a Hong Kong girl called T T.

I obviously find Japanese girls some of the prettiest and coolest anywhere, but there's generally a modesty and self-effacement thing going on in the culture which prevents people there from flaunting it even if they've got it. Most Mixi pages, for instance, are illustrated by icons of rabbits, rag dolls and amusingly-shaped root vegetables rather than the faces of the pretty girls behind them. But there are sites like Love Useless Resistance, set up by Sakiccho and Haachu, who set themselves the goal of finding a boyfriend by Christmas Eve. They ended up publishing a book instead. Which I suppose has to disqualify them as "normal" girls. They work for some kind of star-making publicist-manager, apparently -- Kuro Miho, "mastermind woman of the blog world". Harumph.

I suppose you could say people in bands also have a commercial reason to show themselves. I already mentioned Nobuko Hori, who makes music and visuals. I could add the charming Yoshimi from Lullatone. (Shawn, her partner, is himself something of a pinup in the paddling pool.)



What about LiveJournal girls? Well, I must say it's always a delight to see new self-portraits on my Friends List, especially when it's obelia posing nude in a cardboard box. Or wendypants without any make-up on. Or may_kasahara in her room. Or ultrakurtzwelle (Connie) spiky-bobbed in black and white.



Nice, normal, cool and pretty girls make this world a great deal better. Here, to prove the point, is Hikaru dancing an "organic dance" in a video by Andrew Benson.

[Error: unknown template video]

Tell me your favourite nice, normal, pretty, world-bettering girl... and her URL.

Comments

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I know plenty of girls who make the world a better place, but I find that I hesitate to draw attention to them on the Internet. Shame, really. I would quite like to express my appreciation, otherwise.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Quite, you don't want a swarming flashcrowd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob) around your beloved.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Especially not if they said, "We were sent by Quentin."

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

In which connection, I can only think of one girl of my close acquaintance who isn't markedly camera-shy. No, perhaps two. Camera-shyness seems incredibly common amongst young women of my acquaintance. Older women don't seem to mind so much.

[(Anonymous)]

Therein lies their charm, Quentin!
Thomas S.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

The older ones or the younger ones?

[(Anonymous)]

Ha, ha...both!
Thomas

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

according to the ads for mens magazines on the train I ride, 29% of young women in Japan say they don't mind taping sex.

Curiously it was phrased roughly like "why do they say it's alright?".

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether that figure sounds low or high to me.