by Naomi K

Created on: April 24, 2008

No matter how we try to deny it, we all care about how we look. The way other people perceive us can be a powerful hallmark of how we ultimately relate to each other.

We intrinsically know that certain shapes, colors, and textures have a psychological effect on the people around us. Thus we are all bound and determined to some point to control it when it applies to ourselves.

It's the same reason large corporations spend fortunes on research experts and surveys to use psychological visual triggers for their facilities. Case in point: Fast-food places like McDonald's use bright colors like red and yellow (although more so in the past than now) to create an overall state of briskness and energy expenditure; of moving quickly.

It's a fast-food joint. There's a reason that they have only moderately-padded seating for their patrons rather than recliners and comfy couches.

Correctional institutions have long used colors like pink and "institutional green" to keep inmates in a more docile frame of mind.

There are studies that have shown that spending extended stretches of time in a room with bright red walls will make you a bit interesting in the noggin after awhile. Spending long periods of time in a room with black walls can spark depression and claustrophobia.

It's all an unspoken game of attempting to present a concept and control with it, and we are no different in regards to ourselves.

There is a dire "need" in Western society for people to try to be as thin as possible, to take up as little room as they can. So examine that: a thinner person's basic structure and make-up is much more evident to the human eye than a more heavily-padded person's.

A thin person's musculature, bone, sinew, and veins are all more visible. Iggy Pop's arms are so veiny that they'd be a vampire's equivalent of watching the Food Network, and I could name a dozen Hollywood actresses who have collarbones fit to cut glass.

In short, being having less "insulation" physically literally shows more of "who you are", "on the inside", under the skin.

Is there a psychological compulsion in our culture to try to express more of "who we are on the inside"? Is this our half-baked and subconscious drive to make an impression and hope that the things we want to say but never will are going to be somehow advertised on the minimalist canvases of our strictly-controlled figures?

Does it make one subconsciously more attractive and accessible as a result? Does it imply a fragility, a vulnerability that attracts others

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