Social Media + Makeup = Easy Access Beauty

Lets take Social Media giant Youtube for example: You know, the beauty of youtube, and the web for that matter is you can research the crap out of your next makeup purchase, find inspiration from photos with just a few keywords, AND learn step by gorgeous step in the comfort of your own home how to put all that stuff on! You don’t have to be set upon by the vultures that work the cosmetics counter. You don’t have to find a sister or a best friend to sit down with you. And you don’t have to subject yourself to hundreds of dollars of product and tools just to have your face break out in hives the next morning.

You just search and then press play.

God it’s glorious.

There is a lot to choose from in the big Social Media ocean however. So I’m here to pick out the pearls of wisdom and awesomeness for you. And to start I’ve got a makeup guru that kicks ass in so many ways: Justine Metz. She’s wicked, she’s willful, she probably thinks you’re an idiot and not just with your makeup choices. All these are reason to look, listen, laugh, and learn.

“I heard someone once say that we’re only as sick as our secrets.” -Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking

I have begun reading about Carrie Fisher’s crazy up and down life with delighted interest. After watching all the youtube videos of her I could find starting with the one below, and then reading a slew of articles and interviews I boogied on over to the library for a copy of her totally candid live-and-in-wacky-first-person autobiography Wishful Drinking.

My mother, whom I currently chaperon asks innocently “do you think you are bipolar?” then,
“all the people I’ve heard about being bipolar are really hard to live with.”

She’s so wonderful and seems blithely forgetful of the often emotionally torturous years her and my father have survived in raising me. That or she took a good measure of peace in her office miles away while I raged home alone with my brother. No matter, she has always taken my intensity in stride…as best she can anyway.

Alright…gotta get back to the book. Here’s that vid I was talkin about an excerpt from the amazing documentary hosted by Stephen Fry “The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive”:

By the way, did you notice how I totally posted this out of sequence? Yeah, it’s been a weird…project.

Producing regular content is a lotta fun…and a nice challenge…and sometimes a GODDAMN PAIN IN THE ASS!

*deep breath* phew! okay. lemme esplain…
See, I love creating content. Producing content that you folks want to and/or enjoy seeing is a interesting and welcome challenge. Learnin a whole lotta good stuff here. What bugs me is the finishing, uploading, and maximizing part…all the crap I gotta do to make sure it all gets out there and loads and has got all the tags and shit that takes forEVER and I’ve already just spent 2 hours making some decent stuff. Here’s the breakdown.

Joy: Recording a fun vid for youtube.
Challenge: Timing it just right
Pain in The Ass: uploading it for 1 to 2 hours each time :P

Joy: Writing an inspired and witty blog post for wordpress
Challenge: formatting in an nice readable way.
Pain in the Ass: getting photos, finding links, adding tags, categories and THEN publishing it…phew!

Joy: Taking a random self portrait for flickr.
Challenge: making adjustments in photoshop
Pain in the Ass: adding color changes, filters, getting rid of bullshit, sizing, saving and THEN uploading to flickr to then add titles, descriptions, tags, and send it to my groups.

Joy: Feedback and suggestions from REAL friends and new interesting people.
Challenge: working the lovely constructive criticism I get from you folks into my processes in a timely manner.
Pain in the Ass: spam, skeazy internet stalkers, and poopy comments.

Joy: Meeting new people virtually and in the “real” world.
Challenge: finding those new people on facebook so I can add their “friendship”.
Pain in the Ass: not hearing from some of them for weeks…*sigh*

Joy: sharing stuff from the REAL world
Challenge: linking stuff from the REAL world to the virtual world
Pain in the Ass: lighting…

Joy: The Internet (”that muppets video made my day!”)
Challenge: The Internet (”um…what’s the code for bullet lists again?”)
Pain in the Ass: The Internet (”oh no you did NOT just go down Internet!!!”)

Joy: ideas from my ever creative brain.
Challenge: producing from my ever creative brain.
Pain in the Ass: making sense of my ever creative brain.

Really though I am not stopping. It is ultimately too much fun and super interesting. Besides your continued feedback makes it all worth it in the end so I get back to drawing table again.

Today I got my first snarky comment. It was in reference to a recent video I posted on youtube and basically said that I looked funny. Who was the texty offender? A 19 year old girl that seems to enjoy leaving a trail of poo all over youtube apparently. When she isn’t lauding the godlike powers of her favorite hair straightener that is. I didn’t feel butthurt about it and instead have decided to spread some web 2.0 love by leaving super positive comments for the videos she shat on after my own. Videos put out awesome and courageous gals that do their part in beautifying their own corners of the web. They deserve major kudos for being creative instead of crap comments flung by anonymous “users”.

In the meantime I am keeping my eye on ms. turd talker just for amusement sake…

I bet you are super web savvy. I bet you’ve got a nice little collection of web profiles and accounts. You know just what is going on with them and how they all fit together. If your online persona was a painting what would it look like? The Mona Lisa perhaps? Well, mine would probably resemble a Jackson Pollack…only with bright pink shades. I am all over the web but it’s not entirely clear who the hell I am at this point. It’s a little crazy.

Here’s the current breakdown:

Web Profiles and Pages:

• 5 (?) Gmail Accounts – um….how do I justify all these…meh…I’ll do that later!
  3 Twitter Accounts – oh Twitter…I’m trying to get into you…but it’s such a challenge being a twit!

• 2 Wordpress Websites – 365daygirl is doing well, my other “girl” blog however gets slammed with spam.
• 2 Myspace Accounts – I don’t go on MS anymore…too creepy.
• 2 Facebook Profiles – one in married name (I’m divorced) the other in super fancy new name!
• 2 Yahoo Mail Accounts – 1 is spam. the other…was an a whim.
• 2 Youtube Channels – one is personal the other is all for YOU! :)
• 1 Digg Account – I really like DIGG…I just don’t ever use it.
• 1 Flickr Account – this has gone through 3 “username” transformations…I’m so wacky.
• 1 Yelp Account – great site that hardly any one in my state uses…*sigh*
• 1 This Next Account – another great site that I need to update
• 1 Shop Style Account – it’s like playing dress up…but it takes me hours to “play” with it!

My “Friends”…Real and Virtual:

• Facebook: 137 – I have more “guy” friends than “girl” friends which bugs me a little…even though I really like boys and a few in particular :)
• Flickr:49 – a handful are real professional friends, the rest are just cool people that take photos I drool over
• Wordpress: a bunch of friends have left comments. I’ve been bookmarked by some new people, but I don’t really know how many people are reading.
• Twitter – 300 something on “catthegirlguru”, and just a handful on 365daygirl since I have done much “tweeting”.
• Youtube – like 2 friends? 3 if I count myself from the personal account. lol
• Yelp – 15 friends…most of them from out of state.

  I could go on and on with this…but I’d rather hear about your webness :)
  So, whatchoo got goin on in your web universe? Is it working for you? Or do you try not to think about it all?

I hope this isn’t a dry blog site. Generally I have too much personality for that. MY problem however involves how I dispense all the interesting info I got stuffed in my brain in a timely manner.

Today I uploaded two videos about beauty and it took me about 10 takes for each one of them! Total NEWB! Thing is I wanted to get it right AND I wanted to make sure youtube didn’t reject them again due to length (I’m a talker when I get going). The time limit thing is really rather smart of youtube cause 30 seconds on the web is like 1 hour in real life. So I get to make it snappy. Getting my videos under 10 minutes is a welcome challenge though.

As I recorded I also wanted to make sure I was actually sharing relevant information in an interesting way. Storytelling is no problem for me. Sharing amusing anecdotes about my life? Piece of new york cheese cake (with cherries)! Providing valuable information in a nicely structured manner that is UNDER 10 minutes? Uh….workin on it.

What really helps is working and being with a guy who’s fantastic at business. Successful business men are all about THE POINT and whether or not it matters to them. THE POINT must be delivered quickly cause they have IMPORTANT things to do – like running a company, securing an investment, etc. etc.
THE POINT must also interest them. Otherwise, they got a whole host of better things to do that will make them money, power, that sort of thing. Their time is precious so they carefully invest it only in things that will RETURN that investment.

The Businessman mentality I’ve noticed applies to just about everyone that jumps on the web. We are all RICH with our access to information. Our ATTENTION however is very precious, and so is our time. So me getting to THE POINT and GETTING YOUR ATTENTION in 10 minutes or less is a very cool learning experience indeed.

Speaking of time…I gotta run…late night dinner with a hot biz guy :)

Fashion obsessed girls, I have a question for you:
Do you dress fashion forward or do you dress feminine?
What’s the difference you ask?
Well one is more for yourself and to impress other women (Fashion Forward) and the other is dressing more to attract men (Feminine). So I suppose the real question girls is: Do you dress for men or do you dress for women?. Here’s another breakdown for you:

Fashion Forward is:
*dynamic
*bold
*cutting edge
*androgynous
*sexy in a high fashion model way ala “my cheekbones and clavicle bones can slice you in two!”
Think: Mary Kate Olsen (you know with her slouchy coolness and morbid hotness)

Feminine is of course:
*body hugging
*form fitting
*flirty
*pretty or cute
*sexy in a playboy bunny way ala “here’s my boobs, betcha wanna play with em!”
Think: Kim Kardashian (ever noticed that girls ass? it’s devestating! I’m sure it’s given J-Lo a marathon run for her money!)

Personally I veer slightly more towards men because I enjoy flirty with them and accentuating my femininity. But I also have a very strong creative streak that allows me to get all creative and experimental.

I promised to post links from my video so here they are for you girls!
Fashion/Makeup Links for the Ladies!
*Fashion: Veni Caprice: store on Etsy where I got my awesome revolver hoodie dresses.
*Makeup: < href="http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahVictor">Sarah Victor: does really fun and super informative makeup tutorials on youtube. You can also check out her facebook fan page (I just became a fan myself!).

Spread the social media joy and tell your girlfriends to look, read, or watch 365 Day Girl and I’ll post more girly goodness for you!