{"id":44207,"date":"2012-02-17T12:40:46","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T17:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=44207"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:54:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:54:53","slug":"how-to-post-for-a-picture-smiling-as-a-social-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/02\/17\/how-to-post-for-a-picture-smiling-as-a-social-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"History and How to Pose for a Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retronaut recently posted a fun collection of vintage photographs of children posing with toys<\/a>. What makes them interesting is how unhappy they look from a contemporary point of view: confused, bored, even morose. \u00a0Thinking through the vintage photographs you have in your mind’s eye, though, you’ll recall that almost all vintage photographs include blank faces. \u00a0No smiling, no bunny ears… just people.<\/p>\n

The contrast between then and now reveals that how-to-act-when-someone’s-taking-your-picture is a social construction. Smiling didn’t come naturally, it had to evolve socially. \u00a0Today parents teach their children how to smile for photographs and, perhaps, even to act gleeful with toys.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More at\u00a0Retronaut<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> There’s a great conversation going on in the comments. \u00a0Some have pointed out that early photograph technology required a long exposure time, making smiling impractical. \u00a0Others are sharing their experiences in other countries, where it is still the norm to stop <\/em>smiling when the camera comes out, even if everyone is having a jolly time. \u00a0Lots of stuff to think about…<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retronaut recently posted a fun collection of vintage photographs of children posing with toys. What makes them interesting is how unhappy they look from a contemporary point of view: confused, bored, even morose. \u00a0Thinking through the vintage photographs you have in your mind’s eye, though, you’ll recall that almost all vintage photographs include blank faces. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[223,253,293],"class_list":["post-44207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childrenyouth","tag-history","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44207"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58479,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44207\/revisions\/58479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}