With Facebook’s Timeline fast approaching for everyone, I have been spending an unholy amount of time frantically searching for a cover photo. What single photo do I choose to accurately broadcast myself as a grounded optimist with a tangible grasp on reality and a working relationship with my pervasive maturity and religious certainty?
I could go with a photo of a quote, typed with a broken typewriter or colorfully strewn on a wall underneath a bridge! But which quote to choose? It would have to be something more vague than the waiver I signed at Uncle Leonard’s Discount Bungee Fun (more bounce for your buck!), lest my intellectually inferior friends conclude that they are able to grasp my truly unique mind.
If someone ever has the courage to question the quote, I must be able to instantly explain it using only ambiguous quotes from Joanna Newsom, PostSecret, Dr. Suess, the New Testament or a fortune cookie (which I always keep in abundance in my glove box, just in case). I could even write the quote in French, rewarding the few that understand it and alienating the rest that must either look it up or hang their confused head low. (i.e. “tu es un tricheur”).
I could rely on irony and choose a picture that makes people either smile, nod, utter “amen” under their breath, chuckle, knowingly groan or click “about” to research my political affiliation. But what picture could fully capture the essence of my inimitable sense of humor or my unfalteringly accurate perception of current world issues? If I had access to a camera, a zoo with a healthy penguin population and a trampoline, I would combine my love for the adorable and my love for societal rebellion by photographing those formal little devils “flying” over the revolving zoo exit doors (the political significance of this mental image just made me pass out for seven seconds).
I could succumb to sentimentality and use a photo of myself among friends. But which friends could I use to advertise myself as an independent artisan of creativity? This group of friends would have to include an eclectic combination of well-dressed individuals so that each of my high school acquaintances will know how relevant I am. I have been so thirsty for social exclusion ever since people stopped caring about my top eight friends on Myspace and this cover photo option would finally quench that thirst.
Of course, I would have to choose at least 13 friends to cater to the obnoxiously horizontal dimensions of the cover photo, but that shouldn’t be a problem now that I’m one of no less than 14 staff writers at the Graphic. If you are reading this and would like to appear in my cover photo, please lose 10 pounds and then email me a picture of yourself, pre-morning shower, with a beautiful landscape behind you (not the Grand Canyon — get creative, you lazy bum) and a shrewd look of content contempt.
I could maximize on my travel opportunities and use a picture of me in a place that implies wealth and broadness of mind. But which location could I choose that would instill jealously as well as admiration in the hearts of my followers? I have several pictures of myself enjoying French delicacies, Norwegian landscapes, Austrian strolls and Mexican beverages. Each of these places has taught me a new strand of ethnocentrism and it would be selfish of me not to give them credit for my now impenetrable American pride. Or better yet, I could put a picture of just a location, with no sign of life, that would either imply that I have the ability to fondly recollect or that I have life goals and bucket lists. That would put the “hot” back into “photo.”
In the end, I will probably just embrace my ever-growing appreciation for modernism (and its cousins — laziness and idiocy) and use a picture of a turkey baster or a teddy bear. There has never been a picture taken that can say all I want it to, so I will take a deep breath, open wide and say it myself. Coffee, anyone?
