The Emotion of Beauty

I used to work for a boss who had a ready and very blunt remark to everything. At the time, I was in charge of a team of designers and was responsible for preparing art and layout for his final review. I remember him particularly for his colorful use of language to express his approval (“This design perfectly captures the happiness of a child!”) and disapproval (“This looks like poison! Rat poison!”), as if his compliments and insults were premeditated.

I especially remember how he would always judge us for our taste. He was very particular about art and would make the connection that poor work stems from poor taste. I found this a bit concerning as I’ve always believed that taste was subjective and that there’s truth to the saying “to each his own.” But working with him made me wonder if there was ever a definite answer to the question of taste. Maybe a study of some sort had already been done to differentiate good taste from poor taste. Maybe science actually had a way for me to prove that I, as a matter of verifiable fact, had a most excellent taste.

A girl can hope. So of course, I turned to the Internet to look for answers.

As you can imagine, the search yielded almost no substantial result. While we can trace back the discussion about beauty to Ancient Greece, it seemed as if modern science couldn’t be bothered to deal with the question. I did encounter an interesting study that said beauty was objective because a huge number of people could be relied upon to agree on the prettiest shape and color. The researchers conducted a survey and apparently, most of their sample agreed that blue was the prettiest color and circle was the prettiest shape. They even agreed that the ugliest thing was a brown rectangle. Therefore, that blue is the prettiest color in the spectrum was not a matter of debate, the study claimed, as if the popularity of any opinion ever made it factual.

Are blue and circle objectively the prettiest color and shape? Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when world-renowned Austrian designer Stefan Sagmeister brought the topic up at the recently concluded Graphika 20/20. He started his talk with evidence that beauty was not in the eye of the beholder; he asked all 3,000+ of us what we thought the prettiest color and shape were, and the results were not the least bit surprising.

Sagmeister went on to list and reframe his happiest memories as outcomes of beautiful design, highlighting the importance of making beautiful things and not simply things that function. He argued ardently against Austrian architect Adolf Loos, whom he blamed for popularizing the view that ornamentation was a crime. He went so far as to claim that design caused people to live happy or miserable lives, citing the number of angry tweets from people who have to board public transportation in ugly terminals versus in grand ones. The desire for beauty is inherent to humans, he said, because if it weren’t so, why did prehistoric men felt the need to carve stone tools into perfectly symmetrical shapes?

I couldn’t help but be reminded of encountering the term ‘aesthetics’ back when I was a university student. Nowadays, we use the term aesthetics to refer to the visual appeal of any material, but aesthetics in philosophy as I learned in class, refers to the study of beauty, art, and our appreciation of either. I had to admit that given that it had its own term and study, beauty must be as important to us humans as the concepts of truth (logic) and morals (ethics).

A quick refresher for all of us: The discussion about beauty and art may go way back to the time of Plato, but the notion of taste only became popular in the 18th century. It was a time when rationalism was in vogue and prominent philosophers argued that the merit of any work of art can only be judged after a thorough process of examination. Nothing can be thought of as either beautiful or crass without justification. This was later contested by a group of thinkers who claimed that we do not reason for things to be beautiful but rather “taste” them as we do food. Jean Baptiste-Dubos said:

“Do we ever reason, in order to know whether a ragoo be good or bad; and has it ever entered into any body’s head, after having settled the geometrical principles of taste, and defined the qualities of each ingredient that enters into the composition of those messes, to examine into the proportion observed in their mixture, in order to decide whether it be good or bad? No, this is never practiced. We have a sense given us by nature to distinguish whether the cook acted according to the rules of his art. People taste the ragoo, and tho’ unacquainted with those rules, they are able to tell whether it be good or no. The same may be said in some respect of the productions of the mind, and of pictures made to please and move us.”

And lo! The concept of taste was born.

Do we judge art and other things with immediacy as we do food? Can we readily tell good art from bad art because of an inherent sense of taste? Photo by Olayinka Babalola on Unsplash

But whether or not you agree with the rationalists or with Baptiste-Dubos, the debate between immediacy and reason is just one issue among many. Discussions of taste and beauty always led to a hundred more questions: Do we judge something as beautiful because that’s how our community taught us to react to it? Do we think that someone is beautiful because it’s a biological instinct that encourages procreation and the survival of our species? Do we judge an app’s design to be beautiful because it gives us a pleasurable experience? If the answer to the latter was yes, would it then be possible to live a life of joy by surrounding one’s self with things perceived as beautiful? And could we actually design happier lives by way of designing beautiful things as Sagmeister said?

Is beauty all that stands between me and happiness?

The cab I rode on the way home from the conference was white with streaks of green paint. It was a bit battered and had obviously seen the passage of time. Inside, the space was cramped and the seats were of the color often described as the ugliest shade. Whereas I left the building via floor-to-ceiling glass doors, I entered my home through a rickety screen door. Like the taxi we took, the apartment my boyfriend and I rent is cramped; the space is littered with our things because the cats would always run around thrashing the place whenever we went out. We were lively discussing the things we heard at the conference a few minutes earlier, but we came home in silence.

I looked at the mirror and wondered whether or not I’d be happier if I thought myself a thing of beauty. This was the only question I had an answer for, as the dim light above my head made the circles around my eyes look darker than they actually are.

Even as a teen, I’ve always been fascinated with ornate hairbrushes and teacups that have survived their era only to rest in museums. I’ve always been in love with classical buildings and art deco establishments. I’ve always adored the beautiful remnants of bygone eras, despite a friend pointing out that these old, beautiful things weren’t necessarily markers of a time when ornamentation was standard; they’re beautiful things reserved for the people with power and money to afford them.

Is this a cultural marker or the province of the wealthy? Photo by Adora Goodenough on Unsplash

But hey, a girl can have taste… and maybe, a bit of hope.

unsolicited advice for the creative

So I made stuff, in my endeavor to be a practicing creative whose body of work is composed of tangible objects and not just floating concepts in my brain.

Boyfriend and I were gearing up to set a table at this small event for local artists and I wanted to churn out something new after having layouted my DIY comics. I trashed several ideas before finally settling down on something. I thought: “Hey, I have numerous opinions about creatives. Most of the people who will attend the event are creatives. Why not publish my rants about them?” Or something like that.

So I got on my little notepad and quickly wrote short sentences about my thoughts on artists, what makes them great, their favorite excuses for when they’re not being productive, and mostly just beliefs on the process of churning out artistic work. As a full-time Creative Director, I thought I was credible enough to give unsolicited advice.

At work, I would always tell book layout artists that the purpose of layout is to make reading the text easy. But I had so much fun breaking that rule when I designed the pages of this small project. Check out these pages:

Interested in a copy of the whole thing? E-mail me and I’ll send it to you. No charge, no survey, no anything in exchange whatsoever.

 

Bajau

nangangapal sa kalyo ang talampakang
walang init na nadarama; sanay sa hapdi
ng araw sa inaraw-araw na paghabol ng jeep

noo’y ugoy ng alon ang marahang duyan
ngayo’y kaladkad sa pinulupot na kalsada
nakatunghay sa kahabaan ng daang
ang pinipitpit ay libong sasakyan para magkasya

balot ng makulay na panyo ang noo
salo ang pawis ng maghapong pagpalaot
tapik ang tambol na gawa sa lata at plastik
ang tanong ay paano nga ba naanod
at paano nga ba babalik

In Loving Memory of the Joke

I recently posted a question on a social media platform that went like this: What do you miss the most from the pre-Internet days? The answers ranged from obscure pieces of technology, such as corded telephones and tube televisions, to less favored physical activities, such as biking and walking. I read all the comments in that thread searching for a response that reflected my own sentiments but nowhere did I find the joke. You see, what I miss the most from the pre-Internet times are the jokes.

Some say that the joke has been dying a slow death since the 50s, but I remember hearing and repeating narrative jokes in the early 2000s. In the same vein as myths and legends, these jokes were passed through oral tradition from friend to friend, generation to generation. These jokes required commitment to the memorization of actual stories ending with punchlines and demanded full performances with tones and facial expressions when shared.

The earliest joke I remember hearing and repeating myself is this question-and-answer that only appeals to six-year-olds as I was at the time: One maeko plus one maeko? Never mind that the word “maeko” does not exist in both the English and the Filipino lexicon. Approaching this logically, treating the maeko as a variable in an algebraic expression, which is something that good reason should warn you not to do especially when dealing with toddlers, should lead you to “two maeko.” Of course, to anyone who understands Filipino, “two maeko“ sounds like “tumae ‘ko (I pooped).” And for six-year-olds, nothing could be funnier than poop.

After the age of six, I remember encountering jokes in book compilations and in magazines. I’d go over them all, searching for jokes I could reserve for a better time. Almost everyone then had a favorite joke and this had been mine for a long time:

Three men were stranded in an island after their ship capsized. Unfortunately, the island was populated by cannibals who managed to catch all of them for supper. Terrified at the prospect of death, the men began to cry.

When the chief of the cannibals saw this, he took pity and said, “We won’t eat you if you pass our requirements. First, head to the forest and come back with the first fruit you’d see.” The men leapt and ran into the forest.

After three minutes, one of the men came back with a single blueberry. The chief then said, “Insert this fruit into your asshole. If you laugh, we will kill you.” When the man did this, he laughed and was immediately put to death.

A few minutes later, the second man returned with a cherry. The chief said, “Insert this fruit into your asshole. If you laugh, we will kill you.” The man did so and kept his composure for a considerable amount of time until he, too, was put to death.

In heaven, the first man met with the second man and said, “What happened? I saw you and you looked like you were never going to laugh.”

The man replied, “Everything was going well until the third guy came carrying a jackfruit.”

We are the jokes of our generation

A joke can only be a joke if it is made by someone and shared with someone else who would consequently declare it hilarious. That which was made and shared with the intention of being laughed at but garnered no applause is therefore not a joke but a sad statement until someone else validates it. In this regard, jokes can only be shared within a group of people sharing certain beliefs and perspectives. Every culture and subculture has a unique joke pattern or theme.

In the Philippines, for example, a popular joke features the character of Inday, the stereotypical maid from the Visayas islands characterized by her stupidity and inability to mimic the Tagalog pronunciation. One of her many domestic adventures saw her crying after the doctor told her that he would have to remove her butlig (rash), mistakenly thinking that the doctor said “both leg(s).”

It is important to note that Inday as a hilarious character found popularity only in Metro Manila and some parts of Luzon at a time when Tagalogs would look down at the Bisaya (people from the Visayas islands). Considering that Tagalogs dominated the capital, the government, and the commercial realm, Tagalog became the prevalent culture dictating what is correct and even what is Filipino. Many Bisaya at the time found employment as maids in the richer Tagalog households; their interchanging vowels when speaking the language of their employers was deemed incorrect and hilarious.

When the general attitude towards Bisaya changed, the jokes featured a different Inday, one who spoke perfect English and was too smart for the average Filipino to follow. Every time she opened her mouth, she caused “nasal hemorrhage” for the people within her immediate vicinity. No one understood her but she did not care for the lowly scum.

Comparable to the many jokes made and being made at the expense of the cultural minority, the hilarity of which remain subjective, the Inday joke is a product of its setting. Nowadays, most young Filipinos do not subscribe to these types of humor out of political correctness and cultural sensitivity. This fear of offending or being considered offensive may have partly resulted to the demise of the joke, the punchlines of which almost always poke fun at specific human attributes that are frowned upon by the dominant culture.

In 2013, popular Filipino comedian Vice Ganda made a joke about Filipino journalist Jessica Soho being raped. The joke was really about Soho being fat but it drew flak because it involved an award-wining and respected journalist in the same sentence as the word rape. Vice Ganda had to issue a public apology when the issue began making headlines. 

I do not write this to make claims about what jokes are acceptable or not as I do believe that jokes are a matter of taste. Instead, I would like to throw my hat in and say that a favorite joke of mine is the ngongo joke, made at the expense of persons born with cleft palettes and consequently, speech impediment. I know I am not perfect and you, too, are not perfect, but tell me what jokes you laugh at and I may be able to tell you if we can ever be friends.

Wherein we became the memes we love

The joke in itself may not be completely dead and maybe how we share it is actually what changed. As more of our friends relocate to virtual reality and as we spend more of our lives on social media, narrative jokes turned into memes. Short one-liners became images with text and anti-jokes became shitposts. Like the old narrative joke, memes are also unique per culture or subculture and are only funny for people in the know. Unlike the narratives though, these memes do not require an introduction and are as quick as they appear and leave on our social feeds.

This is not to say that the loss of narrative jokes in terms of popularity is a result of a cultural decline. I also do not have any desire of proclaiming one type of humor superior over another. What I lament is how I no longer meet anyone with a ready joke and a rehearsed performance. The oral tradition of joke-sharing has boiled down to one simple line of “Have you seen this meme?” For the joker, the performance is gone, and for the listener, the anticipation of a laugh is lost.

In a 2005 article for The New York Times, Warren St. John mentions that jokes were abandoned because the younger generation was insecure. Compared to the quick observational humor, the failure of which can go by unnoticed, jokes can turn a situation awkward if they do not lead to the desired effect. And while the same can be said for online jokes with zero likes and shares, it can be argued that an unnoticed original meme is much preferable to an oral joke no one laughed at. The former can even be deleted, unlike the memory of embarrassment from a failed joke.

What this phenomenon tells me is how much we’ve changed and not changed over the years. The reputed oldest joke dating back to 1900 BCE is all about women and farts. Thousands of years later, many people are still embarrassed or laughed at for poop, meaning that we still find the same shit funny. But we have changed a lot in terms of how we deliver humor, learning to protect ourselves from embarrassment and the loathing of others.

In case I haven’t bored you yet with how seriously the joke is taken in this little essay, I will share another favorite joke as a reward for making it to the end. This particular joke was shared to me by a classmate when I was around 15. It goes: What’s red and goes up and down? The answer, he told me, was a tomato in an elevator.

Now, I’ve never met another person who laughed when I shared this but I always thought the absurdity of a lone tomato finding itself in an elevator enough to merit a chuckle. For my friend and I, however, the real punchline came years later when, as a young professional, I carried a tomato in my handbag going up the elevator at work. Before leaving the red thing to go on its journey down, I took the photo below and sent it to him via Facebook.

I didn’t hear him over the Internet but I know a laugh was shared that day.