Many years ago, I made a conscious decision to try and let go of the expectation that I would ever be considered (normatively) beautiful. It was a decision that led me down the path of detangling my self-worth from aesthetic expectation and as a result, changed the lens though which I viewed and experienced the world.

***

This project, i know i’m not beautiful, presents sounds, words, visuals, and perspectives that grow from a similar idea—privilege as it relates to normative aesthetic and how its value systems deeply intersect with white supremacy. How the conversation around aesthetic privilege is deprioritized but said privilege can be part of the foundation in many of the power dynamics we experience in both our day to day and the overarching journey of our lives.

Mostly though, these thoughts (and music!) are expressed through the filter of my own personal history, my experiences, and the ways in which I’ve been taught to view myself and the world around me. I consider this project an opportunity to simultaneously gain and release control in my life—I am in hot pursuit of my own freedom.

***

For a long time I believed I didn’t deserve to be loved because of the way that I looked and that in order to be loved, I would need to compromise my values, safety, and comfort.

I know some of you will understand this. Even perhaps, innately embody it.

The privilege of normative aesthetic (beauty) is a hard one to acknowledge though, in part because it would require me to consider biases that have informed my choices for most of my existence amongst others. Choices through which I tried to validate my own right to exist, to make my humanity real. We live in a world where love is not unconditional, it is definitely not blind, and who you choose to love and desire, to support through trauma and recovery, and whose voices you decide to amplify can be the result of an unwillingness to challenge one’s own thinking re:normative aesthetics and ideas of reality. And we have been conditioned to believe that who we love/desire and who loves/desires us is foundational to our own claim to happiness, so I understand the reluctance.
Truthfully, I was angry about what felt like the unfairness of it all for a very, very long time. (I didn’t ask to be born asian! Why does it feel like my right to be considered beautiful is less deserving than my white counterparts?) But as these things usually go, I would often use this feeling to justify my own self-hatred. In reality, this anger kept me in an imbalance to those who believed in these norms.

[IbelievedwhattheybelievedsoIbelieved             I was ugly]

So, as a matter of my own survival, I decided that these values and ideas, even my distate for them, did not serve me anymore. I would try and love myself as I am, or figure out what that meant beyond the concept of superficial self-care. I understood that if I continued to let normative aesthetics chip away at my self-esteem and worth, I would crumble and I wasn’t sure anyone would be there to help pick up the pieces.

Some of you will read this and decide to (condescendingly) tell me that I am wrong—that I am, in fact, beautiful. I suspect this behaviour stems more from a place of guilt or shame rather than a genuine acceptance of my experience. I’m not here to argue with you. But just know that I don’t accept your reactions and projections and I don’t expect you to accept mine (mine = this whole project and what it represents). TLDR - it’s extremely confusing when you’ve experienced something deep in your body your entire life and some, albeit well-intentioned, progressive white person is telling you you are wrong. *eyeroll*!  

***

These days, there are moments when I feel completely and utterly free. Perhaps and most likely an illusion, but I am choosing to believe that in these moments, I know I made the right decision. That even if this decision potentially meant that fewer people would choose to see me (it’s probably the opposite??? *shrug*), that I would have the choice to see myself as radically complete.

And at the end of it all, this project is ultimately for a younger me—a version of me that spiralled into self-hatred everytime I examined my features, individually and as a collective whole, in the mirror or saw a picture of myself. A version of me that, even though I understood that racism, white supremacy, and societal trends re:desirability were at the roots of these expectations, I still couldn’t shake the deep and all-consuming desire to be considered beautiful, in part because I believed it would be the most direct path to being seen, and therefore,

being loved.

{And do I even exist if nobody loves me?}

***

My perspectives surrounding the foundational ideas of these songs and thoughts have shifted over the years and so I am treating this project in the same way—allowing it to evolve, to live and to feel, to allow the capacity for change. You’ve probably noticed there’s not much here. As such, I will be adding more thoughts, words, visuals, etc etc etc to this space over the course of the year. And after a year, the website will be taken down.  

I don’t believe that I am beautiful yet but I’m also not sure that that is the path I’m trying to take. If anything, all I can hope is that maybe this path I’m walking gives me a few extra moments, fleeting moments when I can finally see myself, whole and at peace.

***

i know i’m not beautiful, don’t fight me on this

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
                                            

 




Album credits: 
Drums by Austin Tufts
Engineered by Taylor Smith at Studio Toute Garnie
Mixed by Austin Tufts
Mastered by Taylor Deupree/12K Mastering

Release date: August 2024



ig: bloomdesertbloom
bandcamp: desertbloom.bandcamp.com