is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Soap Opera Handsome.
Soap Opera Handsome.
I was out with a colleague of mine recently (not a date; he�s married, etc.), and we were talking jokingly about our dating histories. I was describing someone (from a deep past) as �soap opera handsome,� and my colleague had no idea what I meant, even when I explained that �soap opera handsome� means �so normatively handsome that the attractiveness is grotesque!� (Normative means �based on or describing a norm.� I mean this both ways for �soap opera handsome.� It is a form of handsome that is based on ideas about what �handsome� means and, in turn, prescribes those ideas and forms as norms others �ought� to approximate if they want to be considered �handsome.�) Anyway, I guess this colleague of mine has never watched a soap opera, or even seen a commercial for one, or he thinks that normatively attractive men are, well, unproblematically attractive. I�m not saying that they aren�t attractive. It�s just that there is something about someone who is Normatively Attractive that is UnRemarkable, literally. �Do you have any remarks to make, milady?� �No, sir, nothing out of the ordinary here at all! My goodness, man, you are attractive, and no one need dispute that, ever!� That�s soap opera handsome. See? Boring! And, sometimes, for me, repellent even.
Just for the record, there are men who are soap-opera-handsome-of-color, too. I just couldn't find any photos of them in my quick search of All My Children actors.
11:25 p.m. - February 19, 2006
js - 2009-01-18 16:56:35
ha. when i first wrote this, all of the different links linked to different examples of "soap opera handsome." but since it is all so generic, perhaps it doesn't matter that the links all lead to the same photo of the same guy.
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js - 2013-02-20 02:02:55
and now the links all lead to no photos at all!
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