Thinking About “New Boobs”

On her profile on a popular social networking site, a 20-something actress/writer/humorist/cool person  directed her friends to get more info on her “new book, new shows, new movie, new boobs”. Needless to say, that’s been quite the attention-grabber. I mean, who doesn’t want to know more about the new book, the new shows, and the new movie? Even so, I think I’m going to go down the road less traveled and concentrate on the “new boobs”.

Who’s the Boob?

Many people, I’m sure, will make the immediate leap to thinking that this actress has opted for some sort of surgical enhancement. Others, more jaded by mis-leading headlines, will think instead that she was “enhanced” for some role by way of any of a variety of inserts (the one that come immediately to mind is Curves Breast Enhancer). Some will instead think that she’s surrounding herself with some sort of inept, semi-scripted, entourage fools. Perhaps she was, instead, referring to a clip from a recent movie of hers where a co-lead pulls down this actress’ dress causing a major expression of decolletage. Or, maybe…

Here’s the thing: a lot of assumptions are made, and (to be fair) can be made, which are based solely on the lack of any information beyond an attention-grabbing word in a headline. There is no context. Sadly, we live in an age where context is becoming increasingly irrelevant—being tossed on the trash heap with irony, sarcasm, second-sourcing facts, thick skins, and senses of humor.

Still, the knee-jerk assumption of the masses does, I think, warrant some comment. (And unless I make a direct reference, I’m going broad-topic here and not talking specifically about this actress.)

The fact is, how one presents oneself matters. It’s been that way through the ages, and is that way through much of the vertebrate kingdom (and possibly with invertebrates, as well).  When mating involves more than random-chance fertilization (i.e. spawning), personal factors matter. It just so happens that our species is very visual. We are attracted to symmetry and other physical aspects that, for whatever reason, makes us feel that one choice is better than another so as to give our offspring a better chance later.

Of course, this isn’t something that’s species-consistent. Localized pressures will tend to favor one group more than another. For whatever reason, in America, conspicuous breasts attract attention—exposed or covered seems to not matter. And yet, it’s not just about the size. Because we have become a society with a diminishing ability to filter what we say, it does appear that as attention-grabbing size might be… both genders tend to prefer the natural versions… breasts 1.0, as it were. So… why do so many women, often women whose livelihoods depend to some extent on their appearance, opt to go for an upgrade?

That’s a question for which there has been much research and speculation, but little in the way of a truly satisfying answer. In the end it probably boils down to this: even if a mate prefers the 1.0 version, what difference does it make if your 1.0 doesn’t act like a flame to their moth? In just a situation, it’s only natural to seek out versions 1.1 or even 2.0 as options.

But I’m getting off point here. This isn’t about why or whether women and men alter their appearances when they have that option available to them. No, this is about communication.

Say What?

Communication is an exchange of information between two (or more) parties employing a common reference for the exchange. As I noted above, the words “new boobs” did not include the necessary common referent. So while there was a common currency for the exchange, there was no agreement as to price.

(In the interest of complete context: the actress used the phrase as an attention-grabber that was actually a pun relating to the actual news she was conveying.)

This sort of “communication” (which it clearly isn’t), shouldn’t result in any consequences. But, as I was writing this article, I could see how it might. Imagine, if you will, keeping in mind how unfiltered our “news” broadcasters are, if I’d included the name of the actress in the title of this blog: “Thinking About Finola Flucker’s ‘New Boobs'” (and those names were just picked arbitrarily). Let’s also stipulate that Finola’s name has enough currency to attract interest from the press.

Now, let’s take the next step. How long before some one would report that Finola actually did did buy and have installed a new set of knockers? Something like that is intriguing enough to a certain faction of the public that it then gets linked to and posted in other sites. From there, the innocent headline could go viral and begin propagating around the world. At this point, the actress would likely have to start dealing with the fallout.

(Now you see why I didn’t mention the person in question by name.)

I find it troubling that we no longer are willing to wait for corroborated facts. No, just as soon as something is posted, we assume it’s true, true-enough, or at least has a sense of truthiness about it. I remember, back in the day (oh no, here he goes again), when news was not immediate. There was no CNN. No Fox News. No MSNBC. Journalism meant something. They really were gatekeepers for those things that were worthy of note and deserved the designation of “the fourth estate”.

Now we get much of our new unfiltered. Someone does an on-camera press statement. Once made, it’s out there. In the way-back, journalists would take that statement and then start doing research. Was the statement true or only truthy? Were there other resources available to back-up what was said. More importantly, a judgment would be made as to whether or not it was news-worthy.

With the immediate broadcasting of raw information without any thoughtful analysis and research, much of what we now see that’s being advertised as the news is little more than voyeurism. How many of these stories are newsworthy and how many are time-fillers? Do we even care?

Ultimately, that might be the question we have to think about long and hard. Do we want to have celebutant excesses in silicone be as equally newsworthy as a genocide in some war-torn nation? I’m not saying that there aren’t appropriate outlets for the former, but that it shouldn’t be confused with the latter. That’s something that we now have to bring to the table ourselves. We have to learn how to deal with this information as it comes.

Let me give you an example: On her profile on a popular social networking site, a 20-something actress/writer/humorist/cool person  directed her friends to get more info on her “new book, new shows, new movie, new boobs”. Most of the comments generated were related only on the “new boobs” part of the announcement. Me… well, I went over to another site (it wasn’t hard…she even gives the address) and found the complete announcement. The important thing isn’t that I found the information, but how many did not. They made assumptions and based their own comments on that. What that says to me is that we still have a lot of work to do with this whole communication thing.