Am I Pretty?

It's a question I've asked myself a thousand - nay, a million, at least - times.  It is a question that I ask every time I look in the mirror.  I ask myself every time I read a fashion magazine.  Sometimes it's paired with "Am I fat?"  Sometimes it goes along with "Why didn't these scars fade more?"  I can honestly say that it or some form of it has crossed my mind just about every single day since I was about ten years old.

But while I've asked myself this question a million times, it would never have crossed my mind to record myself asking the question out loud and then post it to the internet, inviting people to comment and respond.

Never.

Yet this is what girls all over the country are doing.  They are taking to the internet to publicly proclaim their insecurities and ask for a vote (of sorts) on whether they are pretty.  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=am+i+pretty&oq=am+i+pretty&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1202l2165l0l3212l11l8l0l1l1l1l206l1151l0.5.2l7l0  Some have specific features which they worry make them unattractive  - a high hairline, frizzy hair, what have you - and some think they might be pretty but don't have the boyfriend to show for it, so they question their own confidence.

Yes, you read that right.  Because they don't have a boyfriend, or because they can identify something flawed about their outward appearance (or sometimes, because they have asshole "friends" goading them on in the background), they think they are not pretty, and are looking to the internet to make them feel better.  The INTERNET.  The very same internet that brings us breading cats http://www.breadedcats.com/, shit someone else says, and Bronies http://bronies.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_Home.

Now, by my math (which admittedly sucks), I have spent the better part of my life questioning whether I am pretty... or on days when I've decided I am pretty, whether I am pretty enough.  But what I have come to realize is whether I am pretty on a given day - or overall - is dependent on myriad factors, only some of which have to do with how I actually look.  Yes, it matters if my hair is doing the right thing, if I've lost or maintained the right weight and body proportion, if I did a decent job on my makeup, and if I've gotten my outfit right.  But it ALSO matters if I got enough sleep.  Or if I'm in a good mood.  Or if I am feeling confident (which, I've discovered, doesn't always come from how I look!).  Or if I'm feeling sassy.  Or if I'm feeling personable and outgoing.  Or if I'm feeling particularly smart that day.  Or if I'm just feeling pretty.

NONE of these factors can ever be adequately captured in a 30 second YouTube video made with a webcam or an iPhone, especially when that YouTube video is dripping with inadequacy, insecurities and sadness.  What I see in each of these videos is a girl who doubts herself, who wants attention (and who maybe hasn't figured out that mocking isn't exactly good attention) and who has yet to realize that pretty comes just as much from within as it does from without.  I don't blame them; although I can claim to know this here on my blog, I don't always believe it, either.  But I really wish they understood that nothing anybody out there on the internet says will help them answer the question... especially not the idiots on YouTube.

I feel sad for these girls.  Just sad.

And one thing I know for certain: when I'm sad, I'm not pretty.