This Is Not How I Look In Real Life!
How the camera changed my face and how to stop it
Almost too surreal is the distorted view of a trend on TikTok. Not a viral stunt, this is a patient zero movement. People show up onscreen with a warning for humanity. "This is not how you look in real life … this is” when all of a sudden the ultimate reality returns, as it were, and everything appears as it should be. Have a look-see at the strange goings-on for yourself.
Each of these TikTok posts divide our perspective and the reason therefor exists in a picture or figure that looks distorted except when viewed from some particular point. Showcasing problems that are inexplicably akin to glitches in The Matrix and then offering solutions without explanation proved fairly useless.
It would be easy to tsk-tsk these evidential lapses except that the reality is more complicated.
Before I address things you need to know about this distorted reality, cause and effect, solution and prevention, here is a primer for the record. The main meta revision of the following dialogue, adapted for our purpose, originally appeared in part of a writing by Teddy Wayne.
ALIEN ONE: Remember how we created that simulation with inhabitants who eventually called themselves “humans”?
ALIEN TWO: Humans … one of our more primitive simulations, right?
ALIEN ONE: Very. So, the humans created this thing called the “internet.” It’s basically a terrible version of klorg. Doesn’t allow you to experience complete physical pleasure, for instance. Anyway, check out this human: she went on the internet and—oh, yeah, you have to “search” for things in their world.
ALIEN TWO: What do you mean, “search”?
ALIEN ONE: Like, you can’t just think of something and suddenly you have it. Someone else possesses a thing, and you have to give your resources to them to receive the thing.
ALIEN TWO: Weird.
ALIEN ONE: I know, right? So, this human is not only searching for the internet, but also she has to wait for someone else to bring it to her.
ALIEN TWO: “Wait,” as in—what’s it called again? “Time”? Divided up into units of “hours” and “minutes” and so on?
ALIEN ONE: Exactly. And that’s not all. The humans who possess the internet, who were previously named “Musically” but are now called “TikTok”—although that part is confusing because they still use the ticking sound of a clock musically—told her that they will show it to her at an unspecified moment within a span-length of these so-called hours spent watching the clock.
ALIEN TWO: So suspenseful! Why is she looking herself in the black mirror over and over?
ALIEN ONE: She incorrectly believes that she will see a human, and not an artificial human avatar, if she keeps doing “selfies.”
ALIEN TWO: Fascinating. What’s the artificial human avatar on the phone telling her?
ALIEN ONE: It’s saying, “This is not what I look like in real life” and the black mirror keeps telling her, “Move Farther Away.”
ALIEN TWO: Why doesn’t she do that? Wouldn’t it be more efficient?
ALIEN ONE: Because her artificial intelligence has taught her that the TikTok humans will never back away from the black mirror. Here, I’ll speed up two more hours … OK, she’s finally getting through to the human. But now this human is connecting her to a second human, who’s making her explain her selfie and how she made her artificial human avatar on the phone look like her artificial human avatar in real life—even though she just did all that a minute ago with the first human.
ALIEN TWO: That’s hilarious. But couldn’t she just stop her time with TikTok and find other humans to resume the search for the internet?
ALIEN ONE: She recently got “100,000” from a YouTube human subscribed to her internet search but the return inscribed her on a “wall plaque” in the form of a “participation award.” The only other option where she lives is something called “SubStack,” which sounds like a pile of paperwork to her. I’ll skip to three hours later, when the TikTok human with the internet shows up in the black mirror looking not entirely human. She wants to yell at him, “back off,” but she’s tired and her “bestie” liked her selfie and slid into her “DMs” wondering if their mutual acquaintance is currently procreating with “Richard.”
ALIEN TWO: Now what is she going to do?
ALIEN ONE: She’ll spend the rest of the night using the internet to escape into less entertaining human-simulated worlds.
ALIEN TWO: What about that one we used to enjoy when the humans watched it? The Twilight Zone?
ALIEN ONE: I forgot about The Twilight Zone. That was great.
ALIEN TWO: Best human-simulation simulation ever.
From an alien eye view, we may be difficult to understand, but the distorted issue with us in the eye of the camera is actually straightforward.