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TRIGGER WARNING: Contains language, sexual themes, objectification/sexualization of women, stalking.

When I woke up, the painting was destroyed. The face, distorted—mutated, uneven, scars, defects—as if it was melting down the canvas. My face. This was not the self-portrait I painted. I did not vandalize this, but I am going to find out who did.

#

Being an artist isn’t enough anymore. Maybe it never really was. Everyone gets caught up in “fandom” and stops making decisions for themselves. It’s like with wine: in a blind test taste—within reason—can you really tell the difference? I’m not saying there isn’t objectively good and bad art in the world, but people get blinded by the label and forget to decide what they like, what truly resonates.

When I was in elementary school, I had this massively overweight boyfriend, Doodle, nicknamed from our recess game of playing dogs that had jobs and apartments (don’t worry about it). The point is the Dood was funny, cuddly, and smart. Cut to about a decade later when he asked me to prom. We were just friends at that point, or at least that’s how I viewed us. I let him down kindly, but I did break his heart. And I know, I fucking know that I would’ve had a better time with him. We were friends after that, but something—a closeness—was missing.

If you’re thinking, “Well, fuck her, she gets what she deserves,” then fuck you, too. We all make mistakes. We all break hearts. I have never been cruel, but I have been human. You haven’t? Great. Enjoy floating on a cloud wearing a diaper and playing a lute. Or harp. Or whatever-the-fuck. I know my mistakes, and I own them. I know I hurt Doodle, and I sometimes lie in bed and obsess over the memory of those, ironically, puppy dog eyes when I rejected him... Fuck... What was his real name?

Anyway, art is no different. People look at you, then decide what they think of your art.

As a guy, you can be a little goofy-looking (sorry Beeple) and still get a following. As a woman? It all comes back to sex. I can hear you all getting angry. Yes. You can move forward without sex, but there’s a ceiling—and there’s an expediency to using it.

Let me ask you this: at your job as a file clerk, if showing a little cleavage quadrupled your salary and advanced your career five times as fast, you’re telling me you wouldn’t? While you say no and tell me how you’d never sell yourself like that, think of all those bullshit conversations you have with your boss. Think of all the times you forced yourself to smile or bit your tongue. Now tell me you didn’t feel like a whore when you did it. So, how am I worse? I’d rather deal with wandering eyes than have to pretend about my boss's little bastard children.

So, yeah. I flaunt a little to get views. Do the guys who follow me for my thirst traps care about my art? Nope. But numbers are numbers. The more visible I am, the more popular I seem, the faster I will get ahead. If you think that art is just about talent, then you’re naive. And if you think appearance/talent is not disproportionally targeted at women... I don’t know. Read a book. I can’t catch you up on literally all of humanity.

Stream, post, engage. I see my reflection in a chat window more than in real life. It’s not a choice. Going analog? That’s like deciding to send snail mail rather than texting. Yeah, you’ll get your message across, but it’ll take longer than anyone cares to wait for it. Think I’m exaggerating? Where’d you see your last Banksy? On the wall it was produced or on a website?

I livestream my painting. It’s where I get the bulk of my viewers and subscribers. I don’t do anything overtly sexual, but yes, I dress sexy and make sure to angle the camera so everyone gets the show they want. Sometimes, it’s as easy as not wearing a bra—which I prefer anyway. And speaking of nips, let’s nip this in the bud right now. I’m an artist. And I know that awards don’t mean shit when it comes right down to it, but it’s better than putting “trust me” on a resume. I won the NSAL Young Artist Award when I was 16, and I was on the shortlist for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.

Yes. Comments can get out of control, but engagement is engagement. The algorithm sucks—in use and your soul. I make it obvious that I am an artist first, but yeah... It’s the tightrope we walk. And I don’t just mean online. We all want to dress in a comfortable yet desirable way, but where’s the line when someone’s going to call you a whore?

I suppose we should pause here to say: I like the attention. Waking up to hundreds of hearts flooding in, it’s like an orgasm; just as intense and just as addictive. It’s a rush to be seen like that. And maybe that’s part of it! I want to be seen. Art, body, mind, soul. Whatever. I want people to see me. Even the creepy, old, married men that DM me or, like idiots, say something directly in the comments. Sometimes they actually give me more of a boost. There’s something so... pure? Honest? I don’t know. They want you. They truly fucking want you. Guys my age and younger? Eh. They jerk and scroll. I’m not much more than a treat to them.

Once, I logged onto Live without a beauty filter. Holy fuck. What a mistake. Luckily, the stream was unscheduled, so I didn’t have people waiting. I just happened to see someone in chat say, “Are you okay? You look tired.” Thank you GadgetGuru76. I was tired, and you saved my life. I’m guessing by the name he was one of the creepy, old, married men, which, honestly, was the best option; they’ll stick by you no matter what.

Guru was a regular. He often DM’d for feet pics. I don’t get feet fetishes, but I sent him a few—no face, plausible deniability. 80 dollars for a set of four, 5 minutes to take. Technically, that’s 960 dollars an hour. So, fuck you all again. Say no to that. Still, he did get a little intense when I didn’t feel like doing more.

That’s the thing with the line. It’s like those guys in the Bayou who tempt gators with a chicken leg. You have to get close enough to lure them out of the water, but too close, and they’ll take your fucking arm off.

#

I decided to livestream my self-portrait painting. Realistic. Nothing abstract; the fucking mouth breathers can’t handle abstract. I laid down a solid underpainting, kept my palette limited, and did most of my color mixing live.

Chat was pretty normal.

It’s funny, you get comments like “She knows what she’s doing,” and you think it’s nice. Pretty soon I realized they were referring to my shirt being unbuttoned. And yeah, that’s gross. And yeah, that’s a turn-on. And yeah, that dichotomy is definitely on the table for therapy, but it’s not even the worst comment.

The worst is, “I luv you’re tits bb.” First of all, not remotely original. Secondly, I hate nicknames like “bb” or “baby.” Calling someone “baby” implies they can’t take care of themselves. And finally, the grand combo of “luv” and “you’re.” “Luv” is disgusting and annoying, but fine, you’re using fewer keystrokes because you’re typing with one hand. Couple that with “you’re”?! It’s the wrong form and the longer one to use! I can accept an incorrect “your” because maybe you just missed a key or didn’t think about it. But “you’re”?! You made a conscious decision to do that shit. Fucking horrible.

By the end, it was a lot of “Beautiful,” “Amazing,” and fire emojis. Fire emojis are right up there with “thoughts and prayers.”

It’s rough to do a self-portrait, but all artists do them. Lots of them. Frida Kahlo explained why the best: I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.

The next day, I awoke to my self-portrait, sitting on the easel where I left it but not how I left it. I gasped, horrified! To be so cruelly defaced. Who did this?! It wasn’t just vandalized; it was repainted. Someone went through the trouble of making me look like a monster, a witch from a fairy tale too gruesome for children. My eyes, jaundiced with deep bags, my hair like straw, crooked teeth, chapped lips, pockmarks and scars, my cheeks were puffy, and my jowls hung. This was intentional.

I checked the door. Locked, yes, but the chain lock was not fastened. I shouldn’t have grabbed it because now I can’t remember if it was swaying before. I stood back and watched it swing, trying to think if that motion was familiar, but I couldn’t.

I looked over my paints: a mess, but nothing beyond what I would have done.

My bed sheets were on the floor, again, not unusual. Was it?

My heart was thumping below my chin. I choked and struggled to breathe as I went around touching everything, trying to gather some stored memory in the objects. Nothing. Who had been in my apartment?

Could it have been one of my followers? Finding a person’s location is far from impossible. Someone I let get too attached? Guru? Was this you? My bed sheets. Had he been uncovering me every night? Was it Doodle? He knew where I lived. Did he hold a grudge? It would be the peak of embarrassment to tell the cops I was being stalked by someone named Doodle.

I tossed the painting into the closet and decided to do the self-portrait again on stream. A trap. But, God, what would they think? Would they read it as a lack of confidence? I was out of content ideas? Would the vandal see through this trap I was setting?

I went Live with a fabricated story about wanting a do-over. The back of my t-shirt stuck to my back. My fingers, stiff. My first brush stroke scraped on like I had never painted before.

The chat lit up, cascading text like a rainbow waterfall—overwhelmingly positive comments. Support and kindness flowed faster than I could read. Comments, tips, views. Before long, I was painting and laughing along with the chat. I even forgot why I had decided to paint this again.

And then, it was done. I logged off chat, the dread slowly setting that I had left out raw meat to tempt a bear, and with absolutely no idea how to trap it.

I set up my webcam to record on the hard drive. Even if the intruder turned off the camera or deleted the file, that would be proof enough someone was stalking me.

Have you ever put music on a 60-minute timer to fall asleep? I don’t know about you, but that keeps me awake for 60 minutes. There’s something about knowing the time will run out that makes me unable to fall asleep. And so it was with this. For hours I stared at the painting, strangely content. Usually, I was able to see every timid stroke, every shade or hue that was off. But with this one? Just contentment.

The next morning.

Again. It happened again. The painting was changed as the last. I went directly to the computer and quickly scrubbed through the night, breathlessly waiting for a figure to appear. Nothing... How? I watched at two times speed. Nothing. No one came into my apartment. Impossible!

Was GadgetGuru76 a computer savant? Could he have modified the file as I slept? Did Dood have some tricks I didn’t know about?

A wave of sickness rushed over like when you find a lump and then do a deep dive on WedMD about cancer.

I threw the new painting into the closet, colliding with the first, then grabbed a blank canvas and started a third one. No streaming. Unsure even why. It was just instinctual. I had to prove to myself I wasn’t crazy!

I painted swiftly but not sloppily. Adept. Trained. My forearms ached. I rubbed my wrists during short breaks, barely ate or drank, didn’t look at my phone or out the window—my eyes locked onto the canvas, my persona continuing to form.

When I finally looked away, my vision slowly adjusted to the shock that night had fallen. I stood, letting out a groan, my stiff legs scolding me for sitting so long and walked the painting directly into the closet.

Waiting all night for a result was out of the question. I needed to push things forward. I picked up my phone, brushed away the notifications, and DM’d Guru: God, my feet are aching.

I hoped his dick would take over his brain, and he’d say something incriminating. Maybe he wouldn't ask for pics, proving he removed my covers each night to take pictures of his own. The longer it would take him to respond, the more it would confirm my—

GadgetGuru76: I wish I was their to rub them. Are they red? Send pics.

Jesus Christ. “Their.” Doesn’t anyone have autocorrect on? It’s not him. He can’t operate a fucking doorknob.

I hated doing it; it felt like leading him on, but I had to contact Dood.

I texted him an innocuous “How are things?” He texted back he was in Germany with his wife. So, yeah. Probably not him.

I sat on the edge of my bed—a gridlock of thoughts that gave way to zero insight, staring at the empty easel, thinking nothing. This phantom didn’t show up on camera. What was left to do? Only to pull an all-nighter and watch.

Into the closet to retrieve the painting. I moved the distorted one out of the way. Then the other. Then the third? Wait. The newest one had been changed already?!

I lined them up on the bed. Each painting, nearly identical. The paint from the newest one, wet enough to smudge the sheets. What was happening?!

I ran to the bathroom and splashed my face with water, trying to steady my breath as I watched it swirl down the drain.

My gaze shifted to the mirror. I gasped and stumbled backward against the wall. My face! It was exactly like the portraits! Eyes, hair, teeth—all of it!

It had to be an illusion. I frantically shuffled through the drawer until I found a compact and opened it up. The same face stared back at me!

Into the bedroom. The full-length mirror. It reflected the same thing! I had painted myself—flawlessly. This monster I had painted, this revolting beast was me!

My legs wobbled, and I collapsed to the floor. When did I change? I didn’t used to be so repelled by my own reflection.

I opened my phone and scrolled far back in the photos. The hideous creature was still there. Further back. The face continued to taunt me. Further back. And, finally, it was less objectionable. And then, the face I remembered. Forward again. I had to find when it changed.

Soon, though, I noticed something: all the faces had morphed. All of them were the face I remembered, none were the creature.

I grabbed the self-portraits. They had changed, too. Or had they? After years of being online, of filters and fixes, I had forgotten what I looked like. I was not perfect. I did have bags under my eyes, I did not have a perfect Pixar hairstyle. I was human. I was real. There was nothing false about the photos or the paintings.

Tears dropped onto the canvas and down my painted cheeks. I had hidden for so long; I had learned to believe this digital representation was actually me. How do I move on? Can I move on? Can I learn to accept this version of me? Can I gain the courage to show people the true me? And should I? Makeup, clothes—they’re all a filter of a different making. Does that make them wrong? Is comfort wrong?

#

In the beginning, I said, “This was not the self-portrait I painted. I did not vandalize this, but I am going to find out who did.” Was that clickbait? Fine. Engagement is engagement. But the truth is, I didn’t do that to myself.

I was raised to believe in putting value in appearance. There’s an article called 23 People Who Are Famous Despite Being Ugly. If you don’t find that disgusting, I don’t know what to do for you. Having said that, I sometimes wonder, would Freddie Mercury have been as big a star if there was today’s exposure? He’s not the cookie-cutter appearance society deems worthy.

Frida says, “I am the subject I know best,” but knowing and accepting are not the same thing. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” Albus Dumbledore. Kidding. It was Carl Jung. Gross to drop a Jung quote, I know, but it’s true: we don’t teach it. We teach: keep your physical body in shape, replace your hair, whiten your teeth. We teach you to alter yourself until you fit the norm. For you? For your comfort? No. For society. For a job. Do it to be accepted. Do it until you aren’t you anymore.

The End