Why so Serious?


Check out old photos of most Indians, and you’ll see that they didn’t know how to smile for the camera. They either didn’t smile at all, or they had a very tortured expression attempting to smile. Things have changed only after social media and selfies took over everyone’s lives.

But even before social media, the expression of Indians in photos stood in sharp contrast to that of Americans. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz makes an interesting observation in his best-seller, Everybody Lies:
“(Americans) went from nearly stone-faced at the start of twentieth century to beaming by the end. So why the change? Did Americans get happier?”

Nope, wrong answer. The correct answer is far more interesting. Even better, it starts by answering a question most of us didn’t even think about! The first part answers why they had such serious looks to begin with:
“When photographs were first invented, people thought of them like paintings. There was nothing else to compare them to. Thus, subjects in photos copied subjects in paintings. And since people sitting for portraits couldn’t hold a smile for the many hours the painting took, they adopted a serious look.”
And why did they change later?
“Kodak, the film and camera company, was frustrated by the limited number of pictures people were taking and devised a strategy to get them to take more. Kodak’s strategy began associating photos with happiness. The goal was to get people in the habit of taking a picture whenever they wanted to show others what a good time they were having. All those smiling yearbook photos are a result of that successful campaign.”

In India, no film camera launched any such campaign. So we only made the transformation to “smiling yearbook photos” only with the advent of Facebook and Instagram…

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarJuly 19, 2018 at 6:01 PM

    Commercial organizations making people respond to pleasant things is of course welcome. Everyone knows the 'cons' of commercialism, I don't need to mention it even. I actually felt, while in America, that the Americans seem to take commercialism a lot more in their stride - a sort of merging of it with people's cultural mentality. Human mind can acquire innumerable paradigms; acceptance of commercialism is on such thing.

    Personally, a smiling face in people is wonderful, because it always feels good to see a pleasant face. It is a winner. Some people in India and abroad, I have seen, have it - naturally. By dint of practice, I believe, even those, who do not have a smiling face in them naturally so far, can become more smiling habitually - not just when being photographed alone! :-) Anyway, this is in my personal wish list!

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