I’ve often looked at people’s MySpace profiles and thought to myself… hmmm… I wonder what sort of impression of themselves this person is really trying to portray with this picture. What do they think this picture says about them? Or more to the point, what do they want people to think about them after seeing this picture?

After thinking long and hard about this topic which troubled my little mind to great extents, I realised that what they want people to see, and what people actually see, are often two entirely different things…

I’ve drawn up the following rough guide to help interpret your friend’s MySpace pictures. It took a portion of my cunning. No! All my cunning!

The Thoughtful One

What they want you to think : Deep, emotional, good to talk to, clever.
What it actually comes across as : Boring git, stop being so miserable.

The Poser

What they want you to think : Attractive, thoughtful, cool.
What it actually comes across as : Jackass.

The Rebel

What they want you to think : Plays by no-one else’s rules, hard.
What it actually comes across as : Proof that they have a middle finger. Also a jackass.

The Emo

What they want you to think : Cool, rocker, self harmer, hates life.
What it actually comes across as : HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!111eleventyone4

The Artist

What they want you to think : Thinks outside the box, alternative, artistic.
What it actually comes across as : 10ft tall…

The Legend

What they want you to think : Plain awesome.
What it actually comes across as : Plain awesome.

Thus, the message to take away from this short tutorial, is that either look normal (or at least as normal as you can, i know its hard for some of you…) when you take a photo, or failing that, chew on scientific calculators.