Presenting The Next Big Viral Sensation

And in that moment the situation becomes just right--a mixture of drunkenness and good cheer and a comfortable temperature and flattering lighting--and we attain a sudden mental resonance and a new understanding begins to dawn on us and we declare without reservation that what drives the observer into hungry desire is the shapely calf.

From that place of clarity, I demonstrate how the world will come to see: with my legs crossed ankle-on-knee, I slowly pull up the leg of my jeans, slowly push down my sock into my boot, and thereby frame my lower leg just so. I have become the quintessence of desire. My actions tell the world: I have truly fantastic calves.

But ours is an age in which we don't fully exist until we are observed mediated. Until we are captured and pixelated by the cameras on the devices we carry with us everywhere, devices that demand our attention like needy children, and until we are displayed, glowing, on a screen, we remain incomplete. Without a photo, the moment exists as a moment only, shared amidst joy and laughter. How will we be remembered? Without a photo transmitted through the ether, who besides those currently present will get to admire my handsome calves?

As with the images we have come to know and--well, come to know--there will be an art to it, a subtle language developed around the undiscussed distortions of technology. There's that angle so often deployed in our self-portraits: the photo taken slightly from above, such that the tilted perspective, lens distortion, and wide depth of field provided by our attenuated little cameras make us look just so: forehead slightly distended, eyes cast winsomely upward, chin shortened and narrowed.

Call it the selfie angle.

And so it will be here as well. We'll shoot from above and along the calf, so that the calf appears rounded and full and powerful, the ankle narrowed, the foot tiny. Thus I declare to the world: See me. Desire me. Love me.

Finally I display the calves that allow me to be seen.

This is the new thing. This is the moment it goes viral. You heard it here first: #calfselfie.

calfselfie

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