The tarot of userpics

[chanaleh]

Awhile back, I bookmarked this entry from ladytabitha because it reminded me that I'd been meaning for ages to write up a similar explication of my own userpic usage.

I know everyone does this to *varying* degrees, but for me the thematic correlations are pretty strong, and not always superficially obvious... so it's interesting to try and draw them out. That's why I think of this as tarot-like, because it's about resonance and different layers of meaning. The correspondences hold pretty well whether on my own entries or in comments.


Having bought myself the Extra Userpics option, currently I have 19, so this gets a bit long.

• - Keyword: duotone
  > Neutral expression. Which is why it's the default pic (aside from the fact that I had fun setting my journal colors to coordinate with it). Neither happy nor sad; hence, often good for sympathetic (without being really deploring) comments. Pensive, perhaps faraway.
  
  
• - Keyword: bitter
  > Self-explanatory: Really grumbly or ranty posts, or sympathy with same.
  
  
• - Keyword: lunacon
  > Sultry. Flirtatious. Sexual awareness. Femininity.
  
  
• - Keyword: leila
  > Me in my first MITG&SP show, Iolanthe. Hence, anything G&S- or theater-topical. Additional themes: power, bravery, challenge, triumph; redheadedness (!); autumn (originally); the supernatural or preternatural. (We are dainty little RUGBY fairies!)
  
  
• - Keyword: south park
  > (Created with the South Park Studios applet.) Humor; quirky or ironic.
  
  
• - Keyword: smiling
  > This is almost more of a default expression for me. Happiness. General good cheer. Also shows my face more clearly than most, so good for greeting and self-identification.
  
  
• - Keyword: jammies
  > (From zogathon's pajama party.) The lifted eyebrow: personal commentary, arch, sardonic. Girl talk: telling it like it is. Also, anything coffee-related.
  
  
• - Keyword: poissons
  > Less frequently used, but I still like it. Art or creativity themes. Fish themes (for navrins and others). Domesticity, tranquility.
  
  
• - Keyword: college
  > (My "hot college babe" pic taken by cos circa 1990.) Brandeis-related topics. Youth, freshness; young-at-heart. Also to help identify myself to LJers who haven't seen me much more recently!
  
  
• - Keyword: smak
  > Self-explanatory: Big kiss. Exuberance of affection.
  
  
• - Keyword: leaves
  > Perhaps the most ambiguous or multilayered. Autumn, of course, and nature. Beauty, brightness, intensity. Transcendence. But also melancholy and, occasionally, loss. Determining which is which is left as an exercise to the reader.
  
  
• - Keyword: snoopywriter
  > Writerly topics. Creative inspiration. Ponderings.
  
  
• - Keyword: schnauzer
  > Caninity. General cuteness. (I keep meaning to scan a pic of the actual schnauzer we used to have, but no progress so far. This is from some Japanese stationery I bought on my one trip to Powell's in Portland, OR.)
  
  
• - Keyword: gohanda
  > The wide-angle context of the "schnauzer" pic above. Cheerful bizarritude in all its forms (especially of foreign origin, but that comes up less often).
  
  
• - Keyword: dancing
  > (Me at my friend Sierra's wedding last summer.) Joy. Zest for life. Major hair action. Also, actual dance-related topics.
  
  
• - Keyword: shul
  > Self-explanatory: Shul-related posts. Possibly for broader Jewish topics, but not too often.
  
  
• - Keyword: siglet
  > Comments to bridgetminerva or jessruth in particular. Baby-related topics. Maternal instinct. Protective love.
  
  
• - Keyword: buttongirl
  > The most recent picture of me (again, courtesy of bridgetminerva). Slightly offbeat, slightly retro, even Beatlesy (must be the glasses). Artsy, funky, unpretentious.
  
  
• - Keyword: bell
  > Last but not least (though possibly the least common). Stillness, memory, solitude, loss. Probably only one reader knows what this is a picture of... and, therefore, why it carries those themes across more than one level.