Friday's Unscientific Poll

[nanila]

This week's poll is brought to you by my recent experience shooting a video for the upcoming exhibit about the Rosetta spacecraft that will be at the Royal Society in July. I watched the final cut last night, and I noticed that I found it easier than the previous rough cuts, mostly because all except two of my sections had been converted into voiceovers.

As regular journal readers will know, I don't have a problem with viewing still images of myself (because I can select the better ones). And I now know I don't have a problem hearing audio-only recordings of myself. But as soon as my image is moving, I find the experience of viewing it excruciating and cringe-worthy and I must blot it from my memory with gin as quickly as possible.

Thus, today I'm wondering if other people have similar reactions to viewing/hearing recorded versions of themselves.

Poll #15085 Recorded versions of earlier selves

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 34

I can cope with

Hearing audio-only recordings of myself
15 (51.7%)

Viewing video-only recordings of myself
5 (17.2%)

Viewing still images of myself
24 (82.8%)

Hearing and viewing audiovisual recordings of myself
5 (17.2%)

I do not like

Hearing audio-only recordings of myself
21 (65.6%)

Viewing video-only recordings of myself
23 (71.9%)

Viewing still images of myself
12 (37.5%)

Hearing and viewing audiovisual recordings of myself
27 (84.4%)

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

I honestly don't know how I'd feel about viewing a video of myself because I can't remember the last time I did. There are home movies of me as a kid, and those are excruciating, but because I was a weird and awkward child. I think the last time I was videoed might have been at my wedding, and that was such an awful day I never have watched the DVD of it that my parents insisted on having made, and I never intend to.

So yeah, I can't tell if I'd like it or not. Probably not, though, because I hate still photographs of myself. Even Andrew, who otherwise doesn't have a bad word to say about me, says I don't photograph well. :)

[nanila]

*nod* I'm not one for making videos of myself or for seeking out opportunities to have videos made of me either. I think there may be some VHS tapes of some excruciating childhood performances in plays and at gymnastics meets, but thankfully they were never digitised and have been disposed of!

It's probably best avoided if there's no need for it and you already know you dislike it.

[chickenfeet]

I don't especially like watching myself on video but I have had to for various reasons so many times that I have learned to cope with the fact that I have certain physical mannerisms that i wish I didn't. I actually quite like listening to myself.

[nanila]

I remember you posted an audio recording of yourself a while ago, and you had one of the most fascinatingly eclectic accents I've ever heard!

[chickenfeet]

I have been described as many things...

[rmc28]

A kind friend put videos of me speaking at LibDem conference up on YouTube and I still haven't watched them, 12-18 months later.

[nanila]

*nod nod* I have a video of a colleague's wedding from almost two years ago that I haven't watched because I know there's a bit with me speaking on it.

[soliano]

I have never liked the way my voice sounds outside of my head. Bone induction makes such a difference. I can handle videos, but my vanity does not care for my jaw line which seems more noticeable in videos than still pics.

[alwayswondered]

I'm the opposite! I quite like the way my recorded voice sounds, but I hate the way it sounds through my skull. And I don't think my jawline is prominent enough; my nose is too big and my chin too weak.

[nanila]

My recorded voice sounds much better to me, too. It's always lower-pitched than I imagine it to be, which makes me happy.

[pretty_panther]

I think I often end up sounding like a child when I hear my own voice back. I know I don't. I have heard some recordings where I sound as I hear myself normally but a few have put me off. I constantly fear I will sound like a four year old XD It took a long time but now I'm happy with pictures of myself. :)

[nanila]

Yes, for a long time I sounded much younger than I am. It's taken time and deliberate effort (helped by the need for frequent public speaking in my line of work), but when I'm not speaking casually, I know I pitch my voice lower/older. So when I hear it recorded, it sounds better than I was expecting.

[alwayswondered]

I dislike most images of myself but there are media I can tolerate better than others. I have one, maybe two good angles for still photos (my parents have a photo of me on the wall from my sister's wedding that I HATE; I look so, so awful in it and they insist it's a nice picture but it really isn't). I can't remember the last time I saw a video of myself but it was. Not Good. I'm not in a hurry to do it again.

[nanila]

Ha, yes, I mostly don't trust other people to take good photos of me. Hence my passion for self-portraits. :P

I'm of the opinion that it's best to avoid video if it's not necessary and you know you dislike it.

[alwayswondered]

There's ONE angle at which I sort of like my face. That's why all my Instagram selfies look the same (and I have to take about 30 to get one I like). ;)

I didn't mind the 'vlog' video I made of myself a couple of years ago. For some reason that was okay. But I was on the news once when I was about 16, in the background of something they were filming at our school, and it was heinous.

[quoththeravyn]

Since i'm The Chatty One(tm) I got the task of speaking at my father's funeral last summer. Not everyone could make it, so we assigned my brother the task of capturing it on video with his phone, to share. It's been a long time since I saw myself on video, and it was a profoundly weird experience.

[nanila]

If you're willing to revisit the experience mentally: what was it that you weren't expecting or found surprising/peculiar about it?

[quoththeravyn]

I guess the combination of my voice (but not as it sounds in my own head) and odd mannerisms. I give talks in public pretty often, so it's not that scary when I'm doing it, but I rarely get the chance to see a video recording of myself.

[askygoneonfire]

I think it has a lot to do with what you're used to - I used to find audio recordings of myself excruciating, but transcribing interviews I've done has made me get over that really fast. But watching an interview I gave for a documentary makes me want to punch myself in the face - but that is one of very few video recordings I've ever seen of myself, perhaps I would feel differently if I saw as many as audio recordings I've heard....maybe not though.

[azurelunatic]

Yes. Transcription. I noticed yesterday that I said something during the meeting and I both recognized myself and was ok.

[nanila]

Woo! That's awesome. :)

[nanila]

Transcribing interviews, you say. Interesting! I shall try it out and see if that makes it more bearable.

I find myself wanting to "fix" my expressions while I'm watching myself on video. "No! Don't look over there! Why are you grimacing? Augh, no, don't touch your hair." And so on.

[weaverbird]

I cannot abide images of myself, moving or still, taken after the age of about 12 years, but I quite like my voice.

[nanila]

It's strange how separate those two experiences - audio and visual - are, isn't it? And how awful trying to reconcile them is when you can stand one but not the other!

[recessional]

I utterly loathe watching myself on video. I can handle stills, mostly, although a lot of them make me look hideous to myself, but video is Gah.

[nanila]

Yes. I played the video for the bloke while he looked over my shoulder, and I had to hide my face from the video and from him while it was on because I couldn't stand seeing it again nor seeing his reaction (good or bad) to it. I can entirely understand why some actors never watch their performances.

[marahmarie]

I had to double-answer most of the questions, sorry, because sometimes I like watching/viewing pictures of myself and sometimes I don't. It depends on what I'm doing (there was once a camera recording of me dancing that I hated because I was mugging way too much for the camera, but there was also the first recording anyone ever took of me, for a bookkeeping class, and in that I came off/looked/even sounded great. Similarly, sometimes I photograph well but sometimes my faces are just ugly.)

I consistently hate my own voice, though: I try to modulate it but it gets pitch-y way too easily. By pitch-y I mean too high or too low, at least by recording standards: I don't think about it a lot unless I'm recording myself or being recorded and hear it afterward, but my pitch seems to be controlled by what I feel or see and react to in the moment, and quite often it really does make me cringe.

[nanila]

No no, please don't apologise! I separated the statements because it's possible to cope with something you dislike doing. ("Changing nappies" springs instantly to mind.)

My voice goes about two octaves higher when I talk to my family. It drives me bonkers.

[azurelunatic]

I have enough problems with sometimes reading my old journal entries.

I have become accustomed to audio, and still images aren't particularly bad. I haven't watched video that I'm in enough to form an opinion, as I have a bad time with the format let alone with myself in it.

[nanila]

I have enough problems with sometimes reading my old journal entries.

O LOR YES. I'm glad my journal is there, but there are some bits of it I really don't need to revisit until I'm a lot older.

[major_clanger]

I don't like listening to or seeing myself; recordings of my voice sound very different to how I hear myself, and I have never liked my appearance. But I find such things useful, because my job involves advocacy so I need to see how I come across when speaking. During my legal training we were videoed doing our practice sessions and while nearly everyone found it cringe-inducing we all learned a lot. (I saw that I tended to fidget by shifting my weight from foot to foot, so now make a conscious effort to stand still.)

Actually, as a lawyer, I recently discovered a whole new form of self-criticism. We appealed a decision that went against our client, so ordered a transcript of the hearing in question. When it arrived I read it with mounting horror; what felt at the time like a pretty fair improvised response to awkward questions from the judge came across on paper, at least to me, as semi-coherent waffling garbage. Apparently this is very common when you read your own extemporaneous argument but it was still pretty traumatising at the time!

[nanila]

Apparently this is very common when you read your own extemporaneous argument but it was still pretty traumatising at the time!

Daaaaang that sounds really difficult. I dislike verbalising, or setting down in writing, that I'm not fairly sure says exactly what I mean. It's taken me years to get to the point where I'm willing to make a journal entry that hasn't been saved previously to a Word or Google document and pondered over, and I still don't do it very often. And it's not like I get paid for that either! :P