Daniel Yeh

To begin, the majority of my work I did over the past four months at Parsons were mostly about “Self-Identity” or factors that correlate to “Myself.” The reason behind it is because I was once lost and couldn’t find my true self (especially about my sexuality.) The feelings of uncertain, startled, and frustrated are emotions I will never forget, and those feelings really had a significant impact on my early teenage years. However, the purpose my video is to demonstrate how life being gay in our society can be painfully overwhelming because of words people use to describe a person base on how they look, dress, their body gesture, the way they talk, and their sexuality. I believe my piece fits the given assignment because I’ve demonstrated with clarity, and directness and presence in the word that contains no “performativity” no effect, no putting on of a character and instead presenting myself without effect through my body gestures and the props that I used.

Moreover, the use of sticky notes and specifically choosing to cover my entire face with them is a way to show the audience how some people use words to label a person by their appearance and other factors that describe the person the way they view that person. By using labels to identify traits of a person there is an expectation the individual who has been identified with these labels must behave a certain way – by doing so pressures a person to project a character of themselves instead of expressing themselves as they naturally are. Stereotyping, labeling, putting people in categories can have the negotiate effect of influencing someone to perform as someone else because they terrified of showing their true self to the world.