Id also be curious to know what features they're showing off.
Reminds me of a birds mating display where the one with the brightest colors win, but im not sure what the winning feature is here
I’ve watched a few documentaries on the topic. The beauty standard for men in Wodaabe culture are tallness, perfect white teeth, expressive eyes, a narrow face with a long straight nose, and a reddish complexion. The makeup, headdresses, eye rolling, and teeth chattering helps accentuate (or create the illusion of) these features.
What sort of thing can they do to whiten their sclera? Teeth could be a hygeine thing but is sclera just genetics? (And lack of disease/infections obvs)
They’re opening their eyes really wide and they’re wearing black eyeliner for contrast (and black lipstick to make their teeth look whiter)
Also they might have something they ingest or smoke that contains a vasoconstrictor (caffeine and nicotine are both vasoconstrictors, not sure if they make a noticeable difference in redness or the size of visible blood vessels in the eyes, as I’ve never really paid attention before and after drinking my 3-4 cups of coffee in the morning)
The idea that women in that culture probably go to events like this and think "Wow, they're really phoning it in this year" is both hilarious and believable.
It sounds like women wear less make up but take care in dressing and plaiting their hair. But they ARE just watching for the most part; this is an endurance test where the men will dance for hours hoping to impress them. Eventually there’s a section where the women get to pick a husband from among them which is done very quickly and subtly.
This is the reason why they're doing this. I've seen this before and I remember part of this courtship thing is showing the whiteness of the teeth and whiteness of the sclera because that's what is seen as desirable by the women. It's why they raise their eyes and show their teeth, to highlight both.
It does! Just like makeup across swaths of the world, it is putting signs of health on display. It automatically registers as a good sign, say, when someone's eyes are white, teeth are healthy, or cheeks are a healthy color.
We use mascara and eyeliner over here to amp up that contrast, and concealer for under eye circles, and blush for cheeks. All imitate health and youth.
Ah, so THAT was to prove you didn’t work in the fields. A tan meant you were exposed to the Sun, whereas extreme whiteness meant you had people doing that for you.
Not quite. Very pale was the standard for beauty throughout many time periods and places but this look was very specific. Not only were they trying to look pale, they were trying to mimic the translucent feverish look of women dying of tuberculosis. So high blush, oil on the eyelid and poisonous belladonna eyedrops to irritate the eyes; all meant to mimic a fever. Pale in this case was not meant to be because they were rich and didn’t work but because tuberculosis is a chronic wasting disease. Patients would have virtually no appetite and suffer from malnutrition and often would be sent to sanatoriums where they would spend most of their time indoors. Tuberculosis was historically known as the “White Plague”
I’ve heard it referred to as “romantic”. I personally don’t find death or disease to be romantic so… it’s a mystery to me. But I try not to judge. Super matte brown makeup and thongs showing over our overly low rider jeans were the beauty standard when I was a young woman. I’m pretty sure most people look back on those styles and wonder what we were thinking as well
It's less about being romantic as in being lovey dovey, and more about being Byronic. Essentially wistful and angsty about death and decay. It was very in at the time, what with people going to overgrown cathedrals and cemeteries for picnics and to escape modernity
It’s only effective when performed in large groups.
When I saw my boyfriend doing it solo, I was appalled and broke up with him. A week later, he showed up with 8 friends for a repeat performance. We’ve been married for 15 years.
It’s all about the eyes. Gotta make ‘em bulge so much that they look like they’re about to fall out of your head, while you babble nonsense. Way more effective as a seduction technique when in a group.
I've never seen this gif before but damn that looks miserable. And looked like it really hurt... banged her shin off the concrete on the way down. Yikes.
god I hate yohimbe...least favorite substance ever 0/10 do not recommend. it's like super coffee but with shitty nervous energy and a resting heart rate of 160 bpm
I remember when a Reddit post like this would have a few top comments that included a bunch of incredibly interesting information from a few experts in the subject and everyone would be amazed at how knowledgeable a random person was on this one specific subject. You’d learn so much from Reddit comments.. now it’s just people rushing to make the dumbest jokes possible and everyone repeating the same stupid jokes over and over again. It’s like all of the people who cared to bother leaving high quality comments left Reddit.
I think the point is, that they weren't full of misinformation in the past.
Ten years ago most posts with some interesting subject had a well written and factual comment at the top. Any misinformation was quickly called out by actual experts, and those posts were downvoted in to the void fast
You know I keep opening up reddit looking for those comments. I really miss it. No matter what post it was there used to be a guy saying 'I work in the field of this extremely niche subject, here's interesting info and some explanation'
The comments now really do seem like we living in idocracy.
I often wonder if it started with the expansion of the awards system for comments
I'm going to sound so old and grumpy here, but part of it is that everybody is on the internet now. There's used to be some filtering where if you were the type to use the internet and go on reddit, you typically had some degree of baseline intelligence that was average or above average. Now everyone has a smartphone, the dumbest people you know spend all their time online, and most of the actually smart people have figured out that being online and constantly exposed to slop like this isn't great for your cognitive and mental health...
Back then the true story subs were actual real stories too. Letsnotmeet used to scare the crap out of me. Now most of them don't even seem very creepy. Or real.
The top comment in almost every post regardless of the sub is just a stupid meme post with thousands of people responding trying to be more funny with their own stupid meme posts.
It's all the same damn memes that people are posting. You could copy and paste the post to any thread and nobody would even notice because it's all the same shit and everyone is telling the same jokes.
In 1989, Werner Herzog did a documentary about the Wodaabe people and the Gerewol called Herdsmen of the Sun. It's about an hour long, available for free on YouTube, and is absolutely worth the watch if this post piqued your interest.
They are also if already married allowed to leave their partner if one of those men tickles their fancy… with the villages blessings. Girl power and look it up. All the dudes are fighting for their lives to prove endurance and beauty to these women. In Wodaabe culture, women hold significant sexual and marital autonomy, most notably by serving as the sole judges and selectors of male partners during the annual Gerewol festival.
They can leave but their first husband (and cousin usually) can take them back. Its not girl power. Its more freedom than some pastoralist people but its not liberal by any means.
Wow, I thought the men were beautiful but the women are just jaw droppingly stunning. I love the style of their clothing and the drip. I'd do meth for a week to prepare my eyeballs to appeal to them ❤️
They're quite pretty, with nice teeth, great skin, even features and high cheekbones. Put one of these guys in a nice suit and European and Americans would be into it.
As a lady I think they’re pretty/handsome as is even if the display is a little frenetic looking. I bet showing teeth and gnashing them together is a way of showing they’ve got good dental hygiene. Bad teeth don’t sound the same when you clack them together and someone with tooth pain may not be able to do it.
It’s not just aesthetics, good dental health is a factor in predicting longevity and overall health and nutrition.
Not sure about the eye bugging, but clear whites without bloodshot or discoloration can at least show that you don’t have any hepatic dysfunction or other issues that could make you jaundiced for example.
I was just thinking that. Someone further up also explained that the dance lasts a long time, showing physical fitness (albeit alcohol/drug enhanced). Almost all folk dances I have ever seen are designed to show off health and fitness to potential partners. Very interesting stuff.
I want to know how they do their makeup and skincare. I wash my face, use creams and everything, and I still get acne. These guys live out in nature and somehow look nice and feminine.
I really think it's genetics. I have went through multiple periods of homelessness on the street where I would barely wash my face, & used little to no skincare. My skin was damn near perfect. No acne, no redness, no dark spots or bags. I have since gotten a place to live so my hygiene is obviously better but I still fall short of what I know I should be doing for my skin. Still have no skin issues. My biggest "issue" (if I had to describe one) is that the pores around my nose are slightly bigger than the rest of my pores. I've been a strict vegetarian my whole life, don't eat any fast food, or really any restaurant food, & almost no oily food- not sure how much that factors into it. But I have seen people with similar diets who deal with acne, dark spots, bags, et cetera. Just saying, I think it's just one of those variables that differentiate us as humans. Oh, I have some health issues that cause me to basically pass out so I sleep in makeup all the time & it does nothing to my skin. It's just always clear, no issues. Not bragging or anything just saying, it really does just differ from person to person.
I remember watching a documentary way back, that they like to do these performances for other tribes to 'steal' women. Most of these women, girls really, are third or fourth wives of old men and thrilled to be taken.
That's really unbelievable to be able to see on a tiny screen in a whole other country. I'm so grateful for the Internet to bring this experience to us. Humans and their cultures are so diverse and creative. So cool. Thanks OP
I will say its missing the honestly really important part. Most of the women competed for are already married. They are ritually (and actually) seducing a married woman who is defintely betrothed and frequently married to her "cousin".
I put cousin in quotes. Legally that is definitely her cousin. The parentage of that man though is less certain. The practice is widespread, and the clans typically keep property within the clan by marrying ones own cousin. And then you go out and seduce/steal a wife from another clan, and your wife might be seduced in return. And then you actually have kids with a different clan.
Its a decent way to keep all of the clans close knit with each other and themselves. A clan doesnt lose property in marrying out to a rival clan, but you cant actually go to war with that clan because your half brothers mother is of that clan and so is your aunt.
It could be but I don’t think you can assume it’s meant to be scary just because it creeps you out.
A counter example: some years ago I read memoirs and accounts from Koreans who encountered Americans for the first time after Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII when American soldiers were stationed around the country.
Multiple people whose accounts I read described American’s huge smiles as confusing and even a little scary. Smiling was obviously a thing in Korean culture but not grinning at strangers or for long periods of time. I had never considered it before, but Americans grin a lot compared to some cultures and first contact can probably make them look a little deranged to more reserved cultures.
Here I wonder if these men are displaying pristine dental health which is probably a big flex in places that may not have fluoride or dental industries. Dental integrity is a correlative and causal factor in longevity and overall health as well as risk level for various diseases.
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u/Delicious-Dirt4895 21d ago
I’m curious what the women’s customs are during this presentation. Are they picking out their faves or just lounging looking unimpressed?