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EN
People who go quiet during group photos aren’t always camera-shy: for some, being told to look happy for a picture asks them to perform a feeling faster than it can honestly arrive, and they’d rather not lie in an image that outlives the day
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Silicon Canals
The person being photographed has noticed that the instruction to smile or look happy is asking their face to move faster than their feelings can catch up.
It is a small choice: perform a feeling you don’t have, or stand there honestly and look, to the group, like you’re being difficult.
Hand someone a camera at a party without announcement, and the people who usually retreat during group shots often don’t.
Sometimes they don’t, and the picture shows a slightly absent person standing in a row of grinning ones.
That’s the picture that gets described later as you look weird in this, why didn’t you smile.