Hello World.

Hello, Internet! My name is Jess and I would like to welcome you to my blog, Iconoclastic Fantastic. On this blog, I aim to explore and analyze images and visual rhetoric in an accessible and engaging fashion. While I enjoy visual culture in general, I am specifically interested in images that are humourous, strange, or macabre.

For the first image on this blog, one intended to express part of my personality, I have decided to keep things light (I am a strong believer in never taking yourself too seriously) with a photo of Tina Fey’s 30 Rock character, Liz Lemon. I chose this photo because Liz Lemon is a nerd (a category I proudly place myself in). While the term “nerd” usually conjures stereotypical images of glasses-clad loners huddled around a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Liz Lemon is more than this. Yes, she does possess many traditionally nerdy qualities, such as some social awkwardness and the propensity to make semi-obscure Star Wars references (I am also guilty of both), but she is also witty and has a sense of fashion. In essence, Liz Lemon represents a more modern idea of nerdiness: a nerdiness more based in pop culture obsession and self-deprecating humour than in memorizing Pi to 150 digits. I feel I am this kind of nerd and I chose this particular photo of Liz (lerhinoceros) because I think it captures that essence: it is goofy, a little awkward, but not so much so that one thinks “socially oblivious loser.”


Works Cited
lerhinoceros. “Liz Lemon and The Bible agree - ‘Shut it down.’.” The Cellar Door. Web. 28 September 2010.