A make-up epidemic has come to muddle the divide between appearance and reality, between beauty and ugliness and between modern and ancient. To compound the confusing picture, we have entered an age in which things are no longer what they seem. Sometimes it takes place in full public glare or via viral social media posts in full digital colour. These are the fancy names for an open sex regime in which even toddlers are playing what has become a national game. Transgender, cross dressing, LGBTQ are the names of a strange animal in town. Suddenly, the strange things that have sneaked in on us have acquired their own language and assumed new names. There is now an explosion of make-up and disguise artistry as a vibrant new economic sub sector. The latter is marked by the emergence of make-up artists as mobile illusionists and new aesthetics wonder workers. The other is a new fascination with externals, with appearance and make belief. The first is an obsession with sex as a form of national sport that unites young and old alike both online and in real time. Underneath all this, however, two other endemic obsessions have recently crept in and taken root among us. The material of good political entertainment. We have to admit that the ongoing pageant of presidential aspirants is an impressive circus with limitless comic value. The rave of the moment is not only the raging politics of presidential stampede.
