For the past 13 years SuicideGirls reinvented burlesque and the idea of Pin-Up Girls. This year, they are everywhere, buzzing throughout all social networks, especially on Periscope. An amazing adventure that proposes another kind of femininity, free from classic standards. Welcome to the 2.0 Pin-Up. 
 

The concept of Pin-Up, older than you think.

In the late 19th century, burlesque performers and actresses sometimes used photographic advertisement as business cards to promote themselves. These adverts and business cards could often be found in almost every green room, pinned-up or stuck into “frames of the looking-glasses, in the joints of the gas-burners, and sometimes lying on-top of the sacred cast-case itself. The word it-self, Pin-Up-Girl, comes from the fact that most of these representations were displayed informally, just by pinning-up on the wall. One of the first known Pin-Ups was Betty Grable. She was basically in every locker of each American GI during World War II.
     
Since then, several women, models, dancers and actresses populated the masculine imagination. This sexualization of women became a strong imagery on the post war period with a strong foundation in the 50’s. Marilyn Monroe has naturally contributed a lot to this topic.
 More recently, people like Dita Von Teese have brought back the burlesque and the pin-up girl attitude with great success. She brought Burlesque trendy again. By combining classical references and a sort of post-punk influence, she renewed the genre and became a worldwide reference for femininity and sensuality. Lately she even launched her own lingerie line. 
 
With the universal spread of internet, different new forms of pin-ups started appearing accross the world, some of them more “naughty” than others. Social networks became a powerful tool for awareness amolification, so what was unknown yesterday become worldwide known tomorrow. One interesting example is SuicideGirls. From all the new projects, it is the one with modernity, originality and a strong sense of sexiness.

SuicideGirls, the 2.0 Pin-Up Girl

In 2001, Sean Suhl and Serena Mooney launched a website called SuicideGirls. The site functions as an online community with member profiles, member blogs, and the option to join networking groups based upon interests. SuicideGirls also features interviews with people from popular and alternative culture, user-submitted news articles, and an online merchandise store. Access to most of the site requires a paid membership.     

The SuicideGirls website and concept were created by the founding partners of parent company SG Services, Inc., Sean Suhl (“Sean”) and Selena Mooney (“Missy Suicide”) in late 2001, and based in Portland In 2003, the site operations moved to Los Angeles. Suhl and Mooney started the site “just to see hot punk rock girls naked.” Mooney has also stated that the purpose of the site is to give women control over how their sexuality is depicted. The site is privately co-owned. Most of the models have nontraditional appearance modifications such as dreadlocks, colored hair, tattoos, piercings, or more extreme body modifications. 
     
Currently there are over 3’000 SuicideGirls in the website and according to Alexa, the website is part of the top 25’000th most important websites in the world. Social networks like Instagram helped the popularity of this original endeavor. This year, a new social network, Periscope is giving more than wings to the SuicideGirls project. Every day, you can follow the adventures of these modern pin-up girls from all over the world and live chat with them. Of course there is a “limited soft look” on Periscope and the “real thing” is on the website, under paid subscription.
 
You can visit the company website here: https://suicidegirls.com
As we can see technology allows to review how things are. There is a very powerful sexualization of these girls. They become the edge of ultra-femininity. May-be men and women see on these beauties a strong symbol of freedom, ownership of their own body and little attention to standards. It is an interesting initiative up to the point of the sexual limit of such project. How far can we go and what kind of image of femininity do we define with it. There is definitely something fascinating on those tattoos and colored hair.
LA

 
Info sourced at SuicideGirls website, Periscope, Tumblr and wikipedia. All content is copyrighted with no reproduction rights available.