When did you take your first selfie? Was is for Myspace, or AIM? Or was it for a social networking site even before those two? Now here's another question: when did you first hear or start using the term "selfie"?
Selfies are a self portrait taken from about arms length away with a handheld camera device like a phone or a digital camera (I have taken a few selfies with a DSLR). We've been doing these self portaits for years, so why does it seem like the selfie has gained even more recognition and social relevance over the past few years? Celebrities, athletes, politicians, and even children are taking selfies. Obama, Pope Francis, and Ellen's infamous Oscars selfie have gone viral. The word "selfie" is even in the Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries, at least according to their websites. Even further, Oxford Dictionary named the word "Selfie" the Word of The Year in 2013.
I myself take a lot of selfies. Probably at least one a day. I definitely don't need the validation of my appearance, although that is a factor is there. It's not that I forget what I look like, (although I do suffer from severe face blindness). I don't think my followers are going to forget what I look like. This is true for most, so why are we so obsessed with the selfie? And why is it good for us?
According to Wikipedia, the rise of the popularity of the selfie has a lot to do with how easy it is to share selfies and how selfies give you, the photographer, complete control over your appearance. I can see that; I've read a ton of articles about how to take a good selfie. These ones from PureWow and Cosmopolitan are just a few examples. Kim Kardashian, Instagram's Selfie Queen, has even given tips on how to take a good selfie. Selfies are a direct way to get approval from our peers about our appearance, however altered the photo may be. Humans are wired to engage with faces more than a photo of a landscape or a cheeseburger.
According to an article on the NYTimes.com Sunday Review, the selfie makes social media more interesting by making it more personal. That doesn't seem important, until you find out that the popularity of the Vine app increased when the app started supporting the front facing camera. Many of you may not even know that it at one point didn't support the front camera; probably because it wouldn't have fit your needs and wants at that point.
Apps like Snapchat are completely centered around the selfie culture, despite whatever devious uses we might be using it for in the wee hours of the morning. There are photo editing apps by the thousands to help perfect your skin, hair, and much more, let alone the integrated filters and photo editing tools in phone camera apps and Instagram. There is even an app available on the iTunes App Store called Selfie Timer that allows you to put a timer on your front camera to give you time to adjust your angles (the app itself is shit and now irrelevant with iOS8).
I took a minute to scroll through my Instagram feed to see how many of my friends posted selfies today. I follow 429 people, and in the past 24 hours I counted 35 selfies (not including videos) out of 142 posts. That's 24.48%, so almost 1/4 photos that the people I follow have posted this day have been selfies. Now, don't actually count like I did (it took me a minute I kept screwing up and counting videos), but look and see how many selfies there are in your feed. The tag #selfie has 178,254,700 posts. Multiple sources say that the human desire to showcase ourselves is not new; only that we have never had such a huge platform to share ourselves upon! The tag #me has even more with 290,421,532 posts. If that seems ridiculous, just take a second and remember that all of the self portraits commissioned by royalty in the Middle Ages were essentially expensive selfies that they had to sit for hours to complete.
I know a girl who shall remain unnamed, but she is a study in selfie art. It has been stated by multiple unconnected people that she looks nothing like she does on Instagram, and I'm not saying in the body. Her face literally does not resemble herself in real life, and it is unsettling to say the least. She gets at least 100 likes on her selfies; why do all these people who have met this girl in real life continue to support her altered image of herself she posts on the internet?
Liking someone's selfie is done in such a way that it's expected that the like will be returned, and most likely it will be. You can like someone's selfie regardless of whether or not you think they're attractive all the time; you may just be liking the photo because they found that magic angle and look really good. And every like you receive is a confidence boost: people in your life are publicly validating yourself. You can even post a traditionally unattractive selfie and get the same recognition, but this time people are liking that you can make yourself look unattractive when normally you're a stunner you rascal ;)
But what's most important about the selfie is the personal approval of yourself. You are the one taking the picture and posting it. You get to choose the best angle, the best lighting, the best filter, the best amount of light and shadows; whatever it is, you are the boss. And every time you look at that photo, you get a little boost from within that you think you look good. Many times, when I like a friend's selfie, I like it not just because they look good but because I know they think they look good.
On the flip side, the selfie opens up a world of cyberbullying that has never existed before. And yeah, I am 21 years old and I still see cyberbullying regularly within my peers, it's just more sophisticated than calling each other whores like we did in high school. Someone who posts a numvber of selifes his peers find too high might be the target of people saying "You love yourself too much", which puts a negative tone on positive self-behavior, something that should be encouraged in our world of constant comparisons and valuing beauty above all else. James Franco, one of the most attractive men on Earth and self-acclaimed selfie-aficionado says the following in his NYTimes article about selfies.
Selfies are a self portrait taken from about arms length away with a handheld camera device like a phone or a digital camera (I have taken a few selfies with a DSLR). We've been doing these self portaits for years, so why does it seem like the selfie has gained even more recognition and social relevance over the past few years? Celebrities, athletes, politicians, and even children are taking selfies. Obama, Pope Francis, and Ellen's infamous Oscars selfie have gone viral. The word "selfie" is even in the Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries, at least according to their websites. Even further, Oxford Dictionary named the word "Selfie" the Word of The Year in 2013.
I myself take a lot of selfies. Probably at least one a day. I definitely don't need the validation of my appearance, although that is a factor is there. It's not that I forget what I look like, (although I do suffer from severe face blindness). I don't think my followers are going to forget what I look like. This is true for most, so why are we so obsessed with the selfie? And why is it good for us?
According to Wikipedia, the rise of the popularity of the selfie has a lot to do with how easy it is to share selfies and how selfies give you, the photographer, complete control over your appearance. I can see that; I've read a ton of articles about how to take a good selfie. These ones from PureWow and Cosmopolitan are just a few examples. Kim Kardashian, Instagram's Selfie Queen, has even given tips on how to take a good selfie. Selfies are a direct way to get approval from our peers about our appearance, however altered the photo may be. Humans are wired to engage with faces more than a photo of a landscape or a cheeseburger.
According to an article on the NYTimes.com Sunday Review, the selfie makes social media more interesting by making it more personal. That doesn't seem important, until you find out that the popularity of the Vine app increased when the app started supporting the front facing camera. Many of you may not even know that it at one point didn't support the front camera; probably because it wouldn't have fit your needs and wants at that point.
Apps like Snapchat are completely centered around the selfie culture, despite whatever devious uses we might be using it for in the wee hours of the morning. There are photo editing apps by the thousands to help perfect your skin, hair, and much more, let alone the integrated filters and photo editing tools in phone camera apps and Instagram. There is even an app available on the iTunes App Store called Selfie Timer that allows you to put a timer on your front camera to give you time to adjust your angles (the app itself is shit and now irrelevant with iOS8).
I took a minute to scroll through my Instagram feed to see how many of my friends posted selfies today. I follow 429 people, and in the past 24 hours I counted 35 selfies (not including videos) out of 142 posts. That's 24.48%, so almost 1/4 photos that the people I follow have posted this day have been selfies. Now, don't actually count like I did (it took me a minute I kept screwing up and counting videos), but look and see how many selfies there are in your feed. The tag #selfie has 178,254,700 posts. Multiple sources say that the human desire to showcase ourselves is not new; only that we have never had such a huge platform to share ourselves upon! The tag #me has even more with 290,421,532 posts. If that seems ridiculous, just take a second and remember that all of the self portraits commissioned by royalty in the Middle Ages were essentially expensive selfies that they had to sit for hours to complete.
I know a girl who shall remain unnamed, but she is a study in selfie art. It has been stated by multiple unconnected people that she looks nothing like she does on Instagram, and I'm not saying in the body. Her face literally does not resemble herself in real life, and it is unsettling to say the least. She gets at least 100 likes on her selfies; why do all these people who have met this girl in real life continue to support her altered image of herself she posts on the internet?
Liking someone's selfie is done in such a way that it's expected that the like will be returned, and most likely it will be. You can like someone's selfie regardless of whether or not you think they're attractive all the time; you may just be liking the photo because they found that magic angle and look really good. And every like you receive is a confidence boost: people in your life are publicly validating yourself. You can even post a traditionally unattractive selfie and get the same recognition, but this time people are liking that you can make yourself look unattractive when normally you're a stunner you rascal ;)
But what's most important about the selfie is the personal approval of yourself. You are the one taking the picture and posting it. You get to choose the best angle, the best lighting, the best filter, the best amount of light and shadows; whatever it is, you are the boss. And every time you look at that photo, you get a little boost from within that you think you look good. Many times, when I like a friend's selfie, I like it not just because they look good but because I know they think they look good.
On the flip side, the selfie opens up a world of cyberbullying that has never existed before. And yeah, I am 21 years old and I still see cyberbullying regularly within my peers, it's just more sophisticated than calling each other whores like we did in high school. Someone who posts a numvber of selifes his peers find too high might be the target of people saying "You love yourself too much", which puts a negative tone on positive self-behavior, something that should be encouraged in our world of constant comparisons and valuing beauty above all else. James Franco, one of the most attractive men on Earth and self-acclaimed selfie-aficionado says the following in his NYTimes article about selfies.
"Of course, the self-portrait is an easy target for charges of self-involvement, but, in a visual culture, the selfie quickly and easily shows, not tells, how you’re feeling, where you are, what you’re doing."- James Franco, Actor