To selfie or not to selfie?
Tuesday, February 25, 2014Selfies.
This is a big topic. Selfies are kind of "so 2013" with the whole Oxford Dictionary shebang and all, fuelled by the Snapchat revolution. We've had this love affair with good-angle-good-light self-portraits for some time, but last year really cemented it for good. Now celebrity selfies are frequently making the showbiz headlines, and it has become a daily occurrence to see Girl On Bus pulling ridiculous faces in front of her phone. In fact, it's hilarious sitting behind someone and not seeing their face, but instead being able to see the phone screen and the funny photo in all it's 5-second glory. For the record, Girl On Bus has never been me. I'm always the stifled laughter you hear two rows back.
Anyway, selfies are an unsurprising "thing" now. They're so common, the Obamas and the Oprahs are doing it. Selfie with a cat (done that), selfie with a filter (current profile pic, I'm afraid), selfie with a celeb (my personal fave is the David Tennant one)... Nina Nesbitt even wrote a song about taking pictures of yourself. And she named it, uh, "Selfies". However, despite the tongue-in-cheek music video, she has a very valid point acknowledging that selfies display the life we want to show you. That sunshine selfie is basically saying, "hey look at me, the weather here is great"; the sunglasses and sunbeam in the background juxtaposes with the horribly gloomy grey clouds outside your own window. That post-gym selfie is the evidence they were actually at the gym and they want everyone to know it, up for all to see when you yourself are at home munching on a doughnut. Cue guilt. And so on and so forth...
But we live in a Facebook generation where it is so easy to untag yourselves from those unflattering photos so that only the ones where you look fab are next to your name. Instagram have filters that are pretty much guaranteed to make any photo look fantastic. That applies to selfies too - why would we upload a photo if we know we look bad in it anyway? What I'm trying to say is that if you are comparing your life to the glamorous lives posted in people's photos, you'll only make yourself paranoid and upset. It sounds like common sense but it's so easy for the your-life-looks-so-much-better-than-mine mindset to slip through without realising it's actually happening. It's what we were all warned about with the models in the glossy magazines, except now the subjects of attention are our own friends. That applies to general posts and statuses too. You're only seeing the highlights of someone's life: the good hair days, the holidays, the nice cheery smiles where you're not blinking... You never see the whole picture. You're seeing what they want you to see. (Of course, we know this already because it works both ways.)
At the same time, I'm not ridiculing the sharing of selfies because I do it all the time myself. I think there's nothing to be ashamed about. It's great that we no longer need to splash out on a day in a photography studio to produce a photo that we're proud to share. A multifunctional phone does the trick perfectly these days. I think Snapchat is a crazy but very cool idea, and I love that we have become fearless at sharing photos with our friends where we look (albeit intentionally) dreadful. That sunshine selfie? Guilty as charged, but it'll be one of my favourite photos where I can remember how lovely that holiday was. Selfie with a celeb? These things were meant for sharing! The good hair days? Celebrate them with a photo, because let's face it: not every day is a good hair day. I've never done a post-gym selfie, but I can imagine they'll keep you well-motivated so I may have to resort to starting a collection...
Selfies can make you bold and brave and confident. They have the ability to capture a perfect moment in time. Whether we like them or loathe them, they really are here to stay. Heck, even my dad has become a fan of them (although he doesn't know what they're called. And let's keep it that way, because it would be too weird if he started using the phrase, "I'm just taking a cheeky selfie.") At the same time, there is such a thing as oversharing (like, I really don't want to see x100000 cute pics of you and your other half, no matter how cute you are together). Equally, selfies are just a light-hearted, one-sided representation of life which are by no means the full picture. Ever; they've most likely been cropped anyway!
In celebration of selfies... here are some of my own!
The filtered selfie:
The cat selfie:
The David Tennant selfie:
And as for the 5.30am selfie? Or the "I'm freezing and wearing 10 layers" selfie? Or the one where I'm blinking in the bright light of the flash? Nothing to show here; I wonder why....
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