Selfies are weird.
Well, they’re weird to me, but they’re totally normal for the vast majority of those under 25. That’s weird to me too.
It’s weird to me that there’s an entire generation that doesn’t feel awkward about constantly and obsessively taking pictures of themselves and uploading those pictures into cyberspace and that they’ve been doing this since their parents first got them smart phones as pre-teens.
It’s weird that you can literally watch a young person grow up in a few minutes by scanning through their Facebook or Instagram feeds. Like a life-flashing-before-your-eyes moment, you can witness girls changing from young, fun, awkward tweens with braces and genuine smiles, to celebrity-socialite-wannabes posing hard with their best, bored, sex-kitten, duck faces, arching their backs to help display their newfound cleavage to the world.
The term selfie is kind of ironic when you think about it because a lot of these selfie-obsessed kids don’t even know themselves. It’s a selfie of the self they imagine the world wants to see.
It makes me sad that this phenomenon is putting even more pressure on girls to live up to unrealistic notions of beauty and embody our society’s objectification of them. I couldn’t imagine that kind of pressure as a young girl. I have no idea how that would have screwed with my head. I was a very awkward-looking teen. School photos were bad enough. I would not have been popular on Instagram.
But, I’m older now and luckily iPhones and Instagram came around after I already had a decent working knowledge of who I really am (and after braces). I’m so grateful that I’m not figuring out my 14-year-old self and looking to a faceless mass of online critics for approval solely based on my appearance.
So why are selfies so popular? Yes, there is the selfie as a form of self-expression and exploration that you have 100% control over. Yay for that! But, obviously if you’ve Googled the word #selfie, you know there’s a whole lot more slithering around in this can of worms.
There are a lot of viewpoints out there…whether you think oversharers are self-involved narcissists, or you think that selfies are “the male gaze gone viral” or you agree with Gail Dines, author of: Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, that for women to feel visible they must feel “fuckable”…either way, none of these are particularly desirable circumstances for us women to find ourselves in.
There’s no denying that people want to see people. That’s one of the (less vile) reasons why people who take a lot of selfies are so damn popular. That’s why if you’re one of those types (and I assume you are) who try to engage people through social networking, you’re gonna have to take some selfies because if you’re media savvy at all, you want more followers. More followers creates more opportunity for engagement and enhances your platform. And, in this business, platform is everything.
More followers also creates more opportunity for influence; more influence for the awesome messages you want to share with the world and more opportunity to be positively influenced by your hard-earned, loyal tribe of followers. Imagine the power of all that influence being wielded around online. As Marshall McLuhan famously argued, the medium is the message. The digital medium has given us all the capacity to utilize or succumb to this omnipresent, influential power at the click of a button and the snap of a selfie.
Us Ms-in-the-Bizers should think of the power of social media like The Force to a Jedi. And just like good Jedis, we should be using that influential power for good. I believe we have a responsibility to send positive, empowering messages to other women not to help promote this shallow, boring and harmful objectification.
I’m not saying you can’t be sexy. I’m no stick-in-the-mud! But, there’s a big difference between feeling powerfully sexy and being viewed as a sexual object and I think it’s pretty easy to differentiate if you use your common sense. I’d assume you’re like me and find the thought of posting a picture of yourself with your undies wedged between your butt cheeks in front of the bathroom mirror about as foreign as Reba McIntyre doing a duet with Nicki Minaj. But, if you’re trying to grow your following and find yourself tempted to slide down the slippery slope of posting a few racy shots of yourself in various compromising states of undress in order to gain some traction, I urge you to think again.
Yes, I take selfies. I’m not even ashamed to admit it…not really. Of course I succumb to the regular pressures of wanting to look presentable and/or cute when sharing my mug online. Who doesn’t?
I know I’d probably grow my audience if I shared MORE selfies. That’s why (when I’m having a good hair day, or have put my makeup on) I try to take a selfie or two even though it still feels awkward as hell to take pictures of myself. It’s a lot easier to take pictures of the things I love that don’t require having a good hair day: like food.
I also know that if I started doing ducklips or arching my back to show off my poolside cleavage whilst miming porn-esque poses, I’d probably attract even more attention/followers (or maybe I’m giving myself more credit than I deserve…ha…ha…). I understand the pressure we’re all under. I do! In this day and age when ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ are a form of major platform currency, it’s easy to get sucked into the darkside of self promotion. But, a girl’s gotta take a stand. A Jedi’s gotta harness the power of The Force.
Obviously, there’s no singular solution to dealing with the multi-faceted and entrenched societal pressures of representing ourselves especially as we figure our way around this new digital age. Social media is a giant, powerful wave and I’m riding it…without letting the current rip my clothes off.
May The Force be with you.
