Write a short (around 500 words) post in your learning log in response to the question: what does the phenomenon of the selfie tell us about how photography is popularly used nowadays? Illustrate your post with recent examples from the internet.
It seems almost unbelievable that the word ‘selfie’ only entered the Oxford dictionary in 2013 and was defined as:
A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.(1)
All the conditions were in place, in 2013, to bring this phenomenon about. Instagram, the platform on which selfies are placed most frequenty, originated on 6 October 2010. The number of people owning smart phones, the camera of choice, for selfies, was increasing annually. A large number of the population, of the developed and developing world, had ‘online’ access from their phones. The stage was set.
What images would owners of smart phone make? I do not think it so surprising that people would turn the camera on themselves. This could be for many reasons. The smartphone owner was not going anywhere special, didn’t have anything special to photograph, did not have experience using a camera, so it was an inevitability the camera would be turned on themselves.
As of December 2016, there were over 282 million selfies on Instagram.(2)
What is somewhat surprising is that the selfie became so ubiquitous. Martin Graff, in Psychology Today, presents the results of a study of 400 students to analyse how often and why the students posted selfies on social media(3). The authors of the report deduced that attention seeking, making oneself feel better, self-confidence boost, social competition and the desire to conform were the main reasons why the young people posted selfies. The same paper also discusses when self-image making becomes an obsession.
I found this notion of obsessive self-image making interesting in light of Noah Kalina’s work Everyday.The eight minute video of Noah, Everyday,is fascinating. Could Kalina be described as obsessive for taking a selfie every day for 12.5 years. Rather I would describe it as tenacious and a little bit boring maybe bordering on the obsessive. The result is extraordinary both as a combined image and as a video. Kalina has one of those youthful faces that changed little over the time. He uses exactly the same pose in every image. One can see the seasons changing with the freckles on his face. His hairstyle changes little over the time so my conclusion would pose the question “What was the point of the exercise?
As the number of self images increased over time the poses needed to become more unusual or extreme to attract attention. Susan Sontag’s essay (4) discusses the Abu Ghraib images posing with the naked bodies of Iraqi detainees and distributing these to friends on social media. Soldiers have always made images of themselves with the spoils of war but Abu Ghraib went further.
People put themselves in extreme danger to record an image of themselves to post on social media (4). Between 2011 and 2017 two hundred and fifty nine people have died taking selfies in extreme situations.
Drowning, transport accidents and falling were found to be the most common cause of death. (5)
Indians seem to be the most determined to make that unforgettable selfie and in so doing many have lost their lives.
It is difficult to predict where the culture of ‘selfie’ will go in the future but I would cautiously predict that it will be a phase that will pass. I am unable to imagine what will replace it.
- Lexico Dictionaries | English. 2019. selfie | Definition of selfie in English by Lexico Dictionaries. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/selfie. [Accessed 02 July 2019].
- 33 Mind-Boggling Instagram Stats & Facts for 2018 | WordStream. 2019. 33 Mind-Boggling Instagram Stats & Facts for 2018 | WordStream. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/04/20/instagram-statistics. [Accessed 02 July 2019].
- Psychology Today. 2019. Are You Taking Too Many Selfies? | Psychology Today. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/love-digitally/201804/are-you-taking-too-many-selfies. [Accessed 02 July 2019].
- Susan Sontag. 2019. Regarding The Torture Of Others – The New York Times. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html. [Accessed 29 June 2019].
- BBC News. 2019. Selfie deaths: 259 people reported dead seeking the perfect picture – BBC News. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-45745982. [Accessed 02 July 2019].
Digital Image & Culture 