R7: The Era of Selfies

The Era of Selfies

In today’s day and age, selfies are the common photos to post on social media.  Selfies are used to portray yourself in a certain way and can be both deceptive and truthful.  When taking a selfie, you are able to change the lighting and angle of the photo to create an image that may not be exactly what you look like in person.  For my selfies, I tend to put more effort into my appearance to make myself look better in the photograph.  For instance, I make sure that my makeup and hair look better than they would on a daily basis.  In some instances, I will fix my appearance simply for the purpose of obtaining a good selfie.

For this assignment, it was difficult for me to choose only 3 selfies. When choosing which selfies to use, I had to consider what aspect of myself I wanted to highlight or portray.  I take a lot of selfies with friends, family and my dogs and rarely selfies of only myself.  For the purpose of this assignment, I felt it was important to include a selfie of myself alone.  Although I have taken a lot of selfies over the years, mainly with other people, it was a challenge to choose ones I would be comfortable sharing with the class  

The first selfie I chose is a selfie of only me.  I was able to choose this selfie easily because it is both my Instagram and Twitter avatar.  In this selfie, you can see that I am a Caucasian female. You cannot tell my socio-economic status from the selfie. You might be able to assume I am of middle-class, however I took this selfie on a night where I dressed up to go out so I may look fancier.  From this selfie, you also cannot tell my sexuality or anything about my interests or cultural identity.  For instance, simply from this selfie you would not know that I took this before I attended the Black Student Union fashion show held in the University Center on campus.

The next selfie I chose is a selfie of me and my mother.  I wanted to use this selfie of my mother and I because my mother is my best friend.  I felt I could use this selfie to show that family is important to me.  Something interesting about this selfie is that I never posted this to any social media, but I do have this photo hanging up in my dorm room.  From this selfie, you can definitely tell my race and gender.  However, again, you cannot tell my socio-economic status, sexuality, interests, or cultural identity.   You may assume we are going to a fancy event because we are dressed up but you would not be able to tell that we are going to my cousins wedding.  You cannot tell where we are going, however you can tell that we are in a car therefore travelling somewhere.

The last selfie I chose is a selfie of me and my dog.  I wanted to use this selfie because I am slightly obsessed with my dog and I take pictures of her and with her all the time.  My dog is a very important part of my life and I wanted to highlight that by using a selfie of us. From this selfie, you can again tell my race (Caucasian) and gender (female).  But, again, you cannot tell my socio-economic status, sexuality, interests or cultural identity.  From this selfie, you can definitely tell I am a dog lover and that I love my dog.  However, you do not know that I have another dog as well.  You can also not tell the location of this selfie. You cannot tell that I am sitting on a piano bench and had just taken a break from playing.  You also cannot tell that I am in my house.  From this selfie, although my face may look put together, you cannot see that I am actually wearing sweats and a big t-shirt.

Selfies are probably one of the most common photos that are posted on social media. Anymore you can just walk around the park or mall and see people of all ages holding their phones out and taking a selfie.  It is more common for youth to take selfies, even though you can see older people taking selfies as well.  The selfie-stick is something that has helped to propel the selfie even more into the mainstream.  In terms of my particular selfies,  I am in control of the portrayal of my identity.  For instance, in most of my selfies I like to make sure that my hair and makeup look good.  I always make sure I look the best specifically for my selfies.  However, I can also use selfies to obscure my sense of identity.  For instance, in the first and last selfie of this post I used a Snapchat filter to edit my appearance.  The filter I used on both photos makes my face appear clearer and lacking of flaws. Selfies definitely can obscure my sense of identity as well because if I’m trying to get a really good selfie to post on social media, I have to take at least 20-30 photos until I find a good one.  It is also interesting to note that most times when I feel I look good enough for a selfie, the selfie is not what I expected it to look like and I get disappointed and give up in taking selfies

Selfies are significant in relation to how others see me.  For instance, I rarely post selfies on Instagram or Twitter but I will post the occasional selfie on Snapchat.  I do not normally post selfies on sites where people can look at the photo in-depth and examine it, hence the use of Snapchat. On Snapchat if I post a selfie, it is normally only available to see for 2-3 seconds.  I do this so the person cannot take their time to examine the photo and see my flaws.  The selfies I do post have to be extraordinary.  I think I have only ever posted a selfie of only myself on Instagram once, and I have had the app since high school.  I personally do not like posting selfies because I feel others will view me as conceited or narcissistic.  I have not posted an actual selfie of just myself since 2014.  If I post a picture of myself on social media, it is typically one that someone else took of me because I like the way it looks better than a selfie.  If I choose to post a selfie, it is normally with other people.

Identity for us millennials is definitely different than it was for our parents’ generation. For millennials, a large part of our identity is formed on social media.  We are able to portray ourselves in whatever light we want, without it being our true identity.  With the selfie, we can make sure the angle and lighting are perfect and we can even edit the filter to enhance our looks.  For our parents generation, they did not have selfies or social media.  They were perhaps not as concerned with how they appeared to others because they did not have a way to constantly monitor this through social media.  With my generation, social media is a way for us to be fully aware of what others think of us as well as to portray our identity in whatever way we want.  Today, selfies are a prime way for us to form our own identity as well as form assumptions about others’ identities.