The Rise of the Selfie

The Pope does it, the President of the United States does it, the Princes do it and when Ellen DeGeneres did it, she broke Twitter! I’m pretty sure most of you do it. Selfies. Don’t pretend you don’t know what they are. They are the self-portraits taken by girls, guys, celebs and maybe even you on iPhones and uploaded to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for all the world to see. In this presentation, I pose the question — has the selfie become the most important representation of our online identity? I will argue that unfortunately, for many of us, the selfie has come to define who we are. Today, I will provide a quick overview of the selfie, discuss the theories behind it and inform you of the risks and associated dangers for today’s adolescents.

University of Canberra social media expert, Lubna Alam, says there is no real logic to the selfie (Canberra Times, 9 September 2012, online). Instead, it is driven by a combination of social factors. There is an element of self-promotion, of course. What used to be the arena of the famous is now popular amongst ordinary people … like you and me. She says it’s just a platform to showcase yourself, and it’s free, so now you can be a celebrity for a day. But it is also a phenomenon that is very much tied to our generation — ‘Generation Next’. And, right now, there are more than 209 million pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #selfie. Also, the term selfie is so big that it was the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year in 2013 (The Conversation, 4 February 2014, online). Research has found that the use of the word selfie has increased 17,000 % from 2012 to 2013.

But why do we take selfies? These are some of the most common published theories (Web Trends, online):

First — To get attention from as many people as possible.
Second — To get a self-esteem boost.
Third — To show off. For example, many of us know people who love to post pictures of their abs. But I digress … abs do that to me …
And, finally, sometimes it’s just a matter of boredom.

Many adults have cringe-worthy memories of their teenage years but our generation of adolescents will not be able to so easily leave those times in the past. How many of us actually realise that everything we do online is published for life? For those of us who aspire to be anything in our adulthood, from High Court judges to a janitor, this is more than a little wake-up call.

Some people argue that the selfie is merely a mode of self-expression and a way of communicating and connecting with others. In a New York Times article, Jenna Wortham, writes that the selfie empowers girls to celebrate not just their looks but also their accomplishments (New York Times, 19 October 2013, online). But this explanation has a flipside. Is this not a reflection of where society stands in regard to self-obsession and, equally important, the way we, as young people, are physically judged?

In my view, selfies are not empowering — they’re a cyber reflection of the way society teaches us that our most important quality is physical attractiveness. Where this becomes a problem is when we fail to attract the desired attention or approval of our peers. And this will often damage our self-confidence. Clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd goes further (The Telegraph UK, 23 August 2013, online). She says that posting selfie photographs on social media can lead to cyber bullying, negative comments or even physical abuse. The majority of teens post the photos in search of assurance and compliments but, when they fail to get the desired number of “likes” or comments, they see it as an embarrassment and an indication they are not popular. This could affect their perception of themselves through to adulthood.

In this presentation I have argued that the selfie should not define who we are. I have given an overview of this phenomenon; I have also discussed the theories behind the selfie and outlined the risks and dangers. We are all individuals and while the selfie may have a place in our online photo album, it is not, nor should it be, the sum of our identity.