Selfie Phenomena in Bangladesh

by Maruf Hossain Anik

Selfie become the buzzword all over the social networks/medias (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Ask.fm etc). By the end of 2012 “Times of New York” find out that Selfie was one of the “top 10 buzzwords” of the year. In 2013 the word “Selfie” had become commonplace enough to be monitored for inclusion in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary and in November,2013 the word “Selfie” was announced as being the “word of the year” by the Oxford English Dictionary. Whenever I go through my social networks account (mostly facebook and instagram) home page I found a huge number of Selfie in the page every time. And all those staffs push me to do an ethnography about the social phenomena of Selfie in Bangladesh, though I’m not Selfie freak. I do have some friends who are taking Selfie so often. I was curious to know the reason why they take Selfie, it was my initial steps. But suddenly I thought that what if I find out some random Selfie lover/freak from the virtual world and ask them about Selfie as well as hangout with my close friends to gather information about Selfie. For taking one must have to have a cell phone which hold a front camera or a new device name Go-pro (This device introduce in this year and this is specially made for Selfie). An ordinary phone doesn’t contain any front camera. So here it is clear that economic factor is also a part of this tradition. Most of the work I have done through virtual world. First I put a post for help in the most common/famous group of facebook named Desperately Seeking Dhaka (DSD). And some people give response though initially they thought that the research was for fun. Then they found it’s an interesting topic and they were eager to help. As it was a virtual connection basically through chatting in facebook, I have to set up a set of questions for the researched people. I also hangout with some of my friends took Selfie with them, ask them questions.

I interviewed almost 8 peoples in facebook and 3 of my friends within the time of our hangouts. Most of the interviewed population’s age was between18–26 and ratio of male — female was 70–30. Since most of the informant was at my age. It was easier for me to generate a link among us. For this my work was easier to finish. Except my friends all of the informants were stranger to me. Selfie freak/lover seems internet “colloquial speech” now a day. For this I have to wait a long for the response of the people, more precisely those whom I interviewed they contact me/helped me from their own interest. My methodology was not that much complicated I did participant observation, distant observation, taking fields notes and interviewing with some fixed question. I was little bit lucky because I maintained my research structure. I started my study by visiting facebook and instagram website where most of the Selfie lover posted their photos. I checked their captions of Selfie, comments and in the case of hangout I just observe when my friends took a Selfie. Those were under distant observation. I also keep in my mind that if I just ask them “Why you just took a Selfie?” it would be very much difficult to get the serious answer. Hence they were in funny mood while taking a self portrait. I started my field work by hanging out with my friends in Mawa Feri ghat. I took my DSLR bag where along with the camera I took a pen and some papers. When we started the journey on of my friends named Anik told, “Let’s take a Selfie for check in” (basically a medium in facebook through this user can let others know about his/her current location). So the first thing that comes up in my mind that for a perfect check in you should post a selfie along with that. This was the starting of taking Selfie, we stopped in a filling station there my friends took Selfie, after reaching there my friends took Selfie with “IIlsha Fish” both fried one and raw one etc. As we were a group of people it was difficult for me to ask/talk with one of my Selfie freak friend individually. Somehow I talked with one my friend during taking tea named Sultan (studying in a private university). I asked him formally “Why you took Selfie?” He seemed little bit surprised to hear this question from me. After taking sometime he replied that “This is the only way to take self and group picture without taking help from anyone”. With that answer I started to visit the virtual websites. Before taking interview I just go through my facebook and instagram news feed.

At first, I took some interview from my friend list. Then I send some message to random people but they didn’t reply me any single word. So I decided to seek help from the one of the largest group of Bangladesh and I got a huge response from there. In my short study I found that people were more comfortable to answer the question in virtual world rather than face to face. I framed out the question for interview in easiest way so that informant would answer those questions fluently. In my research I found out that all most everyone take Selfie after they having a mobile with a front camera. And the word “Selfie” they come to know about this through social sites (mostly facebook, instagram and ask.fm). My whole point of research was to find out the decisive reasons of taking Selfie how other people react about that. And I found that mostly people took Selfie to represent themselves to others through social media. Some people just took whenever they feel bored. The most common answer that I have found that everyone wanted to keep their moments through Selfie. Like they went for shopping they would take a Selfie in front of market, post it in a social site with a caption like “Shopping time”. The same thing goes for visiting a place, restaurant, hangouts etc. Facial expression is an important thing that can’t be ignored. In a Selfie people face comes up or main message they want to pass through their facial expressions. With a smiling face one won’t see a caption wrote “sad”. Basically through the Selfie the message informant wants to share what he/she is actually in different situations.

How much time would a Selfie lover/freak spend in day for Selfie? Ok this things question was quite interesting to my informant. From this question I have found important information. Some of the informant took Selfie almost in each and every hour. But they do not post all them in facebook or instagram. They edit it with some light photo editing software and post the best one in the social sites. One informant gives same preference as choosing a cloth for shopping, equal to choose the best Selfie.

Apart from all of these, I observe some leading companies campaign for Selfie. Like a telecom company had started a competition to find out the Selfie Queen and Selfie King. A good quality mobile phone (best for Selfie) was for each and every winner. They told the contender to post a Selfie of their own with a caption that prove that why they are the Selfie queen/king? Another mobile phone company did an event named “World Largest Selfie” also launched a song for this campaign titled “Let’s take a Selfie”.

Through my last question I just wanted to find out that economic factor that related with Selfie. Initially I didn’t think about this but the introducing of monopod (Selfie stick), special Selfie phone, and expensive selfie device named Go-pro, so I add a question that related to this. To capture a group picture it’s better to use a mono pod (It’s a smaller version of tri pod, which hold the camera and help to capture the photo with a big frame). So many communicators told me that they have future plan for buying a mono pod. Some of them are satisfied with their current phone. My school Anik brought a Selfie device named GO-PRO camera (It’s basically a fish eye lance camera that help to capture a full frame photo without using the mono pod) and another friend Raziv brought a new phone which have a great front camera. All the mobile phone companies are now highlighting more on front camera in their new devices. Some young people import mono pod from abroad and selling them through online shop. Initially it was seasonal business but some people doing it for almost 10 months.

Selfie brings a new message that creating and sharing is too much easier and it also gives the control to self photographer to choose how to present themselves. According to Selfie freaks/lovers “Selfie is not narcissism but sharing experience”, “Perhaps it is the beginning of an era where people can tell their own stories”. Rather than that I have interviewed/talked to some people who do not like to take Selfie and they have different view about Selfie. To most Selfie haters Selfie is a self obsession. One of the hater told me that “ If we put a image of ourselves on internet its mean it for ourselves, but if we it put it on internet it no for ourselves.” His whole point was if Selfie is captured for the photographer than why it should share with others as a selfie? And it’s a extreme form of narcissism. From my point of view it’s a debatable issue. Selfie is a brand new concept. Selfie is no longer self-presentation or self-expression but also self-exploration and self-discovery. Technological innovations have played crucial role in this differentiation. Latest mobile phone technology enables not only take selfie but also allows sharing it by its connectivity to social media. Millions of selfies are connected to each other within the virtual environments and imagined communities. Mobile phone has come to exemplify technological aggregation. It is not any more a simple phone with a camera but also internet access portal with various functions. This new technological innovations also reshaped “the perspective from which we see world and thus changing our thoughts and lives.” (Gai, 2009: p.195). Selfie become the most effective visual message which need less writing. In my research I have found that sometimes people take Selfie for affective reason like emotions ( i.e. mood, situation, condition etc) another is social reason it’s basically sharing the photo with other for no reason or capturing the photo for no reason(they keep it for their own).

Before starting my field work I have done some studies regarding selfie. I go through some other works about selfie as well as the article from popular web journal. Last year December 19 Actor, Director and Writer James Fransco wrote an article in New York Times titled “Meaning of selfie”. There he wrote “We all have different reasons for posting them, but, in the end, selfies are avatars: Mini-Me’s that we send out to give others a sense of who we are.” Another article from the same journal written by Jenna Wortham titled “My Selfie My Self”. There she wrote an interesting thing and I want to sum up my research with that “Rather than dismissing the trend as a side effect of digital culture or a sad form of exhibitionism, maybe we’re better off seeing selfies for what they are at their best — a kind of visual diary, a way to mark our short existence and hold it up to others as proof that we were here. The rest, of course, is open to interpretation.” From my informant partially I got that same message. They do not care how other react about their selfie the things they maintenance how other people (basically who love their selfie) react.

It was very first ethnography of mine for this reason it was not well organized and short-time period was also a fact. If overlooked my paper I have found out that I did my whole work in four steps first one was I studied about selfie, secondly I hang out with friends, and thirdly I took selfie with them and finally interviewing people through virtual world. Each and every step was done nicely. In future I can work with this topic as it has huge ground to work with. Let me share an interesting story about Selfie that occurred with me. I tried to take a Selfie along with the monopod, everything was all right but suddenly my friend had an incoming call in that phone. It vibrates and falls from the monopod. As a result the display broke instantly. So, all the Selfie lover/freak be aware of that make sure both your phone and social hierarchical position are safe.