Selfie Report

Nowadays, almost everybody takes selfies. According to Gorman (2013), a selfie is that arm’s length self-portrait or reflection in a mirror shot, taken on a phone that is typically well lit and heavily edited, and then uploaded on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook. A selfie may include many people as long as someone in it is taking it. People are becoming obsessed with the phenomena of Selfie especially adolescents and young girls who has, according to our findings, the highest number of taking and posting a selfie. However, men tend to hide about taking a selfie since they see it as a feminine act. Nevertheless, according to our findings a question can be asked for both genders and on age scale from 18 to 23, who or what are selfies for? To answer this question, first of all this paper is going to discuss the key stereotypes of the selfie and how have this stereotypes been challenged through the research. Second, it is going to show how our research was done, the methods used and the questions asked to the participants, and then analyzing the findings.

The selfie phenomenon has developed throughout the years rapidly. In addition, many researchers nowadays started exploring its concept, how dangerous it could be, and how it affects people’s lives. Many researchers view that today’s generation only care about how perfect their selfie is and doesn’t value what’s behind them as touristic places or valuable monuments. They only care about posing for a selfie for their next online post. (Gorman, 2013, pg.1). As well as many others connects the selfies with ego boosts by saying the selfie gives people confidence, make them feel powerful, and wanted when they receive positive reactions. However, Burns (2015) talked about the negative stereotypes against females who practice this behavior (narcissism and sexual impropriety). Selfies can cause emotional and psychological damage, thus it can also be used to self-express and to feel empowered. Not to forget that many uses the selfie for other purposes like political campaigns, or self- expression and self-empowerment.

We, as a team did our on research about the selfie phenomena and, we were able to test some of the listed stereotypes. According to our data, Our participants gives importance to the artistic side of each country they visit because they use their social media platforms as a way to motivate and trigger others to travel or to visit that specific place. Moreover, we went and checked our participants’ social media accounts, the majority of our participants’ accounts were private, and henceforth their audience is limited to family and friends. So their social media platforms were not made to advertise anything, it was made only for close audience However, Nelson’s claim supported our research. Many of our participants admitted the fact that they post pictures when they feel like they look good, or feel good, and want to feel validation on their appearance. To conduct our research, we created a Social Media account on Instagram since it’s the most used platform for posting selfies. First we asked 15 LAU students, and University students abroad (12 females, 3 males) to post their selfies along with their answer to: “Who is your intended audience when posting a selfie?” and “What is your intention behind posting a selfie?”.

After checking our participant’s answers, we decided to group their intended audience into 6 categories being: Family, Followers, Self, No intended audience, Crushes and Friends. We found out that 42% of our participants had a targeted audience consisting of their Friends. The second highest targeted audience being Family at 35%. We then gathered our participant’s intentions for posting selfies into 6 categories: Memories, Travel, No intended purpose, Self, Beauty/Looks, and for Attention/ Validation. Our research showed that 40% of our participants had posted certain selfies in order to share memories of a person, place or event, or as a “souvenir” to themselves. The second highest purpose for posting was tied between sharing their beauty or good looks and with sharing for attention and validation. However, after investigating into our participants Instagram accounts we found out that 6 out of 15 participants had answers that did not correlate with their Instagram accounts. We saw that some who stated that their audience were limited to family and friends actually had public accounts, with up to 1,000 followers. We also found that those who claimed to not really take selfies actually had accounts filled with selfies. These findings made us return to these participants and question them based on what we saw in their accounts, to see what makes them hide the truth of posting selfies and to who. Some justified this behavior by saying that they change their audience based on their selfies, meaning that some to switch their account to public when they felt like sharing a powerful message or a selfie they felt was “too good to keep private”. After that they turn their accounts back into private once they felt like they got the desired response. Our research showed that those who mainly use Instagram as a platform to share their “Beauty” or “Good Looks” had developed a certain personal brand in which they would pose in a certain way, or heavily edit their pictures, which also lead us to revisit our participants who used Instagram accounts, and investigate their personal brand. These participants claimed that they posed depending on what angle of them they wanted to focus on, based on what looked “good” that day. For example, if they were having a good skin day, they took a selfie from an angle making their face as the focus. They also use lighting and filters to enhance these areas. To finish our research reinforced the stereotype of a selfie being categorized as a feminine act, since we had a hard time getting male participants to give us their selfies, as they claimed that selfies aren’t really their thing, and didn’t want to share any selfie they had on their phone, although their Instagram’s showed the exact opposite. This lead us to the conclusion that perhaps males feel as if selfies is more of a feminine act rather than masculine, and scared to share them on public spaces, as they fear being judged and portrayed as feminine. Burns says, “Such a character is constructed to identify selfie-taking as ludicrous, as a legitimate reason to problematize and ridicule others, and, most of all, as a practice that is not masculine.” (Burns, 2015, p. 5). Our research also tested the stereotype of travelling, where Gorman states that when travelling. The Older Generation took pictures of castles monument, fountains etc., and appreciated the true culture, history, and beauty of a country, while Today’s Generation’s don’t really appreciate the importance of a country, its history and attractions, they only picture them self, with little parts of the attraction’s showing. (Gorman, 2013, p. 1). Alternatively, our research showed that today’s generation actually focuses on the artistic side of each country they travel to, and use their social media platforms as travel motivation or encouragement. Through our participants’ Instagram accounts we found several pictures of travel focused on the country’s monuments and attractions, rather than themselves. Our research also tested the stereotype of selfies being used as advertising for self, which Gorman stated “social media is the broadcasting tool to create and advertise the personal brand” (Gorman, 2013, p.1), as based on our findings, almost all of our participants Instagram accounts were private, and followers were restricted to friends and family, which showed that they don’t really advertise themselves but want to share pictures with people they know.

Through our research we found that females who had shared with us their selfies had intention behind posting a selfie, they wanted to share their beauty and looks. Our research also confirmed Nelson’s theory in which states that “everyone likes receiving compliments and it makes them feel awesome that their own appearance can provide them with an ego boost.” (Nelson, 2013, p.1) Through our participants we saw that the majority of females, and one male that participated in the research stated that they post pictures when they feel like they look good, or feel good, and want to feel validation on their appearance. Unfortunately, this positive side to posting selfies can also rebound on the selfie taker and audience, as it creates this illusion of a “perfect” life, body, or looks. While Psychologist Dr. Papadopoulos states that the “selfie culture is the editing and re-editing of identity” which gets people to constantly analyze their body and looks and compare them to those of others, and then pick on the parts of them that they feel like don’t add up to a good selfie standard.

In a nutshell, the purpose of taking a picture has changed throughout generations, selfies nowadays are the most common type of picture use that can be taken almost everywhere and in many different ways. According to our findings, mostly females takes this kind of picture comparing to men. In addition, there are many reasons why and for who people posts selfie; some posts selfies to keep them as memories for them self, for example, when they take a selfie of themselves casually in a place where they consider it to be as a memory for them. Others take selfies when they travel or go to places to share them with people, for example when they travel they take a picture of themselves next to monument or something related to the country they’re in. Some takes selfies and post them depending on how good and beautiful they look for example if their makeup is looking good or their hair is good on a certain day and does not really matter where they take it. Some posts selfie to feel validated and to feel good about themselves and finally some use it as a cure for feeling down. The new generation consider the internet as their friend, with the rise of filters and editing, the selfies is becoming the phenomena of chasing the illusion of perfection.

References:

Burns, A. (2015). Self(ie)-discipline: Social regulation as enacted through the discussion of photographic practice. International Journal of Communication, 9, 1716–1733.

Gorman, V. (2013, September 22). Social media, sexualisation and the selfie generation. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-23/gorman-the-selfie-generation/4974132

Nelson, O. (2013, July 10). Dark undercurrents of teenage girls’ selfies. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/dark-undercurrents-of-teenage-girls-selfies-20130710-2pqbl.html