Ah, the selfie – a term that makes us cringe, yet we know we’ll be taking one in the near future. This cultural phenomenon doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon, especially with the selfie stick now in arm’s reach. So, why are selfies such a “thing”?
There is a primal human urge to stand outside of ourselves and look at ourselves; it’s a natural impulse. Taking a picture of yourself essentially feeds that craving. Selfies have become the universal term for digital self-portraits abetted by the explosion of cellphone cameras and photo editing and sharing services. Every major social media site is overflowing with millions of them. It is the perfect use of our Internet-saturated time – recording and posting our lives on a platform where others can see and experience them in tandem with us.
There’s the undying question of why people feel the need to take photographs of themselves. What are the various reasons and psychological implications? At times, it feels largely performative – another way to polish public-facing images of who we are or who we’d like to appear to be. It strongly suggests that the world we observe through social media is more interesting when people insert themselves into it. They tend to veer into scandalous or shameless territory and raise all sorts of questions about vanity, narcissism, and our obsession with beauty and body image. People often wrestle with how they appear to the rest of the world. Taking a photo is a way of trying to understand how people see you, who you are, and what you look like. And, that isn’t a bad thing; it’s sort of a self-exploration and, again, a way to fulfill the need to look at how we appear.
We are not only fascinated by seeing our own face pictured, but we are innately interested in viewing other people’s self-portraits, as well. We are hard-wired to respond to faces; it’s subconscious. Our brains process visuals faster and we are more engaged when we see faces. If you’re looking at a whole page of photos, the ones you will notice first are the ones including faces.
People are becoming increasingly accustomed to online conversations and interactions that revolve around images and photos. They are often more effective at conveying a feeling or reaction than text. Receiving a photo of the face of the person you’re talking to brings back the human element of the interaction, which is easily misplaced if the interaction is primarily text-based. Your face is the caption and you’re trying to explain a moment or tell a story. It’s a more personal way to share an experience. And, more often than not, it’s not about being beautiful.
So, what can we make out of this selfie-talk? It seems that it's has become 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.
