(My last post titled Selfies. With a Five-Year-Old. inspired me to examine the evolution of selfies in my personal life and here are the results.)
I don't remember taking a selfie until late high school or early college. By then, camera's had gotten a little better in quality and I loved carrying mine around, to capture brief moments with friends and family members. Here are two selfies from my freshman year of college, one with my best friend and one with my aunt. Please note the condition of the photos (that were not the intentional result of a filter).
I don't remember taking a selfie until late high school or early college. By then, camera's had gotten a little better in quality and I loved carrying mine around, to capture brief moments with friends and family members. Here are two selfies from my freshman year of college, one with my best friend and one with my aunt. Please note the condition of the photos (that were not the intentional result of a filter).
Even then, I do not recall taking a selfie alone. It was simply a means to obtain a photo when a third person was not around to take the picture for us. However, MySpace and Facebook were also not common. Social networking was not in my vocabulary. We were still frequenting chat rooms and using AIM to talk to our friends, often with dial-up internet. Truth be told, we usually chose to make a phone call or socialize face-to-face. Things were different back then (and "back then" honestly was not that long ago).
However, I remember when I joined MySpace, and then transitioned to Facebook, making strides in social media, adding friends and learning to "like" posts. And, without even realizing it, I joined the masses in beginning to take selfies to show the world my face.
I found myself uploading selfies of my hubby and I on a date. Selfies of me with my kiddos. Selfies with a friend or our fur baby.
And more selfish selfies. Selfies that were actually of me and only me. Selfies showing my face to the world. Selfies when I had a good makeup day. Selfies when I dyed my hair a new color. Selfies when I felt like being silly, making faces. Selfies when I made a delish smoothie.
And over time, I learned how to hold the camera (and then my cell phone) to take a photo that was less of my arm and more of the intended picture. I have even been known to take the infamous mirror pic (which works best if you clean all the toothpaste splatter off the mirror first).
Overall, I don't think that having photos of yourself is evil. I understand how, with technology and social media, having a photo as a profile picture that is actually a pic of you can be beneficial. However, I think there is a dangerous line that can be crossed that is easily demonstrated by the selfie movement, but which really encompasses social media as a whole. I explore that a bit more in my next blog post titled Selfies. With Society.
However, I remember when I joined MySpace, and then transitioned to Facebook, making strides in social media, adding friends and learning to "like" posts. And, without even realizing it, I joined the masses in beginning to take selfies to show the world my face.
I found myself uploading selfies of my hubby and I on a date. Selfies of me with my kiddos. Selfies with a friend or our fur baby.
And more selfish selfies. Selfies that were actually of me and only me. Selfies showing my face to the world. Selfies when I had a good makeup day. Selfies when I dyed my hair a new color. Selfies when I felt like being silly, making faces. Selfies when I made a delish smoothie.
And over time, I learned how to hold the camera (and then my cell phone) to take a photo that was less of my arm and more of the intended picture. I have even been known to take the infamous mirror pic (which works best if you clean all the toothpaste splatter off the mirror first).
Overall, I don't think that having photos of yourself is evil. I understand how, with technology and social media, having a photo as a profile picture that is actually a pic of you can be beneficial. However, I think there is a dangerous line that can be crossed that is easily demonstrated by the selfie movement, but which really encompasses social media as a whole. I explore that a bit more in my next blog post titled Selfies. With Society.
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