There is a new trend which has taken over the internet, with the advent of mobile phones- is called “selfies” The word “selfie was founded in 2002 when an Australian man, Nathan Hope got drunk at his 21st birthday and posted a picture of his stitched lip with the caption” sorry about the focus…it was a selfie”
Today selfies have taken the world as a storm, open any media network be it facebook, Instagram, snapchat, twitter and it is flooded with knowing poses. The selfie craze speaks volumes about an era we are living in, images floating all over the world in seconds, eliciting strong emotions and sometimes fading away the lines of reality.
Selfies have become such a craze in today’s world that we see and read news about people losing their lives just for a selfie, we see people clicking selfies at the edge of a hill, mountain, falling rain, snow , water etc, what’s important for them at that moment is the selfie moment not their lives… They want to be the first to take a selfie and post it immediately on the net…not realizing that that could be their last picture of their lives…in one moment their whole life is over and parents, friends who are enjoying the selfie moment are not aware that their loved ones are gone forever.
We have entered the age of “fleeting image” and the selfie marks the arrival of a new sort of language that plays on the way we see ourselves and our emotions. According to Brazilian psychoanalyst Christian Dunker selfies puts us in touch with a lot more people. The selfie is designed to create a heightened memory of an experience and is clicked from flattering angles, snapped from above, interesting and at times dangerous backgrounds, allowing a total control of one’s image, giving a feeling of flirting with death.
Taking a selfie is a problem of ego and over-valuation of the self, according to Godart author of the book, “I take selfies, there I am”. Selfie takers crave for as many “likes” as possible and display a self-centered “me -me & me” mentality. Spectacular selfies allow a person to show off their best side because they are often staged in phenomenal settings. Russia’s Angela Nicolau, the queen of urban climbing, is known for her risky selfies at dizzying heights, atop the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, or the vertigo-inducing Shanghai Tower.
Some of these people have started “chinning”, taking unflattering shots of themselves from below, creating double chins. Even deeply depressed people are part of the selfie phenomenon, “which allows them to exist too. There is also a growing trend of photobombing other people’s selfies, sabotaging their message without them knowing. Selfies are also a tool for activists, environmentalists posting ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of beaches for clean-up campaigns or supporters of breastfeeding posing with a suckling infant.
In the end, selfies can become a powerful, and dangerous, addiction. “Just like with any other phenomenon, there are excesses. “For some people, it can become compulsive, developing into a dependence on being seen by others, “If not dealt with in a playful manner, it can become something of a disease … an identity dissonance that can be dangerous, especially for teenagers.”
While we may be clicking a lot of selfies, do we do it with as much fervor as we used to say a few years ago? Or has it become just another chore that needs to be done?