With web cams and cell phones, not only
is photography more widely accessible than ever before, but as the everyday
person becomes a self-styled photographer, self-portraiture too becomes
commonplace. Our propensity for taking images of ourselves even shapes
technology. Not only has the camera become a standard feature in cell phones,
some devices even allow the user to reverse the orientation of the camera so
that they can both look at the camera and the screen, eliminating the
middle-man of the mirror and streamlining the casual self-portrait taking
process one step further. However, despite the continuing popularity of the
“selfie,” the practice is somewhat of an internet joke; terms such as GPOY (“gee-poi,”
or “gratuitous pictures of yourself”) are used both in an ironic fashion and to
ridicule other selfie-takers. Entire mock-articles exist outlining exactly what
not to do, for fear of judgment from peers. This blog will focus on
self-portraits, ranging from the professional to the commonplace Facebook
photo, seeking to answer the question: why do we take self-portraits, and what
arguments are they making, intentionally or accidentally?
The
Professional Self-Portrait
In our social media era, we often
forget about professionally-taken self-portraits, our understandings of webcam
and smartphone-snapped selfies completely overriding the term. However, the
world of art photography is full of artists who work in the medium (perhaps
unrecognizable to us as self-portraiture without the artist’s arm reaching out
to hold the camera directly).
A notable figure in the world of
self-portraiture is Cindy Sherman. “Working as her own model for more than 30
years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are
at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. To create her
photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist,
hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress” (MoMA). Although she technically
takes self-portraits, in a 1984 interview she describes her mindset and
creative process: “I think of becoming a different person. I look into a mirror
next to the camera... it's trance-like. By staring into it I try to become that
character through the lens” (Sussler, 30). While technically self-portraits,
they are not intended as such; one could argue they are not representative of
the creator at all, but of the character she portrays. (The SF MoMA has an
online interactive exhibit of Cindy Sherman’s work, which can be found here).
As with Sherman, there are more
examples of artists that follow in her footsteps and utilize the self-portrait in
a non-self-referential manner. “Rather than asserting her individuality,
identity, and physical presence, Nikki S. Lee's self-portraiture strives to make
herself effectively invisible” (Dalton 47), completely adopting the persona of
a character, much as Sherman does, exploring identity. Another photographer, Anthony
Goicolea, not only acts for but digitally multiplies himself for his work,
depicting himself many times over as adolescent boys in perversely sexual, yet
unexpectedly innocent situations (Dalton, 49-33).
It is interesting to note that all
three of these artists deviate from the self-referential nature of the
self-portrait. The style of self-portraiture that has been popularized through
social networking is entirely self-referential, perhaps even to a fault.
The
(Unprofessional) Self-Portrait, or the Selfie
The selfie has proliferated to such an
extent that it became an entirely separate entity from the self-portrait, even
earning its own Wikipedia page . Time Magazine labeled it as one
of the Top Ten Buzzwords of 2012. It typically refers to a photo
where the photographer-subject can be seen handling the camera (the arm
stretching out of the frame, skewed by perspective, or a picture of the
photographer-subject’s reflection in a mirror). It has overridden our cultural
perception of self-portraiture—if the photographer-subject cannot be seen in
the photo to be directly handling the camera, we do not readily assume or
recognize such a self-portrait as other than a typical photograph/portrait. Searching
the tag #selfie, or #me on sites such as Tumblr or Instagram gives a good pool
with which we can draw our understanding of the selfie: predominantly shots of
the head and shoulders (as if taken by computer webcam), or cell-phone snapped
images of mirror reflections, a surprisingly uniform set of poses and facial
expressions repeating across a sea of vastly different bodies and faces.
If we take them at face value, as is
easy to do when scrolling through countless pictures of strangers, the selfie is
the ultimate act of narcissism, as if to say, “Look at me; I think I look good,
and you should too.” It is important to remember, however, the role of the
selfie in social networking sites such as Facebook. The selfie in the context
of Facebook becomes a testament to activity to people within the friend
group—it says “Here, see what I did!” as one might via text message to a
friend, or in an anecdote in person. It is, as the name implies, an assertion
of the self, “Here I am,” just as with self-portraiture in other mediums. The
photos in this essay are of that sort—“Look at my haircut!” “Look at this
lizard!” “Best buddies!” “My leggings!”
Perceptions
of the Selfie
The practice of posting selfies is
part of the larger culture of social networking, the narcissistic aspects of
which are concerning to author Andrew Keen. In his 2011 TEDxDanubia talk, he
discusses what he deems to be the problems engendered by social
over-connectivity: “This new digital world is one in which we are choosing to
reveal ourselves. The old industrial world was one I call the age of the great
exhibition, but today we are living in the age of great exhibitionism.” In his
eyes, we are not simply “choosing to reveal ourselves” when we partake of
social media and networking, we are doing so to excess, and he insists that
there is an ulterior motive to social networking usage: “You’re all on Twitter,
Linked-In, Facebook, because you want to show yourself off to the world.”
Society’s use and over-use of social networking is something that Keen thinks
needs to be kept in check. “We are living in an age which I call the Cult of
the Social,” with all of the negative connotations associated with the term
“cult” fully intact. He thinks that we are fleeing from the inherent
“loneliness of the human condition,” and that our usage of social networking
needs to be “kept in check,” ironically implying fascist control for the very
concept he implies is doing the same.
Keen’s disgust for the narcissism of
this new era brings us to our next point: clashing perceptions of the selfie. In
an essay titled “The Young-Girl and the Selfie,” blogger Sarah Gram reacts to
Keen’s narrow-minded approach to social media users who create selfies, and
points out the aspects of our media—supersaturated culture he is neglecting to
take into account: “The accusation of narcissism leveled at self-photographers
and, if opaquely, at teenage girls in particular is evidence of an
extraordinary lack of insight into the workings of femininity under late
capitalism.” The creation of the selfie is not merely a narcissistic act, it
runs hand-in-hand with the other aesthetic pressures foisted overtly or
covertly onto women. Like make-up, high-heels, passivity, the creation of
selfies is a more recent development in the long list of expectations placed on
the young woman. “Teenage girls are” the socially constructed identity of “Young-Girls,
are spectacles, are narcissists, are consumers because those are the very
criterion which must be met to be a young woman and also a part of society.”
The negative aspects of the selfie are a symptom of a larger societal problem,
and one not limited to the social networking world that Keen hates so much.
On one end of the spectrum lies Keen,
who thinks society has gotten out of hand, and others who ridicule perpetrators
of such tropes as the “duck face” or the “dirty bathroom mirror pic.” On the
other end, however, we have people not only participating and taking selfies,
but researchers and specialists attributing positive psychological benefits to
the practice. Rather than merely the extremely self-confident (perhaps to the
point of narcissists) creating them, less confident individuals are also
creating and sharing them with their friends to seek approval (McHugh)–which
should seem intuitive, for not all attention-seekers are narcissists. The
selfie is, then, capable of being used as a tool for developing self-confidence
and a positive body image; simultaneously seeking the approval of peers while
perhaps recognizing appealing aspects of the self (arguably narcissistic, if
viewed from the pessimistic angle, but in this instance more fruitful to view
as positive levels of self-confidence, along the lines of “Love thyself”). Perhaps
social media is not radically altering the framework of society as much as we
might think.
Toxicity
in Anonymity: The True Danger of Connectivity
The anonymity of the internet contributes
to the culture of selfie, in both perpetration and ridicule. A Facebook account
can be easily controlled to limit who sees what, and is tied to a user’s name,
but images on a blog site such as Tumblr are open to the internet at large. The
reposting of self-portraits (probably without knowledge or consent of the
creator) for purposes of ridicule happens frequently, and winds up in articles
on humor sites with titles such as “16 Selfie FAILS That Will Make You Feel
Better About Your Selfie Addiction,” or “You're doing it wrong... 23 funny
female sexy selfie fails” (AN: these articles really exist, but for reasons
mentioned in this essay and in the final AN, I’ve chosen to omit them in this
essay). For women, issues of body criticism in the form of “slut-shaming” women
who are perceived as conventionally attractive or attacking those who fall
outside typical conceptions of beauty, is a pressing issue, and out of this
stems the ridicule of stereotypical poses or layouts of a selfie. Countless
so-called “selfie fails” are of women perceived to be overweight, or outside of
what is perceived as attractive, and the commentary on these photos is
astonishing.
Social media outlets also wind up
inadvertently permitting the posting of sexually suggestive or explicit
photographs of ex-partners, dubbed revenge porn (Raymond). These negative
aspects spring up in tandem with the practice of making and posting selfies. This
subset of the “Cult of the Social” (Keen) is more toxic than and should be more
concerning than the act of people posting their selfies; other people’s
harmless activity, as annoying as it might be, is irrelevant. Rather than
arguing for a cessation of use of social media, polite, courteous usage of
social networking space should be championed.
“Uglies”
In response to the pressure to conform
to conventional beauty standards, some women have started taking and positing
selfies in “unattractive” poses. An article titled “Ugly Is the New Pretty: How
Unattractive Selfies Took Over the Internet” covers a range of purposes behind
the “ugly” selfie, from creating a more body-positive internet culture to how
they act as a personal reality check, balancing out the drive to only take and
disseminate “perfect” selfies. “Ugly selfies…give permission to stop monitoring
yourself for a moment” (Hills).
The resistance the movement has met is
troubling. Within the commentary on the article are statements of support: “My
teenaged daughter posts ugly or silly selfies all the time, usually just to
make her friends laugh and get a reaction. I'm glad she's got a sense of humor
about herself and I'd rather have her posting uglies than posting pouty-mouth
sexy selfies (which I've seen from girls as young as 10 - now THAT's ugly)!”
There is also derision that unconsciously echoes arguments for medium
specificity: “There is more than enough ugliness in the world. Why make more on
purpose? …Bad photography brings down a beautiful art form;” this sentiment expresses,
intentionally or not, pressure to conform to conventional ideals of beauty. It
sounds as ridiculous as it is when spelled out clearly, and is rather ironic.
Calling for beauty alone and deriding a different interpretation of the
photograph in hopes to end it is in itself an ugly act.
The Verdict?
Social networking is such a recent
phenomenon that opinions are still all over the map. This newest take on the
self-portrait is merely one piece in a larger framework of connectivity.
Condemned by some, condoned by some, ridiculed by some but still largely
puzzled at, the most basic function of the selfie is an expression of the
visual state of the self. Like many other examples of photography, it becomes a
frozen fragment of time, distributed to an audience of one or many, standing as
evidence to the phases of self we all go through in our lives from the most
mundane of moments to the craziest hair days. Regardless of their perception,
the selfie is hard-wired into our social consciousness, and it looks like it is
here to stay.
Author’s
Note: Save for the examples of the professional photographers, all of the photos
in this essay are of myself, my friends and my family, used with their
permission. Some of them were posted on Facebook, for sharing with a circle of
friends only, some were from blogs such as Tumblr, open to the internet at
large, some were taken for and sent to one person only. These sorts of
portraits are highly personal in nature, and with all of the issues surrounding
reposting for purposes of ridicule, I was uncomfortable with perpetuating the cycle
of shame, especially with an image that in all likelihood was not intended for a
wide audience of strangers.
Bibliography
“Cindy
Sherman.” MoMA.org. The Museum of
Modern Art. Web. 13 May 2013.
Dalton,
Jennifer, Nikki S. Lee, Anthony Goicolea and David Henry Brown, Jr. “Look at
Me: Self-Portrait Photography after Cindy Sherman.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 22.3 (2000): 47-56. Web. 3
May 2013.
Gram,
Sarah. “The Young-Girl and the Selfie.” Textual
Relations. 1 Mar 2013. Web. 10 May 2013.
Hills,
Rachel. “Ugly Is the New Pretty: How Unattractive Selfies Took Over the
Internet.” The Cut. New York Media
LLC, 29 Mar 2013. Web. 10 May 2013.
Keen,
Andrew. “Digital Vertigo.” TEDxDanubia. 2011. Lecture. Web. 10 May 2013.
McHugh,
Jillian. “'Selfies' just as much for the insecure as show-offs.” Bunbury Mail. Fairfax Regional Media, 3
Apr 2013. Web. 12 May 2013.
Raymond,
Bruce H. “Revenge Porn: When Private Moments Go Public.” The National Law Review. National Law Forum, 7 May 2013. Web. 10
May 2013.
Sussler,
Betsy and Cindy Sherman. “An Interview with Cindy Sherman.” BOMB, Photography in Fashion/Writing from Central
America 12 (1985): 30-33. Web. 12 May 2013.
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