Selfie Culture

Assignment 3 and the connected project brings me to think of the modern curse of selfies. Are they photography are they art or are they just Narcissism. Facebook and Instagram are littered with pictures that people take of themselves and in my opinion, many of them are taken by people who have no interest in photography or art. I have always considered “true self-portraiture” to be a study by the artist of who they are or it may be a case that they simply didn’t have available models to progress their art. However, this needs further investigation.

The media would have us believe that the vast majority of people taking selfies are young females of the so-called millennial generation, a generation that doesn’t get the best press in the world often portrayed as self-entitled narcissistic kids who live with their parents and while this not always the case it is true that the millennial are growing up in a social media dominated world which does appear to reward narcissism.

However, as Mary McGill illustrates in the TEDtalk above selfie culture can be related more to gender identity how people grow into their genders. Hetro-normative perception of genders have been challenged for many years – that it just because you are born male do exhibit only male characteristics and vice-versa. Gender is how you grow how you are nurtured and was something that I covered in an essay in my earlier unit introduction to film culture. Traditionally in heteronormative society “females socialised from birth to turn their attention to themselves” (McGill 2016) e.g. praised for how they look not necessarily for there actions; their exposure to the beauty (make-up) industry

Mary McGill goes on to illustrate by quoting French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” which discusses how women have used controlled narcissism throughout the ages to use how they look, empower themselves in a heteronormative world, where by looking good can be a woman only way to make strides forward, and De Beauvoir noted that there is “a solitary pleasure in this arrangement” and this is what appears to lead to the selfie phenomena of today because it through readily available technology young women are able to capture that moment of solitary pleasure forever whereas before a reflection was fleeting moment.

Society pushes women towards narcissism, however, women at using it to gain agency and power and pleasure, however as McGill points out while this is empowering is sad in that it illustrates how much further society has to move to a more gender indicated society.

Gender perception was one of my major takeaway points from my last course Introduction to Film culture – and its something I very much more away of in everyday life, however, I have not been able to work it to my photography as yet. Perhaps it this because while I understand the theory – I’m still a 48-year-old male, who has grown up in a heteronormative world, affected by the male privilege that that implies. I see around me that the world is set for the male gaze, I want to challenge this but I’m not sure how to

References

YouTube. (2016). Young Women, Narcissism and the Selfie Phenomenon | Mary McGill | TEDxGalway. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb2J5eDoFko [Accessed 2 Dec. 2018].