But First Let Me Take a

Selfie
By Katie Desmond
Staff Reporter

(http://www.chacha.com/gallery/6510/what-were-the-best-selfies-of-2013/67276)

NEWARK, DE- When you hear the word selfie, what is the
image that immediately comes to mind? Is it Vincent Van Goghs selfportrait with his signature yellow saturation? Or Rembrandts
assortment of 40 self-portrait paintings? Or Frida Kahlos collection of
more than 50? No, most likely not.
It is far more likely this word conjures up images of girls with
duck faces and mirror reflections of guys at the gym flexing their
muscles. Maybe even, if youre an over achiever, it makes you think of
President Obama and Vice-President Biden in the back of their limo, or
Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars with the record breaking, as well as
twitter breaking, picture alongside Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad
Putt, Angelina Jolie, Jared Leto, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence,
Lupita Nyongo, Kevin Spacey, and Channing Tatum.

(http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/ellen-degeneres-oscar-selfiesamsung-phone-product-placement-report-201473)

No matter what you think of when hearing the word selfie the
fact of the matter is, these images are not new. They have been
occurring ever since the cavemen painted pictures of themselves
hunting on the cave walls. Painters have done it before you. Sketch
artists have done it before you. Photographers have done it before you.
But what separates todays selfies from those before them? What
makes one picture a self-portrait and another a selfie?
Artistic qualities, like framing, technique, lighting, etc., are the
obvious first choice, but it is more than that. In todays society the
word selfie has taken on a culture of its own. It is not just artists who
take them, but teenagers, adults, celebrities, The President, and even
The Pope.
Ever since its birth, first originating on flicker in 2004, the
amount of selfies taken has increased exponentially. The term was not
only added to the online-version of the Oxford Dictionary, but was
named Oxfords Word of the Year in 2013, after the use of the word
increased 17,000% over 12 months according to The Guardian.

(http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/19/selfie-word-of-the-year-oedolinguito-twerk)

With the creation of the first smart-phone, you no longer

needed to buy a digital camera or have your film developed to take a
quick self-image. These smart phones also went on to develop a frontfacing camera seemingly designed specifically for taking a selfie. This,
coupled with the increase in social media use, gave people the means
to take and upload their selfies efficiently.
As Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., the faculty director of the Media
Psychology program at the Massachusetts School of Professional
Psychology explains, "The cult of the selfie celebrates regular people.
There are many more photographs available now of real people than
models."
On May 11th, 2014 there was 112.8 million posts on Instagram
with #selfie, on May 13th, two days later there are 113.4 million posts.
This sizeable increase is not because of artists posting self-portraits,
but every day people.
Ben Fairer, a super-senior studying History from Elkton, Maryland
said, I cant sit through a lecture or walk down the street without
seeing girls do duck faces into their phones. Its just getting
ridiculous.
Like many things in modern society, the selfie invokes strong
opinions from its supporters and its opponents alike. Is the selfie really
going to destroy all the unpretentiousness in society by letting
narcissism take over? Or is it really just a stage to increase positive
self-worth and self-respect?
Devon Doherty, a sophomore Art Major at the University of
Delaware, thinks maybe its a little bit of both.
I think people use selfies in different ways, she said. There
are some who just want to show people how nice they look and show
off their hair or boobs, but others just want to capture that moment in
time. Its sort of a modern way of spreading news, if you look past all
the people just doing it to be like Yea Im so bad ass look at me.
Despite the differences in artistic qualities that separate the
selfie from the self-portrait, Kyle Chayka, who presented the #Selfie
Portrait Gallery nationally with Marina Galperina, another curator,
believes that the reasoning behind each is constant.
Smartphone selfies come out of the same impulse as
Rembrandts ... to make yourself look awesome, Chayka said. His
partner, Galperina, said:
Its less about narcissism, narcissism is so lonely! Its more
about being your own digital avatar.
Like many other supports, these two believe that the selfie, like
the painting or sketch, gives you the power to control how you look.
You can make a funny face or show off your pearly whites, either way
theres no limit on how many pictures you can take before you choose
the perfect one to upload to your social media forum.

Others look at this exact behavior as narcissistic. On this

opposite side of the argument, people look at these posts on social
media as self-indulgent and vain. In a society that values the amount
of likes on a selfie over the amount of real life interactions you have
with people, these selfies are viewed as a way to further decrease the
simple pleasure in the outside worlds beauty, rather than how nice
they look through the lenses of their smart phone.
Jill Weber, a Psychologist Ph.D., claims that with the incessant
need to post pictures on social media and have people acknowledge
them, with either comments or likes, adolescents self-esteem may
become attached to this form of validation. The way they look and are
presented in a picture becomes more important than any other
characteristic they pose.
Even those who partake in this selfie culture have conflicting
emotions over them.
Selfies are a stupid and embarrassing normality, Justina Hiney,
a pre-vet major from Long Island said. I hate that I take them, but
thats not going to stop me from sending 20 of them over Snapchat to
my friends today.
No matter what your take on selfies is, there is no denying the
enormity of its presence in society. Its prevalence has surpassed youth
culture, and has infiltrated Hollywood, politics, and religion. So maybe
the next time you take out your smart-phone to take that perfect selfie,
think of those before you and those around you. The cavemen, the
painters, the photographers, all of the teenagers, the adults, the
celebrities, the politicians, the President, the Pope, now all connected
by the small thing called the selfie. Strange world.
Katie Desmond can be contacted at kdesmond@udel.edu.