By: Kristina Mata
How many pictures do we actually have of ourselves? Not pictures that our families have had taken, but ones taken that we actually want taken. Today, the answer would be much different than it would be be years ago because of the invention of the selfie. Perhaps I can’t exactly say “the invention of,” since selfies have actually been around for a long time. Notably, the first “selfie”: a picture of Robert Cornelius, who was able to take advantage of the camera’s extremely slow pace in order to capture an image of himself in 1839.
Selfies have taken a recent seat of popularity. This could be partly due to social media. Many people post pictures of themselves, often fishing for compliments on their appearance and sometimes even calling themselves ugly on purpose just to get people to comfort them. It’s stupid and narcissistic: almost everything out there will tell you this, but are the people writing these articles actually a part of the “selfies movement,” so to speak?
Honestly, I’m sick of adults complaining about my generation, even though I do agree that, yes, people my age do stupid things, but that’s beside the point. Articles describe teens as “ostentatious and narcissistic,” but whoever is writing these articles does not see it from our perspective. While there are people who do fish for compliments and are narcissistic, not everyone is like that, and too big of a generalization is made. There is also a positive side to selfies.
Some people do it for themselves.
Selfies aren’t all about getting people to compliment you on the internet because, let’s face it, does it ultimately matter what a stranger 100 or 1,000 miles away thinks? All that matters is what you think of yourself, and selfies are a way to promote self-confidence. When we like the way we look in the picture, we can feel satisfied with ourselves. Posting a good-looking picture of ourselves is going to make us feel confident.
Selfies can even bring back happy memories if taken at a famous landmark or on vacation, which is what I do, and I always have a friend or family member with me to make it more memorable. You see it all the time with others on vacations, and a lot of the time, these selfies are taken with a group, taking away the narcism factor.
Admittedly, some people don’t realize that there are inappropriate times to take selfies. For example, there are a number of “funeral selfies”, in which people take selfies at the funerals of their loved ones, often complaining about the situation. This without a doubt highlights the narcissistic points of selfie taking, but saying that this particular trend of selfies makes our entire generation narcissistic is too much of a generalization.
People are too quick to judge, just like I was. I hated selfies because I thought they were annoying…only because my dad stopped and took selfies everywhere. Now that I know that there are more reasons to selfies taking then just shameless self-promotion, I’m more tolerant of it, and I’m not afraid to take some myself. Remember, if you’re annoyed by the constant presence of selfies on your social media feed, then just scroll on by and ignore it. Just let that person have his or her moment, even if you don’t care.
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