Selfies are nothing new. The first documented selfie was taken by a man named Robert Cornelius, long before the age of the internet. But even back then, this devilishly handsome hipster apparently managed to add a little Instgram-chique to his pose with a retro filter… Or perhaps that’s just the fact that this selfie was taken almost 200 years ago.
“I wish they’d hurry up and invent #instagram so I can upload this #selfie” – Robert Cornelius, 1839.
The selfie’s rise to prominence
In spite of the selfie’s prolonged history, it cannot be denied that this phenomenon has exploded in recent years. Why? Well, the internet certainly played a part.
If you look back at most MySpace/ Facebook profiles circa 2006, you’ll see that the majority of profile pictures back then were selfies – way before anybody used the word ‘selfie’, of course.
The reason for this is simple; we had to use self-portraits not because they were cool, but because they were necessary. For a start this is before we all had camera phones. Back then, most of us were also still adapting to the idea of uploading our personal pictures – ones usually confined to the privacy of our printed photo albums – to the internet. The selfie was a means to an end.
And then, as with all trends, some people with a smart sense of satire caught on to the fact that taking these ‘selfies’ could also be amusing if done with a healthy pinch of irony; posing yes, but also mocking the photoshopped perfection of similar pictures in magazines and undermining society’s enforced concept of beauty. This irony is what made selfies edgy, and therefore, cool.
Stop the madness!
But it’s gone too far. If you have a profile picture I already know what you look like. I don’t need you to post endless pictures of you: with your cat, when you just woke up, at work, pouting topless in front of a mirror, on the toilet. That’s not the point!
As with most ‘cool’ stuff, selfies were trendy before somebody labelled them. It was fine when they were restricted to profile pictures or even those using Instagram. But they stopped being cool as soon as people started taking pictures of themselves for the sake of taking pictures of themselves. Selfies are now shoved down our throats wherever we go; carefully posed to look casual and random, when in reality what you’re looking at is usually one picture from a private photoshoot of about 50, with soft lighting and numerous different camera angles to make the subject look as alluring/sexy/cheeky/idiotic as possible.
But the final nail in the coffin, and frankly, the death-knell for any hip trend came in August this year, when ‘selfie’ made it into the Oxford dictionary.
But there’s a bigger problem
My real beef isn’t that selfies aren’t cool any more. Trends come and go, we all accept that. The problem is, this trend doesn’t seem to be going away. Instead it is evolving into a bit of a monster.
By participating in selfie culture, instead of undermining concepts of beauty, we’re now perpetuating the ever-expanding crowd of people who – instead of understanding that selfies are supposed to be tongue in cheek – are promoting self-obsession and rampant narcissism. Missing the point much?
The reason selfies were cool in the first place is because individuals had reclaimed and redefined unrealistic ideals around body image. Selfies weren’t airbrushed to perfection and the now notorious ‘selfie pout’ was intended to mock (not emulate) those of supermodels in fashion magazines. We had started to reclaim the notion of beauty for ourselves and we were reshaping it.
But now, rather than subverting society’s enforced concept of beauty, selfies have become an extension of it. Look at selfies today and see that the irony has been lost. Instead of something which was born of curiosity and necessity and then evolved into something amusing and cultural subversive, selfies now depict people who are instead replacing the emphasis on how other people perceive them (often reintroducing Photoshop) and reinforcing the the concept of beauty that they once stood staunchly against.
Where next?
The selfie has had far more than its fair share of fame and it’s not doing its job any more. It’s time we put it to sleep.
My humble suggestion is this; unless your selfie is still subversive and interesting, for instance, if you’re an elephant or if you’re taking a selfie in outer space, then turn the camera around and take a picture of your breakfast instead, or maybe even go old school and take a picture of a funny sign.
And if that doesn’t sound edgy enough, then why not try ‘Swearing at Beautiful Views’?
You, know, while it’s still cool.
Offence Taken 