Maybe Selfies Aren’t So Selfish After All
Let’s talk about the fringe benefits.
Selfies catch a ton of flak as if they’re singlehandedly destroying today’s young people. We equate selfies to selfishness, privilege, and a general preoccupation with oneself and appearance.
We talk about selfies in their worst possible light — the time suck, the dangers of getting a perfect shot, and the lie of better angles and fake filters.
But what if selfies aren’t really all that bad?
Might an argument be made for the moderate ritual of snapping pictures of ourselves from our smartphones?
Personally, I think of selfies like most any other tool of technology — they can be used in both positive or negative ways. We just need to be clear about why we’re taking them and what we’re going to do with them.
Selfies to the rescue?
Between 2012 and 2013, I had a pretty big transformation. Lost 100 pounds and colored my hair dark brown.
Co-workers couldn’t stop mentioning the change, but I was still having trouble connecting all of the necessary dots to feel good about my new self.
All I could see was how much more weight I still needed to lose.
Taking photos of myself with my new clothes, new hair, and makeup all helped me see myself in a brand new light. It even made me a little more forgiving of my appearance.
In my case, I discovered that taking selfies actually made me feel better about myself because I could see the hard work I was putting into my weight loss efforts. Sure, I wasn’t perfect, but I began to appreciate my features and realize I wasn’t the ugly monster I often believed myself to be.
My lips have a nice shape. My green irises are outlined in navy blue. I have always looked young for my age. It’s okay to acknowledge and even like these little details.
Sharing selfies can be particularly empowering for those in marginalized groups. Some of us have grown up feeling like nobody in the media actually represent us. Clearly, this is a real issue for people of color, and while I can’t speak to that from experience — I can only imagine.
What I can say from personal experience is that growing up as a girl with PCOS and lipedema, I have often felt very ugly and unfeminine. I rarely think anyone in Hollywood even remotely resembles me.
A genuine gap-filler.
These days, between selfies and social media, we get to put out other images that move far beyond the status quo.
Certain selfies by black women have been attributed as the actual beginning of the body positivity movement. That’s pretty damn awesome when you think about it. Everyday people are making their mark and drawing attention to a variety of issues through those supposedly selfish selfies.
I’ve seen selfies used to help raise awareness to issues surrounding racism, classism, ageism, anxiety, fatphobia, mental illness, and more.
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Sure, I’ve also seen my share of thirst trap selfies and everybody has that one friend (or more) who can’t stop posting cringe-worthy, duck face shots.
But I still say the good outweighs the bad.
The more people who can feel comfortable enough in their own skin to take a silly selfie and share a bit of their personality, the better. We need more pictures of real people and fewer doctored magazine shots.
We need people who aren’t ashamed to be themselves.
The One Fine Line.
While I’m strongly pro-selfie, I’m not completely naive. People can and do take selfies for the wrong reasons and wind up getting all of their self-confidence from other people’s reactions to them.
Or they struggle to let themselves be seen without a supposedly perfect filter.
Compliments from others can be great and even helpful, but no one can live off those words. They’re sweet and gooey like marshmallow fluff.
We all need a firm foundation and the knowledge of who we are inside. We each have to build ourselves up with our own inner voice rather than the opinions of other people.
The main benefit about selfies, sexy boudoir pictures, or really any other photos we take of ourselves is that they offer a whole new perspective we might never have noticed without those images. That means there’s a very fine line every person must walk when they participate in the ritual.
Selfies should supplement your life — not become it. They should be about your empowerment, but not at the expense of others. That means there’s you choose to use selfies in an healthy way, just like any other social media tool.
Selfies get a bad rap despite the fact that we’ve allowed the media to plaster falsified images of celebrities everywhere since film was invented.
And in response, we developed this narrative that says, who do you think you are, if somebody outside those conventional beauty standards dares feel confident enough to take selfies.
“The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.”
-Fred Rogers
Honestly, selfies aren’t going anywhere. Maybe it’s time to embrace the benefits.
