Presentation of Selfies in Everyday Internet Life

It's taken me a while to write this post for multiple reasons, life (sick dog, vacation, etc.) and the topic itself. Part of the reason is I did not grow up in a world where a selfie was a thing so the urge to photograph myself is just not bred into me in the way it has been in younger people. A camera, rolls of film, processing the pictures, storing them was actually expensive and time consuming. Photos were not something you did every day as you would have to develop them. Film didn't keep for ever. I remember giving the children a roll of film so they could shoot their own stories in action. Photographs were a big deal!

I do not need to chronicle my daily life, how I look or how I am feeling. I see that in the mirror. I do not keep a diary per se (such a bad historian- those lovely mediocre writings about the past are often our best window into former daily life!), but rather I use a journal as a place to write down what is bugging me- so I can look at it, think about it and resolve it. To me this incessant need to photograph ourselves is a bit too much like navel gazing. And I agree with Obama, sometimes it is better to just talk to someone than take a picture. 

Of course I have done selfies- but the majority as painted portraits for art class. I can't post one as all my canvases are back home (in my favourite I am painted in yellow and purple polka dots). Most of my photos I use online have been photos other people have taken of me and I have cropped. There is a level of discomfort when taking my own photo that makes me feel like I am vain and egotistical. (It's a generational gender thing!) So most of the time in the past I have used images that others have taken for me. Definitely from a different generation! However, I do spend a lot of time online with my granddaughter and we use Messenger to communicate. She loves the different overlays so we scroll through them all. And I take photo after photo of her- but this means I am in the photo too. Being a dragon or an astronaut are her favourites, while I am partial to this one.  I am really thinking I need to change my hair colour!

I found it interesting that we started at the idea of selfies with the first photograph of our own image in the course rather than the idea of the self portrait which has been around for time immemorial. Rembrandt is considered the master of the self portrait but many artists used themselves as a model. 

In the modern art period, long after the birth of photography, Frida Kahlo is another example of a painter who embraces self portrait as expression of self.

As to the Goffman article,  Carl Jung and Eric Berne also stressed the idea of persona as the mask we put on to protect our inner selves from others. These theories of how humans interact with the world were all emerging at the same time. As often happens in academia, it is the approach that differs, not necessarily the conclusions.

We will always be fascinated with ourselves, but I don't think I need a million pictures of myself floating in the cloud to prove that.