In defense of selfies

Wealthy and powerful people have commissioned artists to paint their portraits as early as the 14th century. If you were someone in history, you had a portrait of your own. You and the artist agreed on the scene, your appearance, and on your attire. You had this image etched onto canvas to freeze that moment and immortalize it for the rest of time.

Upon the invention of photography, portraits were among the first shots to be taken. Nearly all photographers have also aimed the camera at themselves at one point in their lives. It was common even until very recently to keep pictures of yourself to give out to friends, as if to say, “This is how I’d like you to remember me.”

Photos of our friends have been distributed to us long before smartphones were invented. We kept them in our wallets, referred back to them in our photo albums, and treated them as a snapshot of our friends, who themselves chose their pose and attire. The portrait as a memento has always been a message from the subject to the recipient of their state of mind, health, and appearance at that time. 

If selfies are simply portraits made more accessible, why are they met with so much animosity? Is it because for the first time, each person has access to creating, designing, and circulating photos of themselves? Is it because the way the vain look at mirrors may now be captured a hundred times throughout the day? Is it because any Joe Shmoe may now take a self-portrait and believe it’s art?

Are we simply annoyed that we are subjected to the selfie-lover’s standards of beauty with which we may not agree?

A selfie generation

In 2013, the word “selfie” was officially added to the Oxford Dictionary with the definition: “A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.” 

Some observers even believe that because of its accessibility, and the fact that no other form of art has been disseminated to so many strangers and made in so many numbers by so many people,  “It’s possible that the selfie is the most prevalent popular genre ever.” (Read: Makati and Pasig tagged selfie capital of the world)

Needless to say, regardless of how selfies annoy their unintentional audiences, they are not going away any time soon. 

In analyzing this annoyance, it’s important to ask how selfies are different from self-portraits, commissioned portraits, distributed graduation solos, or studio shots. Is it more vain because we not only stare at ourselves in the “mirrors” that are our phones’ front-facing cameras but also take permanent records of these images? Not only that but we plaster our social media feeds with them, indirectly telling everyone we know that we think we are beautiful enough to be etched in time? We post ourselves to the cloud to be viewed by any set of eyes belonging to any human on the planet. Why?

Better yet – why not?

Why celebrate ourselves? 

Why not celebrate the fact that people who take selfies – attractive or not – are able to find an angle of their faces and of their bodies that they like enough to carve into memory, replicate, and even distribute to anyone who’s willing to look? 

Selfies are especially significant because the Philippines is home to the selfiest city in the world. Does that mean that we just have an eye for beauty, or a better sense of who we are and how we want to be seen by the world? Does this mean that Filipinos adopt new technology faster, or that we are inherently vain?

What is so wrong anyway when a young girl who is struggling with her identity, popular standards of beauty, and her looks, takes her camera phone and finds an angle of hers she likes and records it? Yes, the likes and favorites might give her a false sense of approval, but they would also give her a needed boost she might not get in real life. She might keep that image she likes on her phone to remind her of a time she felt pretty, to cheer her up when she feels ugly. 

The negative responses might crush her, but they might also show her that the real world is not always kind. Anyone who’s even remotely involved in social media quickly learns the lesson that if one puts her- or himself out there, there is a price.

In itself, the act of keeping a photo of yourself that you like is recognition that you possess something you enjoy looking at. This self-recognition is much more powerful than someone’s comment that they don’t like you. It will be too late, because you already decided that you like yourself.

Is it really so strange that in the absence of a friend, we take pictures of ourselves with the background of where we are or what we are doing? How is that different from a portrait where one is carrying a tennis racket, or of a doctor at work? How is that different from politicians’ photo ops during disasters? Aren’t all the photos we pose for, whether taken by ourselves or by others, part of an image or a reputation we’d like to keep?

If anything, it empowers young people to take their appearance and environment into their own hands. It is a subconscious message that one is not just a nameless passerby in their daily trek, but a main character who can take control of themselves and their surroundings.

A selfie is a placeholder that says, I am here, I am happening to this place, and this place is happening to me at this unique point in time. Here is my picture, world. I was here!

I was here

Selfies are as universal as carving one’s name on a tree bark or on a school desk, or writing one’s initials on wet concrete, or with spray paint on a wall – but all in what many would agree is a less destructive manner of self-expression. 

James Franco recently wrote an essay about selfies in the New York Times. In it, he stressed that “in a visual culture, the selfie quickly and easily shows, not tells, how you’re feeling, where you are, what you’re doing.” Franco says that while a text message might struggle to convey exactly what you are feeling, “a selfie makes everything clear in an instant.”

Of course there will always be the truly vain, but they will exist in society whether or not selfies are their medium of choice. If one is annoyed at excessive selfies in their social media feeds, they should just do what they need to do when they see content they do not like: unfollow, unfriend, or hide. 

“Kids these days” 

There’s a certain breed and age of person that always seems baffled by technology and “what’s out there” in media and online. These same people who are too preoccupied with “what kids are doing these days” are also the ones who are quick to say that their generation was more mindful, less sexual, less reckless, or less shallow or vain. Isn’t that the same speech that is repeated by older generations about the younger ones time and again?

Older folks had combs in their pockets and mirrors in their purses. They had albums of their favorite photos for everyone to see. They went to the studio with their hair fixed and their clothes pressed so they could have solo pictures to give out (with matching dedication on the back) to all their friends. They all still have business cards which state their occupation. Many have their occupations in plaques on their front doors or home’s walls.

Don’t these all say what selfies say? All such mementos say, “This is who I believe I am, and who I see myself to be. This is how I want you to see me.”

How is a self-taken photo of a smile or a frown, or a face in school, at work or with friends, any different? 

Selfies are the photo keepsakes of our generation. Because photos are how people now present themselves, the selfie is also fast becoming the virtual handshake. Selfies may come in a different medium and via a dynamic delivery method, but with the same message that’s been presented by each portrait since the beginning of time:

This is me. Take it or leave it. Either way, carry on. – Rappler.com 

Shakira Andrea Sison is a two-time Palanca-winning essayist. She currently works in finance and spends her non-working hours taking selfies in subway trains. She is a veterinarian by education and was managing a retail corporation in Manila before relocating to New York in 2002. Her column appears on Thursdays. Follow her on Twitter:@shakirasison and on Facebook.com/sisonshakira. 

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