Back in my undergraduate days at Columbia, a student at one of the seven sister schools wrote a book detailing the dating habits of male Ivy Leaguers. “When they pass a mirror,” she wrote about us, “it’s the Columbia man who checks his hair.” With that sort of pedigree, you’d think I’d have an almost sensual appreciation of selfies.
I don’t.
Not that I remember checking my hair in the reflection of every theater lobby poster, but if I did it was a private matter between my date and me. It was also a different Jay Douglas who did the checking. Any evidence of that twenty-something, narcissistic self has faded with the memories of those involved.
Selfies have changed that equation. Now, flashes of private narcissism are converted into products ready for worldwide export.
How, I wonder, will things be different for today’s twenty-somethings when their mental self-images change but they find that, like tattoos, their selfies are forever.
That’s not rhetoric.
It’s probably easier to remove a tattoo than to erase a single, indiscreet selfie from the Internet.
“There is a pelican at the London Zoo that will allow you to take a photograph of him. But you can’t stand next to him and take a selfie. I think the pelican’s got it right.”
If I did have kids I imagine I’d be lobbying software developers for an app that gave me editorial control over every photo they posted.
Even now, when I see kids taking selfies, the college professor in me feels the need to take them aside for a Selfies 101 lecture. But what is my selfie IQ? I don’t take them. And I’m well out of the demographic range in which teenage girls giggle while offering to share their selfies with me.
So I contacted Susan Marling, the Director of Just Radio in London. She produced the BBC Radio 4 documentary From the Self to the Selfie, which examined the selfie’s role in today’s pop culture.
“There is a pelican at the London Zoo,” she told me via Skype from London, “that will allow you to take a photograph of him. But you can’t stand next to him and take a selfie. So I think the pelican’s got it right.”
I felt relief for the pelican. I’m sure he was sparing himself endless years of therapy. You may have noticed, though, your kids or grandkids don’t have that kind of will power.
“The ability to star in the movie of our own life has overtaken us,” Marling said. It’s an ability that’s nothing short of seductive. And, it’s being helped along by institutions that have, no pun intended, skin in the game.
“Advertising, fashion, beauty are all conspiring to make us shine an evermore bright life on our selves. For young girls the imperative is to look as much like Kim Kardashian as you can.”
Why Kim Kardashian?
“She’s the most photographed woman in the world,” Marling pointed out. “Think about that.”
I just ate, so I’d rather not.
If selfies need a devil incarnate Kardashian’s it. She offers makeup tips—along with the necessary makeup—to make your daughter or granddaughter look super sexy in a selfie. It’s a process called contouring and it has only one known side effect. In real life, it makes its practitioner look ghoulish, not girlish.
Call me old fashioned, but I’d rather raise a Twiggy than the leader of a zombie invasion.
As a parent or grandparent, a point to ponder is whether this idea of striving to look original by looking like the most photographed woman in the world is a fad disguised as a rite of passage or a practice that can have serious consequences later in life. Confidence denting is the term Marling uses to describe one of those potential consequences of selfie.
“If you and your friend put pictures out, and your friend gets a thousand likes and you get two, that might dent your confidence a little bit. I think parents need to be aware with what’s happening with their kids in that way.”
If I’d stopped our conversation at selfies’ assault on self-confidence during the teen and pre-teen years that would have been the crux of my imaginary Selfie 101 course. Marling persuaded me not to.
She is not, I discovered, as selfie-phobic as I am. Despite the pitfalls, she sees selfies as a jackhammer that is destroying the bedrock of institutions that are more oppressive than selfies are obsessive.
More about that in part two of the story.
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Courtesy of Susan Marling
Susan Marling is a highly respected producer and presenter with a string of awards to her name. She is the Director of Just Radio, Ltd., an independent supplier of programming to the BBC and other media outlets. She also writes regularly for magazines and the national press and conducts media training courses in the UK. She set up Just Radio in 1995.
Mind Doodle…
A U.S. district judge has ruled that the monkey that took a selfie with British nature photographer David Slater’s camera cannot be declared the photo’s copyright owner. It seems that only fur, not copyright law, covers animals.
Excellent. I particularly like the girls to ghouls comment. As I look around in selfie-genic locals, I notice that the practitioners of such narcissism are not just the young. All ages seem to be affected to one degree or another.
I think selfies fall into the same category as privacy in the digital age. We’ve never had all that much privacy, but it used to be extremely difficult to gather information on where a person lived, spent money or hung out. Now, collecting that information is relatively inexpensive, so we feel our lives are more public. Narcissism isn’t new, only more public. Extremely public. It’s also become a way of documenting one’s life. We all can’t write the next great American novel or discover a cure for cancer, but we can make sure there’s a record of where we’ve been and what we did. Whether that’s good or bad I don’t know. Thanks for commenting, Jeff.
Hey Jay… great stuff. As a grandfather of a selfie obsessed teen, I have to say it asks a lot of the questions I’ve been asking myself. But that hasn’t stopped me from participating in many selfies with the kid, taking notes on her recommendations on how to take the best selfie, and then going out and practicing the craft. Apparently there’s an art to it. Just sayin’
Ha, ha. One of Susan Marling’s remarks was that, while you’re waiting to sort out selfies in your mind, you can always participate. I think her quote was, “There’s always room for two in a selfie.”
Meanwhile, maybe your daughter can post some recommendations here for taking selfies.
This is great, Doug. Thanks. For a woman with little time, this hit just the right note- a bit of philosophy, a touch of humor and all in do-able time. Love it!
Thanks, Bryna.
That’s good to hear. I wanted to write something that would be a quick read and worth the time. Please share the story and the blog with your friends.
This was a really wonderful post! We need more people looking at our notions of self in this age. Is the selfie a positive retort to the one-way blitz of media mandates about how we must look, smell and dress? The jury is still out. Thanks for sharing Susan’s work!
Jacki…
You’ll love part 2 of this story on 1/19. It’s exactly what you’re talking about. And if you haven’t listened to Susan’s radio doc, do it soon. It’s an hour you won’t forget. Thanks for the comments.