To begin, the original "god" of selfies,
And to continue on through history:
But to get to the important point of this post, selfies. Love them or hate them, they're here, and they're a part of culture. I found these blogs on selfie culture to open up an interesting discussion on society's apparent obsession with...taking pictures of ourselves?
Full disclosure, I'm vain enough to love taking selfies. When I was in middle school, the "Myspace angle" was the thing to master and oh man, did I master it (and oh man did I ever delete all those pictures 5 years later, when I realized how stupid they were). Selfies are interesting, because yeah, they're vain. They're pure vanity, and they're also an odd form of idealism, i.e.:
Above: Something I really am mildly upset about.
All joking aside, our culture is big on how one presents oneself. Because we're in control of what we're putting out there, we portray life on our terms-- i.e. I know exactly what lighting I look best in to take a selfie, and that's going to be my profile picture. And that's also not going to be exactly what you see when you see me IRL (in real life). The selfie presents an interesting form of idealism which, I think, has the potential to be dangerous because, whereas I had several years of living with myself and becoming grounded as a person, there are a lot of kids out there who are growing up surrounded by perfect looking selfies and the #instagood life which, sadly, are far from reality.
The first point that I want to note from the blogs is from Part I: The Digital Humanities and Selfie Culture. Losh cites Posner's idea of "the creepy treehouse," which is the way Posner and her students seemed to describe the social networking community, "where the authority figure wanders into a realm where students feel entitled to privacy." Being "entitled to privacy" is an interesting concept to me, and I question, is it real on the internet? Sure, you're entitled to privacy, but having a Facebook page connecting with 500 of your "closest friends" is not close to the same as being in your private clubhouse with your two besties. The idea of privacy is certainly changing, as is the definition of friendship.
Although a lot of topics were covered in the blogs, I'm stuck on the idea of selfie and self image, and how that is affecting people in our culture. Part 3: Networked Spaces, Slut Shaming and Putting Selfies in Dialogue with Theory brought up the case of Amanda Todd, the 15 year old girl who committed suicide, as a result of bullying, which began when it came out that there were nude photos of her online. She was in 7th grade. She was a child.
Kids are always going to make bad choices, get in trouble, and be made fun of. To pretend otherwise is to be ignorant of the human nature, but this one of the landmark events in the history of bullying, because it took place in our new online world. Amanda Todd is an example of a worst case scenario and, heartbreakingly, she is now one of many. She was a struggling child, she made a bad choice, and she was taken advantage of, but the magnitude of the tools she used led to the ramifications being far greater than she could have ever controlled. This is the dark side to our selfie culture. On its face it is harmless, stupid, and vain but, as with all things, there are deeper implications. With great power (or, perhaps, great audience or great tools) comes great responsibility. This brings me back, once again, to the question of kids who have grown up only knowing the online world. Parents must decide where the boundaries are because, quite evidently, the repercussions of online actions can be a lot more lasting.
Moving on, I found myself going down the rabbit trial of the "Familiar Stranger" theory of Stanley Milgram. Before I read further into the definition of the term I could immediately guess how this would connect to the online world, because it sounds like something I believe many of us can understand. Milgram, a social psychologist, identified this theory in the early '70s in regard to urban anonymity. The theory is quite simple, that people recognize one another through regular mutual activities, but do not interact. Taking to the digital realm, this could be likened to that one kid you met in high school and friended for the heck of it, and you haven't spoken since. Sometimes you like their Facebook status, and you don't necessarily want to unfriend them because you feel like you have a connection but, in reality, you've never had a real conversation.
Part 4: Diversity, NetProv and Service Learning made, in my opinion, one of the best points in the series. Losh cites Marino as speaking on the importance of "look[ing] at the history of self-representation, not just portraiture but semiotic self-representation of all kinds that was fundamental to human culture. This could include writing, such as autobiography, letter writing, and journaling." He expounds upon this by detailing the assignments he gave to his #SelfieClass at USC.
I think that Marino's assignment to his students was inspired and made the selfie into something so much more. His assignment was a study of introspection which went far beyond taking a good picture. I particularly liked Know Thy Selfie: An Exercise in Selfie Revelation. The proposed analysis of elements in each selfie is supposed to allow for self reflection, and it's something I would like to try. Upon identifying key elements between the pictures, the students then had to write a thesis analyzing what they saw in themselves. For similar reasons, I also found Why do my Facebook Friends look just like me? to be a cool idea for a class assignment. I think that these kinds of activities would be great to bring into a writing classroom, because they offer a way of keeping students relevant and interested, and not just working toward a grade by doing assignments they don't care about.
I think it is great that so many of these courses are shared online freely, and it's certainly appropriate, considering that the subject matter is our current digital age. One of the biggest benefits of the internet is the opportunity for collaboration and communication, and for building communities, and it's nice that all teachers are able to share and access material across the community.
It's haunting me.
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