Self-Ie-E-Me {Fieldguide}

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Article: What Do #Selfies Say About the Psychology on You? by Anne Steele

Xnirran: What did you think of the article we had to read for class?

Kaveena:  This article truly articulates why a selfie is consider something positive instead of having such a negative weight to it. It’s not our fault that this is what we are growing up with.

Xnirran: I don’t know. I was born in 1994, and I think our generation is screwed enough, why do we have to take pictures of ourselves through it all?

Kaveena: I wouldn’t say we’re screwed up. I think we just do things differently and hear me out about this. The beauty of a selfie is that it doesn’t have to be only about you. You can take a selfie with your grandma and her homemade pie. You could take a selfie with your siblings wearing ugly Christmas sweaters on Christmas Eve. You could take a selfie with an old friend you haven’t seen in years and laugh at the grey hairs you two have. That’s why this article was trying to say. Ann Steele, who wrote the article, even said: “A selfie is an expression of a person’s identity.”

Xnirran: Even though I hear what you’re saying, I still have my doubts about how positive the selfie movement really is. We have completely lost the genuine and classic way of taking a picture with someone. Having your arms around them and forming a group and having someone take a picture for you. A selfie makes you distant from the people you’re supposed to be close to, just my opinion.

Kaveena: Nah, Steele also said, “It is capturing a moment in a person’s life that meant something to them…”

Xnirran: Yeah and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying people overdo it.

Kaveena: Hold on, hold on. She continues to say, “But it is also a method of finding oneself, of getting to know oneself. It is the Millennial generation’s stamp on the earth.”

Xnirran: Our stamp on earth comes from other things, not selfies if you ask me.

Kaveena: Okay, but as for selfies, this is a positive way for us to leave our mark. A selfie is a sense of control, comfort, safe spaces. Taking a selfie next to an LGBTQ+ flag is a space that so many people could not have done before. Taking a selfie in an All Black Lives Matter T-shirt marks a sense of control of the picture being portrayed instead of someone else flipping it into something negative or untrue.

Xnirran: Yes! That’s all very good. I just don’t want to see selfies of EVERYTHING, you know?

Kaveena: Ha, ha. I get you.

Xnirran: What would you rate this article on the light and dark scale?

Kaveena: Definitely a 10. Certainly showing the lighter side to something that always seems to get a negative response.

Xnirran: Fair enough!