In defense of selfies - they aren’t all narcissistic

IT sounds rude — to have ‘done a selfie’. It means a photograph you take of yourself, usually with a camera-phone (not to be confused with ‘selkie’, which is a photo of herself taken by a mythical, seal-like creature, once she assumes human form, goes on land and gets her first camera phone). It’s in the news because of the 100 women whose photos were stolen by hackers.

But there were selfies in the good old days. Some of us have stood outside a chemist’s, checking through the developed roll of film. Among the photos of closed eyes and top-sliced heads, occasionally there was one of the photographer’s face as they inadvertently snapped themselves. ‘Camera-cameras’ have also had self-timer functions for years. Those selfies were usually group affairs and everyone wore an expression of doubtful expectation, as they wondered if the yoke was going to go off at all.

The modern selfie is supposed to be flattering. For women (and some men), this is the duck-face — head at an angle, lips thrust out — a pose to enhance sexiness, a pouting insouciance, or, in a few rare cases, the subject really wants to look like a duck. For men (and some women) it’s about the gym-body. The photo is shared through social media with the world, so that supportive friends can tell you how amazing you look, while less-than-supportive friends quietly remove you from their list, because all they see of you is photos of you looking like a duck/gym-nut.

Like all newish things, selfies are often held up as proof that society is going to hell in a handcart — just like previous proofs, such as television, the gramophone and, maybe at one stage, the handcart.

Selfies are often condemned as evidence of our rising narcissism, which is derived from Narcissus — in Greek mythology the son of a river god — who was said to have great beauty. He saw his reflection and fell in love with it, because he couldn’t have it (one would have thought the son of a river god would have enough cop on to know about the reflective powers of water against a dark background, but Greek mythology brushes over these plot holes). Narcissus died, effectively because he couldn’t take his selfie.

It’s harsh to describe selfie-fixation as narcissism. Constant taking, and looking at, photos of ourselves could be a sign of insecurity, a desire to quantify ourselves completely, to know every square and otherwise-shaped inch, to give ourselves certainty. Insecurity is as old as the hills.

And there are positive aspects to selfies. They are often photos of women as they really are, not photoshopped like the ones in fashion magazines, nor with exploitative poses demanded by leery male professional photographers.

They are also little snippets of ordinary memory. Marcel Proust wrote thousands of pages based on biting into a small cake. Who’s to say that glancing at a selfie in 20 years’ time won’t bring back a similar flood of memories? I take a few selfies now and then — mainly of my new facial hair, but I probably won’t store them in the cloud. I don’t want my beard hacked.