The selfie and self-identification

Theories of self, serve to examine the ideologies of the actual self as well as the self that one hopes to develop and express in the future. According to Bargh, McKenna & Fitzsimmons, “Variation on one’s self are concerned with future, potential versions of self that do not yet exist in real time,” (2012, p. 34). It is this potential self that is perhaps the most applicable to the discussion of how selfies are used to create and control self image through the act of capturing and sharing self images online.

This blog will will examine the role that digital technology plays in shaping the nature of self, through the art and act of taking a selfie. This concept will be explored through an analysis using power, production, representation and identity as an underlying foundation to explore five categories of selfies:

1. Selfie as a powerful message
2. Selfie as documentation of a passing moment
3. Selife as identity formation
4. Selfie as a brand
5. Selfie as an interruption

Analysis: Narcissism and Selfies

What is a Selfie? 

Whatever your feelings are -- bored, excited, sad, happy, etc. you can record them with a selfie, and let the picture do the talking. Whatever your news are -- cut your hair, pierced your nose, got a new tattoo – selfies can speak for you louder than words. If you want to make a duck face – whatever that may suggest– you can snap a selfie and share it on social media.
 Hence, a selfie simply means a photograph of yourself, clicked by you. “[The selfie] is a genuine image, created privately with minimal filtration” (browntourage.com, 2014). The selfie is so popular that recently the term has been added in the Oxford Dictionary and named the term of the year in 2013: “Selfie (informal)-- A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media” (‘selfie’, 2015). “The “ie” at the end makes selfie a diminutive, which generally implies some affection and familiarity. [Thus], a selfie is a ‘little’ self, an aspect of identity”(Rutledge, 2013). Or else, “selfies . . .are about awareness of our own self-awareness (blog.oup.com, 2013).
From this standpoint, there are numerous people wondering whether the selfie is not a product of too much self-awareness: “Taking selfies is routinely derided as narcissistic, a procedure of solipsistic self-regard in which one obsesses over one’s own image” (Horning, 2014). Hence, the purpose of this article is to explore five variations of selfies, based on photo content and details, in order to get the whole picture in terms of the selfie meaning, and to appreciate if, indeed, its popularity is related to narcissism.