Selfie Lovers Forced to Explain Themselves
According to The Week: “Selfies compose a disturbing 30 percent of images snapped by everyone’s favorite demographic — the much-beloved millennial.” What?! In response to this finding, Chris Gayomali goes out looking for the elusive selfie apologia:
JAIME M.
16, Student at Long Beach Polytechnic High School (and my little cousin)
1. Why do you take selfies?
I take selfies because:
a) It gives me an excuse to get all cute
b) It makes me feel pretty
c) I get a lot of compliments
d) Sometimes I have nothing to do and I get quite bored.
He doesn’t just talk to millennials. Here’s Howard Chua-Eoan, 54, former news director at TIME Magazine:
3. Have your friends ever given you a hard time about your selfie habit?
Some do. I always apologize and tell them to ignore them or to take pity on my narcissism.
And from Amy Rose Spiegel, 22, associate music editor at BuzzFeed and staff writer at Rookie:
2. Is there someone in particular that comes to mind whenever you post one?
Most of my Instagram followers are strangers, but I wouldn’t say they “come to mind” when I post a photo — it’s more personal, more like a diary entry. Like, “This is what I looked like today.” But I do that publicly in part because positive feedback about my appearance feels so recent to me, like it’s only just started happening in the past few years, and I can appreciate it when it’s not male gaze-y or sexualizing me in a way that I’m not actively welcoming. The thing is that with selfies, even if these people are strangers, I’m inviting people to look at me in the way that I want to be looked at and I’m totally in control of that, where in real life, the last thing I want is for strangers on the street to catcall me or otherwise comment on my looks without my consent.
A quick poll of two other millennial women evinces one motto of “Never Keep a Selfie” and another of “Rare and Faceless Unless It’s Sugar Ray.” More selfie research is possible at this continually uploading nightmare stream. We live in a hall of mirrors, keep it up, never quit.