Exploring the psychological effects of the selfie
Social media is a phenomenon that has allowed us to essentially become our own advertisements. Not only has it blurred the line between the public and private spheres, but it has also allowed us to control how we are perceived publicly. It is now expected that most people have an online presence. Most employers immediately search our public profiles during the hiring process. We control our images, as well as our personalities. Social media allows us to be two completely different people – a “real-life” self and an “online” self.
The selfie is a sensation that was born of the information age.
An interesting debate surrounds the term selfie, a word that has been coined by the Gen Y cohort. In 2013, the word selfie became a thing when Oxford Dictionaries nominated it as their Word of the Year. Fun fact: it was originally spelled “selfy” in the early 2000s, back when Myspace was still popular.
Common debates that surround females and selfies involve whether it is mentally healthy for females to photograph and manipulate their image, or whether it is the essence of narcissism.
Is the selfie empowering? Some theorists argue that the selfie is a product of the male gaze. For those of you who are not aware, the term gaze is a psychological term that describes the awareness one has that they are being viewed and perceived by another. It is used to study how this awareness affects the way a person acts even perceives themself. The male gaze is a term that was coined in 1975 by second-wave feminist, Laura Mulvey, and describes a woman being aware of an objectifying heterosexual male gaze. It is a term that is commonly used in the study of art to establish how a woman is perceived and portrayed through a male artist’s eyes in patriarchal society. However, the male gaze is not limited to being inflicted by a male. Women can internalize the male gaze, and reflect it upon themselves, objectifying themselves through a woman’s lens.
That being said, is the selfie a reflection of the male gaze? Other critics argue that the act of the selfie is, in fact, the opposite – that it allows women to take control over the male gaze and manipulate it. Furthermore, it allows women to take control over the way they are perceived by others.
Though another argument would be that they are not taking control of the male gaze, but inflicting the gaze upon themselves. Tricky, isn’t it?
Another popular argument in favour of the selfie is that it provides a space for minority populations to have a voice. This argument is applicable to any social media platform, as the phenomenon of social media has made everyone a critic, providing a platform for anyone with access to a network to express their opinion.
Social Media allows us to be two completely different people…
Finally, the selfie is also argued to be a form of narcissism, and apparently derived from a human need to seek validation.
An interesting take on what the selfie represents for women would be to look at some of the first female self-portraits. During Renaissance art, it was common for the woman to be painted in the perspective of a male artist. A few understated female Renaissance artists, Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana, rejected the conventional painting of a woman by a male hand by painting self-portraits. At the time, this was completely unusual for a female artist to do. In doing so, these women were able to paint themselves through their own gaze, and to manipulate the male gaze. In conventional Renaissance art, male artists (with the exception of Leonardo da Vinci) typically painted women with their eyes diverted from the audience. They also tended to depict women in immobile situations, such as lying down or sitting still. What Anguissola and Fontana did, essentially, was paint themselves making eye contact with their audience, as well as doing something active, such as painting. This allowed them to challenge the male artist’s typical perception of a female.
So, does the selfie allow the woman to create her own self? Or does it reassert objectification via the male gaze? Or, is it just something we do in order to seek validation? Is it harmful to a female’s self-perception? These questions are up for debate, and it will be interesting to see what the future does to the modern day selfie.