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~ “I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)

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Tag Archives: Selfie

The Daily Discomfort: Still Selfie Conscious

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Social Commentary, Social Media

≈ Comments Off on The Daily Discomfort: Still Selfie Conscious

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Community, Connections, Selfie

Last week, I wrote about my selfie consciousness.  This week, I’m reporting on my plan to ask a stranger to take my photo and see what happens.  I went into the Middle School to conduct a workshop on building effective sentences last Friday, and the first thing I did was look for a student.  While they were checking my driver’s license to make sure I was not a criminal, I spied two children sitting on the bench next to the attendance office.  I said, “Would one of you do me a favor?  I need you to take my picture.”  They were both more than willing, and I thought I might have to rescue my phone when they briefly wrestled with it before Jose, a sixth grader who was waiting to see the principal, took the picture.  They smiled and laughed when I explained that I was writing about selfies.   They were friendly and open, even though they were both evidently in some kind of trouble.  After our brief conversation, I thought, “That was easy enough.  What’s the big deal about asking someone to take your picture?”

When I left the campus to eat lunch, I decided that asking an eleven year old to take my picture was too comfortable.  I needed to make the experience more of a risk.  So I waited until I had placed my order with the twenty-something young gentlemen at the restaurant, and then I said, “This is kind of embarrassing, but can I get you to take my picture?”

He agreed, but the ten years he had on my friend Jose changed his perspective about a total stranger asking you to take their picture.  I believe he indulged me because I was an older person and because he was not in a position to say no since he was waiting on me at the time.  He did, however, take a much better picture.

IMG_0609

This experiment is not over.  I’m going to continue to ask people to take my picture, and look for opportunities to engage in what I called micro-connections last week.  I have to continue because I haven’t made sense of why people are so obsessed with selfies and why I’m so resistant to taking one myself.  The whole point of this blog is to learn about the world that evolved into being while I was raising my children and working.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some interesting reading about selfies.  The Times article  http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/06/why-selfies-matter/  presents information from the perspective of a concerned society.  Jerry Salz’s article http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/history-of-the-selfie.htmlselfie helped me take a longer view.  Selfies, like Elvis, like hip-hop, have changed and will continue to change our conceptions of art and of communication and beauty.  Finally, Matthew Frost’s video, starring Kirsten Dunst, affirms that I’m not alone in feeling that we’re giving up a sense of community and connection in exchange for the ease of taking a fast photo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwDbOmPQNx0

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The Daily Discomfort: Why I’m Selfie-Conscious

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by koehlerjoni in Essay, Social Commentary, Social Media

≈ 1 Comment

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Selfie

Last May my daughter sent me a beautiful scarf for Mother’s Day.  I texted her the next morning and told her I was going to be wearing the scarf to work.  She replied, “That’s great!  Take a selfie and send it so I can see it.”

I’m being honest when I say that I’d never considered taking a picture of myself before this moment.  Sure, when I was a teenager, I spent my fair share of time staring at my own pouting face in the mirror.  But I’d never taken a selfie.

About halfway through this process, I discovered that button that turns the camera toward your face.  Although that made it easier, I was appalled at how these pictures turned out.  I was in a hurry to go to work, though, so I sent her the least offensive one, and spent the day trying to shake the willies off every time I thought about taking a selfie.

See what I mean?

See what I mean?

Okay, I’ve never been enamored of my own picture.   I can sing or speak in front of a thousand people, but when the camera comes out, I’m a thirteen year old with a bad case of acne and a terrible haircut.  My shoulders are crooked, my face looks like a squirrel who’s gathering nuts for the winter, and one eye squints more than the other one when I smile.  Och, I don’t think I’m terribly ugly, but I can’t hide my quirks in the eye of the camera.  So naturally, I’m also selfie-conscious.  As far as taking a picture of myself, I am happy to tick that experience off my list and never attend the Kim Kardashian School of Butt Crack Self Photography.

But there’s got to be a deeper message here, right?  After all, I’m an adult, so I need to walk away from this essay with something more meaningful to say than I’ll never take another selfie.

You know, if my daughter had asked for a picture even two years ago, my husband would have taken it.  He and I would have collaborated on the picture, and he would have told me ways to stand or how to put my face to the light.  It would have then been a shared experience. And that’s what really bugs me about selfies.  A selfie has no second eye. A selfie is insular.

My husband was recently in the airport in Paris.  He watched as a family of four attached a long arm to their camera so they could take better group selfies.  While I think using our cameras for the purpose of taking family or friend photos is pretty benign, isn’t it also a little bit sad?  The last time I visited Paris with my husband, we asked a stranger to take a photo of us on the steps of the Sacre Coeur.  Part of the expression on my face was related to the joy I shared with the stranger taking our photo.  That photo says to me, “Here we all are, on this planet together, sharing this beautiful day in this beautiful place.”  Have we lost that?  Are we too afraid to let people into our lives for long enough to release the private experience for a more planetary one?

So I have a plan.  Tomorrow I’m leading a workshop at a middle school.  I’m going to walk up to the first child I see, hand them my phone, and ask them to take my picture.  I’ll thank them, look them straight in the eye, and introduce myself. It will be a micro-connection with another human being, the kind of interaction we used to take for granted.  It’s a micro risk that our children are no longer taking, and I’m afraid of what the consequences will be if we grown-ups let our kids silently slide into the false sense of community that the selfie phenomenon perpetuates.  It’s a start.

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