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LTown News

The Imprint

LTown News

The Imprint

Behind the Duck Face

Selfies. We are all familiar with them. We hold our phones out at arm’s length and strike a pose. From the duck face that no one’s sure of the origin of, to the popular “dirty mirror” shot, or even the famous pose with our choice Starbucks beverage, we add superfluous hashtags and upload photos of ourselves to Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. With 91% of teens confessing to falling into the “selfie taker” category, and the word “selfie” becoming 2013’s “word of the year”, selfies are part of our contemporary culture. According to a recent article by Relevant, selfies make up an approximated 30% of all photos taken by young adults from ages eighteen to twenty four. While the typical selfie seems harmless and if anything exceedingly mainstream and overdone, recent studies have shown that selfies may not be as harmless as we though. Whether you’re an avid selfie taker, or think the selfie craze is too basic for you, they may be the root of insecurity for some.
For many people, especially, but not limited to, teenagers, the selfie is a self- empowering activity in which you can make yourself appear however you want. You can retake the picture until you get a perfect shot, and edit to your hearts’ content. Taking pictures of yourself gives you a lot more control over your aesthetics than having someone else take a picture of you would. Frankly, many people take selfies to feel good about themselves, and feel in control of their physical appearance. In an article from The New York Times, James Franco says, “I’ve learned that the selfie is one of the most popular ways to post- and garner the most likes from followers.”
After finding the perfect pose and finishing any touch- ups, we upload ourselves to our choice social media and wait for the “likes” to flood in. When people get more likes, they habitually assume that their followers or friends find them attractive or good- looking, but the opposite happens when there is a lack of likes. For some people, taking a selfie is a sure way to find out what they look like in other peoples’ eyes. James Franco says, “We all have different reasons for posting them, but, in the end, selfies are avatars: Mini- Me’s that we send out to give others a sense of who we are.”
Besides the amount of likes you get, comments on your selfies can also either build up your self-esteem or rapidly tear it down. According to an interview from Teen Vogue, psychologist Jill Weber, Ph.D., says that compliments such as “GORGE” (for those of you not quite caught up with the ever expanding terminology predominantly of teenage girls, this is short for gorgeous) in the comments give people constructive, confidence boosting feelings, but comments such as “get over yourself” or anything like that, or even simply a lack of comments can cause a plummet in self- esteem, especially in people who had confidence issues in the first place.
Weber says, “Girls in particular are socialized towards seeing themselves lovable only if others value them. Selfie culture is a way for this tendency to go into overdrive.”
Another thing with selfies is something I think we’re all familiar with: people who post what seems like a zillion selfies in a row. I think most of us have a tendency to automatically think that this person is probably vain or conceited, since they post so many pictures of themselves, but before we start to judge, we have to look a little bit deeper into the mind of a psychologist, because being conceited may not be the case. Dr. Weber says, “In my experience, girls who repeatedly post sefies struggle with low self-esteem.” Sometimes, people repeatedly post selfies to look for compliments and get an influx of likes, because they get a sort of high from the positivity of likes. Now, we aren’t saying that if you or someone you know posts a ton of selfies that you’re either super vain or really insecure, we just want you to think twice before judging people on their selfie habits.

I wanted to see what students here at LHS thought about selfies, and if they thought they were a good thing or a bad thing, how often our students take selfies, and if they gave us a confidence boost or made it easier for people’s confidence to plunge.
I first got the scoop from sophomore Trinity Helm. I asked Trinity how often she takes selfies, and she says, “I take selfies at least three times a week and take at least ten per time.” I then asked her if she thought that selfies were good or bad for self-esteem. “It depends… because if I’m in a good mood I like to take selfies to remember how happy I was at that point in time, and if I’m mad/ sad I will take them but those are the weird, awkward ones,” she tells me, “Anyways, the ones I don’t like I just delete and I keep the ones I like so I guess it doesn’t affect my self-esteem. I just take them to take them!”
I then interviewed Kyle Johns, an LHS junior, to get a guys’ outlook on selfies. He says, “I never take selfies.” When I asked him if he thought that they would be good or bad for someone’s self-esteem, he says, “I think girls use them for good self-esteem, and guys don’t really care about taking them.” I also interviewed freshman Hunter Lyon to get his opinion. He says that he doesn’t take selfies. “I think they’re a little of both good and bad.” I asked him to elaborate on that statement, and he tells me, “Well if you place them on a website like Instagram they are mostly trying to get judged in a good way, like it lots of people like them and tell them they look good, but some people can get their self-esteem hurt by people not liking it or posting negative comments.”
Next time you take a selfie, think about these things.
Am I taking this selfie to boost my self-esteem?
Am I taking this selfie to get noticed?
Will my feelings be hurt if I get negative comments or few likes?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, put away your camera for a while. The selfie can wait. Also, next time you see other peoples’ selfies, don’t judge. Keep the comments clean. Besides that, it’s your call whether you post a selfie or not. If you’re content with your selfies, keep posing with your duck face and Starbucks and peace signs (I don’t know why we do this… it’s pretty weird). Just make sure you’re okay with whatever response you’ll get.

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