I have been taking ‘selfies’ since before there was a word for it. Well, there was a word for it. Well, two. It was called a ‘self-portrait’.

 

I think my first very own camera was a 9th birthday present. It was clunky, and simple, and it took square photos. Back then ‘digital’ described watches, and the only way to know what you were photographing was to peer through a tiny viewfinder. You had to take the pictures in to a shop to have them developed, and both film and developing was expensive, so I was usually careful about what photos I took. But in every roll of film developed you could guarantee that there would be at least one of my own face - either reflected in a mirror or carefully angled to try to catch my own face. A selfie. Decades before the ‘selfie’ became the ‘new trend’ that is destroying the very fabric of our society, I was taking them.

Even if you don’t buy into the idea that a self portrait is in any way the same thing as a selfie, you can’t really argue that a ‘selfie’ - as in a photograph you took of yourself - is new. People have been taking ‘selfies’ since at least the mid 19th century. Buzz Aldrin took one whilst in space in 1966.

People take selfies for all sorts of reasons. Like Buzz Aldrin, to demonstrate they were in a particular place at a particular time when something particularly awesome was happening. Maybe because they look ridiculous after a caught-in-the-rain incident. Maybe they just want a picture of their face on that day because they feel good about themselves. Sometimes you want a picture of all of your friends, and you want all of you to be in it, and there’s no one around to take the picture. Wanting to record a moment in time is no more narcissistic now than it ever was - it’s just much more accessible, and easier to share. There’s no expensive film to carefully conserve, no processing fees. The only thing that’s ‘new’ is the ease with which we can record and share these moments. To blame all of cultural ills on the recording and sharing those moments is ludicrous to say the least.

But that’s what the media would have us believe. Selfies are causing black cat homelessness. They are ruining your mental health - or are a sign of poor mental health. They are destroying your relationships. OH DEAR GOD they are TEARING APART OUR ENTIRE SOCIETY. PLEASE won’t someone think of the children??

That last link, with the disingenuous headline “Selfies ‘can fuel’ body image worries says Childline” caught my eye particularly. If you read the article, it’s very clear that the headline doesn’t remotely reflect what Childline say. What Childline say is that there is a clear and concerning rise in young children with serious body image concerns, and that this increases in warmer weather. It doesn’t specifically mention selfies at all other than sending lots of selfies in an attempt to seek validation could be seen as a symptom of low self-esteem. This is a COMPLETELY different thing to ‘fuelling’ low self-esteem.

A quick google reveals hundreds of articles across all sorts of media linking self-esteem and selfies and accusing this ‘new craze’ of having a direct relationship with poor self-image.

At the age of 9 I was into My Little Pony, Sylvainian Families and Jem and the Holograms. Makeup was something grown ups put on and sex was something animals did on nature programs and was to giggle at. I had no notion of being ‘too fat’, or unattractive, or needing particular clothes or shoes. I didn’t worry about crawling through brambles and getting twigs in my hair or mud on my shorts. Of course, back then we didn’t have the internet. And there weren’t magazines aimed at my age group full of pop heart throbs or sexy celebrities. We had Smash Hits but that was hardly a magazine aimed at the ‘pre-tween’ market (now, tween. THERE’s a word for something that didn’t exist when I was 9). I don’t recall starting to feel seriously bad about myself, my shape, my face or my weight until my teens when I started reading magazines such as Just Seventeen and More.

At the age of 29 (years before ‘selfie’ became a real word and at a time when people with LiveJournals were going ‘so what’s this ‘Facebook’ malarkey all about then?) I was working with young girls aged 7-10 as part of Girl Guiding UK. It was eye-opening how different it is to be 9 now than it was being 9 twenty years previously. One girl regularly cried and didn’t want to take part in fancy dress activities because she was ‘too fat’. Another confided to me that she was bullied because she ‘wasn’t pretty enough’. One spent an entire day on our first day at Brownie camp sulking with her hood up because we didn’t allow makeup or hair straighteners and saying she “couldn’t be seen without her makeup”. She was 8 years old. Another, a petite 9-year-old with dreams of stardom, regularly picked at her food and ate virtually nothing because “she needed to stay small to succeed in the business”. A girl guiding report carried out last year supported what I myself witnessed in my years as a Brownie leader. This report concluded that the girls were being influenced - not by selfies - but by media and advertising.

Any woman reading this will hardly be surprised to hear that girls are being affected adversely by media and advertising. To be a female human in our culture you cannot escape the messages that tell us daily that we’re too fat, too thin, our boobs are too small, our hair too short and not shiny enough, some of our hair grows naturally where hair shouldn’t be and so on. But even if you aren’t surprised, you can’t help but be shocked to hear an 8 year old asking “does this make me look fat?”

Is it any wonder that the media will seize any opportunity to deflect the blame for the increasing crisis of self-confidence that is affecting young girls and boys? The media has a vested interest in keeping our attention as far away as possible from the true cause - a powerful and relentless series of messages designed to keep us consuming. We must keep buying these products as otherwise we’ll be fat/ugly/hairy/smelly and no one will love us. And while you’re buying those, look at these celebrities in these unattractive (unphotoshopped) poses? Doesn’t it make you feel so much better that these celebrities look fat and unattractive just like you? But look at this beautiful (photoshopped) celebrity! You should totally buy the same products because then you won’t be fat/ugly/hairy/smelly any more.

Maybe we accept this status quo - these relentless messages - as something that is just there. Part of our society. As adults, we know these images are photoshopped and we know that the media rhetoric is harmful - even if we’ve internalised it and struggle with our own self-esteem we still KNOW that those photos aren’t real. Children don’t have that understanding. They tend to believe what reality they are sold. They don’t know the difference between a photoshopped picture and a real one. We do. And even knowing that the fantasies we are sold by the media aren’t true, we still beat ourselves up about not being thin/pretty/hairless/scented enough. And if even we can’t escape that, knowing that it’s not true, then how will the children?

Not only are selfies not remotely ‘new’, they are not to blame for the increasingly poor self-esteem of children. What they are is a useful scapegoat for a media complicit in the manipulation of our self-image and our self-esteem.

I for one love a good selfie. I take one when I have a good hair day. Or when I’ve done my makeup particularly well. I take them when I feel good about myself, and end up with a record of a time I felt good about myself. This doesn’t damage my self-esteem; it’s quite the opposite. What can damage my self-esteem somewhat is articles telling me that my liking for having a nice picture of myself looking nice is narcissistic and vain. Because GOD FORBID I think anything good about myself.

People that feel good about themselves aren’t going to buy products to make themselves feel better, are they?