This Student Saturday is
going to focus on something not necessarily related to curriculum-based
education. Today, we're going to talk about something that was once (for us) a
slightly annoying trend amongst our students, one that was recently highlighted
for us as an excellent tool for self-empowerment, especially for teenagers: The
selfie. The BB and the WW found a blog post
(courtesy of a friend of the WW) on the value of the selfie. Here's the link if
you're interested:
It made us rethink how we
felt about the trend. The fact that we were
inspired enough by this article to reevaluate our previous opinions made us
realize that the controversy over selfies is a valuable teachable moment for
both ourselves, others, and especially young students.
The new perspectives that we’ve
found on selfies are also important because they give what is considered
"youth culture" credit for something that is pretty awesome, because adults
often think of “youth culture” as low or petty.
We decided to give you our
individual views on the selfie and what it means for us as two, beautiful, independent
women.
From the BB:
The selfie
that I have included with today’s post is a giant breakthrough for me.
Confession: When I learned several weeks back that the OED had added selfie as
a word, I participated in scathing comments justified by the fact that I was an
English major and a “mature” young woman. Pffffff! Total turnaround after
reading the above link as well as articles on both sides of the selfies
controversy. So, seriously, read that link up there!!
But back
to selfies. I’m not saying everyone who has ever snapped a selfie has reflected
profoundly on the picture. What I am saying, and agreeing with, is that the
concept of the selfie can actually be a very empowering thing, no matter the
reason behind it. Selfies aren’t just ‘SELF-ish’ or ‘SELF-centered’ attempts at
vanity or look-at-me-ness. Allow me to turn some of the selfie connotations
that I used to buy into on their heads. Look at the other types of SELF
expressed by selfies, which far outweigh the negative stigmas of being vain:
SELF-confidence:
Snapping a selfie because you feel like you look great that day is nothing to
be ashamed of—it’s claiming your own self-confidence and showing yourself as
you want to be seen to the world. Plus, if you share it and people give you a
compliment—it’s great practice for being the kind of person that can accept a compliment
at face value, something fatties struggle with!
SELF-esteem:
Taking a picture when you feel confident, are having fun with friends, or
whatever the case may be gives you a record of that time, place, and feeling. I
can look back at a selfie and remember what I was doing that day and why I felt
like snapping a picture. It’s like an album of my best self esteem days, and I
love it!
SELF-concept:
If I were talking to my students about selfies, this is probably the first
approach I would take. Teenagers search for identity in adolescence, and some
of them keep searching into adulthood (like me!). Looking back at your selfies
and deciding how you want to the world to see you—on your OWN TERMS, by the
way—is a very important part of the process of forming an identity that you are
happy with. It can even be helpful in the process of reflection and re-creating
your own identity. What about yourself do you want to communicate to the world?
SELF-love:
This may seem like confidence or esteem, but it isn’t! While I think of
confidence and esteem as things that fluctuate, love is something that should
always BE once it is obtained. Let’s make sense of my brain here: Essentially
we might have bad days (in which case we could use a #baddayturnaround
concept/tag!) during which we don’t feel confidence or we don’t esteem
ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t love ourselves overall. This
might be the hardest to obtain, but I think that once it’s there, the bad days
are easier to deal with because you know that they are fleeting—underneath it
all, you love the person that you have become. Selfies are a way to remind
yourself of that on those not-so-good-days.
Have I
made my point yet? All of these benefits of selfies surely outweigh the vanity
argument. Now, back to my selfie. Up until now I haven’t posted many selfies,
but since reflecting on the concept, I feel the confidence to do so when I feel
like it for the reasons listed in the linked article and the reasons that I
just discussed. You may notice that my selfie is full body (sans feet). This is
something I would have NEVER done before, even a few months ago. But now, I
don’t care that my GUT protrudes (she says hi, by the way!) or that my neck and
chin are thick. Because that’s just how I look and I don’t want to pretend to
look another way. And not only do I not care, but I LOVE those things about
myself, because they are me. (I’m not just ignoring those things or thinking
“eh, what are you gonna do?” I’m loving them!). I love my outfit and the way
that it shows off, instead of hides, covers up, or obscures, my body shape. (No
hoodies with gut-hiding pouches here). I love my hat and my hair color. I love
my smile and the fact that I look confident. I love the fact that I am not
wearing a girdle or sucking in at all. Self love is really what I want this
selfie to communicate. Self-love and someone who loves the color gray (hehe)!
This
change in perspective has been a definite turning point for me, especially when
compared with my last Throw Back Thursday post and how I felt about my body
years ago. Today I really feel that I #makemyownmirror. We hope that you take
and/or post some awesome selfies too, so that you can feel the SELF love!
From the WW:
Yesterday, I posted a rant on
facebook about the selfie. (BTW, follow
us on facebook! See the side for a
link!) I was still fired up, so I may
have been rambly. But now that I’ve had
time to think about this tool, especially through the lens of Student Saturday,
I think I will be less rambly. We shall
see.
Let me first discuss three
periods of time in my life regarding the selfie: When It Was Called Camwhoring,
Shoulders and Up, and Selfie.
When It Was Called Camwhoring
We were a lot harsher when I was in high school. As far as I knew, no one came up with the nicer word “selfie.” We called it Camwhoring. At the time, it was kind of a “Yeah I know it is stupid to take pictures of myself, so I’m gonna make fun of myself for you and do it anyway” thing. Most of the time, camwhoring was a spectacle, unlike the average selfie of today. By spectacle, I mean we would get all dressed up and do crazy/fun things with our hair and makeup and strike elaborate poses or have a self-created background. While the following examples are not exactly as I described, they offer an apt view at what camwhoring was for me when I was sixteenorsomething.
 |
| You can see my face, but tilted so you can’t see my chin, and I’ve got a really cute (well it was then) outfit. |
 |
| an overhead photo of me, pondering life in a tree. |
Camwhoring was, for me,
almost exactly what you would guess: a plea for attention and for
compliments. I wanted people to tell me
I was beautiful, and by excluding my fat body parts, I thought I was presenting
them with everything that was beautiful or could be beautiful about me: my
clothes, my jewelry, my tree, my clear skin, or my eyes. If I posted something like that on facebook,
I agonized until someone complimented me, and when someone did compliment me, I
felt ashamed for fishing for it.
Then, when I started college
and really started putting on the pounds, I went into the following phase:
Shoulders and Up
The first two years of my
college career were the big years for my weight gain and also my personal
fat-shaming. I gained a lot more than I
thought possible. Even though this was
the time when I met my partner, and despite his constant love and support, I
still had a lot of guilt about my rapid weight gain and awkward body and clothes
that just didn’t fit right. Subsequently,
I did not like having pictures taken of me, and if it had to happen, it was
going to be on my terms. Hence,
shoulders and up. If anyone else posted
a picture of me, I untagged myself or requested that they delete it. Here’s a couple of examples:
 |
| I was feeling confident after doing the stripes in my hair (very popular in 2009), but not confident about my newly-growing body. |
 |
| Again, a new haircut justified a picture of myself, but frowning and shoulders and up. |
Thankfully, this phase didn’t
last much longer than those twoish years.
I then moved into the selfie era.
Selfie
The selfie era has
encompassed the last year or so of my life.
I think the term selfie is really only since 2013, but I think that it
can be stretched further back for me because of the way I define selfie. Obviously, a selfie is a picture of
yourself. The difference between my
definition and pop culture’s is this: a
selfie is a picture of yourself that you KEEP to yourself because that’s just
embarrassing. These were the pictures
that I snapped in the private comfort of my own bathroom, the pictures that
were never shared. Not because they were
inappropriate. I usually just took a
picture if I thought my outfit or hair looked good. But because of our attitude towards selfies
and fatties, I was ashamed to show the world that I thought I looked good. That all changed yesterday, when we found
that link. I was still on the fence
about it, and I thought I was supposed to be condescending about the whole idea
of the selfie, like everyone who shared one was a narcissist. Now that I realize it is a tool of
self-empowerment, a tool for reclaiming your beauty from a society that tells
you you’re not allowed to be beautiful, I think selfies are EXCELLENT.
As I said in my facebook
post, I’m done listening to articles that claim selfies are a thing of 2013 and
articles that tell me I’m not interesting enough and no one cares about my
hair. Because they’ve been wrong all along;
I care about my hair, and I think I’m worthy, and for me, selfies were only
BORN in 2013. It doesn’t matter if
anyone else likes them. I don’t care if
no one compliments me. I don’t care if
anyone tells me I’m an ugly fatty.
Because the act of posting a picture of my confident, beautiful self is
an empowering act, and while it is obviously nice to get that validation, I
don’t need it; I simply need the empowering act of posting. This also doesn’t mean that I’m going to snap
a pic of me eating cereal every day and share it on all of my social media
profiles. This means that I will
#makemyownmirror and post when I’m feeling good, and I will post them without
shame. Here’s my shameless selfies:
 |
| Tried to get some of my body in there! |
 |
| Shoulders and up, but no effort to hide my face fat. Also because I love Doctor Who. |
So, to bring it back to
Student Saturday, I think that the selfie can be used as a great tool for
self-expression for young students who are dealing with a lot of body-related
anxiety. The selfie allows young people
to take charge of how the world sees them, and that is a very powerful tool,
especially considering the fact that a lot of young people don’t have that kind
of power outside of the internet.
Check back tomorrow for Dear
Someone Sunday. The BB and the WW will
be writing open letters to their partners!
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