The Selfie Culture

I want to discuss, if I may, the selfie culture and my experience of it - I lack facts and figures of studies that may have been carried out, so I can only really share my opinion of it.

Although, interestingly, I was told this weekend that getting "likes" on social media platforms can release the same endorphins as chocolate can, a mini rush of euphoria. And presumably sex too. And I assume upvotes will also release similar endorphins.

For many years, after the invention of the mobile phone camera and the start of Facebook, I would take photos of everything - every day trip, every night out, every holiday, every weekend away, every good looking meal I ate, people being silly, people not wanting their photo taken. I wanted the perfect Pinterest picture, even though Pinterest wasn't a thing then.

I wanted to capture every moment and keep them as a memory. And now I have 1000s of photos, not many of them are printed out... just sitting there on Facebook for me to come across randomly. In all honesty, I look back at some photos and realise I have no idea what is happening in them. No memory of the photos I took in order to keep the memory alive.

A few years ago, I went the O2 in London to watch a recording of WWE Monday night Raw. I have some amazing action shots... 100s of them in fact. All on Facebook to bore my friends with. But my only memory of this show is of me watching the whole thing zoomed in on my camera screen. And although I did partake with all the cheering and booing, I couldn't clap anyone because my camera was glued to my hand.

I've made a conscious decision, since then, to try and live in the moment, rather than focusing on the camera in front of me- I still take photos, but now I try to be quick and take off the cuff photos. I enjoyed seeing these three sleeping men in Hyde Park on one of our many trips to London. Seeing how relaxed they were on a summers day brought a sense of peace to my weekend.

But even when I do take photos, I try to make them fun and I'm not bothered if I don't look perfect. Now dont get me wrong, if a photo of me has too many chins in it, then it swiftly gets deleted... but I won't take the picture over and over again, until I'm totally happy with it.

The reason I decided to write a blog about the perfect selfie, is because I recently went to Liverpool to celebrate our Master's degree graduation, with a fellow student - who is obsessed with the perfect selfie. On the day we handed in our dissertation paper, my fellow student wanted a photo of her holding her paper, as a memory to share. This was fine, until I had to take, at least, 100 photos, just so that she could make sure she had a couple of perfect photos to pick from... although I couldn't tell the difference between each one though, if I'm being honest.

And so to Liverpool. She wanted photos in all the touristy places, as did I, but she wanted to be in each of her photos - again, this is fine, except the photo could only be taken from her good side, with a flick of her hair as the shutter clicked. Oblivious to people around her, she would bump into them as she changed position. A dozen photos later, she was happy enough for us to move on.

Maybe its an age thing. Perhaps because she is only 24 and I'm ten years older, maybe I just don't understand "the youth" and the selfie culture.

And as a way of promoting not caring that my photos are not perfect, I leave this photo from my graduation for you to enjoy, and compare it to my selfie perfect profile picture.