On Tuesday, we were on the receiving end of a plethora of
information about a subject that, as college students, is very well known among
us. Selfies, as a new word in the dictionary, is a social trend that has
undoubtedly swept not only America but the world. Many forms of media,
including hit songs and comedy videos capture the essence of the selfie and why
it has become such a polarizing facet of our culture. Your student, whose
name is escaping me, eloquently reviewed the motive behind selfies and why we
do it. This video perfectly sums up the overwhelming presence of the
selfies, the demographic of who's taking them, and the sheer befuddlement and
fascination adults have over millennials' obsession with them.
As you can see, there are literally 9 girls,
each with their phone out, separately taking selfies of themselves and with
others. It is almost sickening to watch, as a former baseball player,
that their "selfie game' is more important than the baseball game in front
of them, which they paid to see might I add. What I find so interesting
is that not one girl feels any type of embarrassment or self-consciousness for blatantly
taking selfies in front of a giant crowd. As a person who dabbles in the
selfie game, I make sure that no one in sight sees me taking a selfie.
However, the motives behind taking selfies between me and this group of
girls are drastically different.
My motive behind taking selfies is usually
due to reciprocation of a conversation that I am having with a friend.
When someone sends me a Snap (on SnapChat), I respond by sending a selfie
with a facial reaction contingent on the caption I post alongside it.
Unlike me, these girls' motives are not due to a conversation. Two
of the reasons we learned in class were because a) you think you look good and
b) you when to show people where you are. These girls must have spent so
long beautifying themselves before the game and then subsequently wanted to
show as many people that they were at an Arizona Diamondbacks game.
The aspect of the video that I took notice
to was the pure fascination of the broadcasters over what they were witnessing.
The fact that a live broadcast decided to document these girls for an astounding
2 minutes shows the significance of this trend in society. The broadcasters
found it astounding that these girls were so fixated on their phones and were
taking so many pictures of themselves. It became evident that these men believed
that the girls' motives were out of narcissism and self-loving, another theory
we learned about in class. As long as there are cameras on the front of
phones, the older generation is going to have to accept the selfie game and
learn to understand the multiple levels of meaning and motives surrounding
them.
(Lecture in Class)
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