The Selfie Phenomenon!

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, you hear something that just blows your mind. When the selfie became a way of life, I was dismayed that so many young people were becoming addicted to seeing themselves in pictures. I know it’s not just the younger generation that has adopted this facet of life, but they are the majority.

Celebrating life with pictures is great but how many pictures do we need and does having dozens a day enhance or detract from our memory of an occasion? Is everything we do a “special occasion”.

I relished sitting with my mother looking through her photo albums and seeing the moments that were captured, done in rich sepia tones. I had an album but I was not necessarily a photography aficionado. My children have pointed the finger at me for not having pictures of them and their children throughout the house. I can only defend myself by saying that I seem to have a heightened ability to remember faces, and events which I see as my internal photography album.
I realize that I could go on for a very long time-sharing my inability to understand a culture that has such a need to have so much of their lives turned into a history book. What disturbs me beyond the picture-taking is a new phenomenon that is emerging as a result of the selfies. It’s called selfie surgery. It seems that young women are opting to have cosmetic surgery to enhance their images so that they look better in their selfies. Will they, like the mythical figure Narcissus fall in love with their image to the point where their world will simply revolve around themselves?

I feel a sense of sadness that we have evolved into a place where young women are allowing themselves to be swept into a world that is essentially going to showcase them as inauthentic and plastic. Will they all begin to resemble one another like a group of Stepford Wives? What physical template will win out. Will there be a contest to decide which nose, chin,breast implants or lips are the right ones for a selfie? More importantly who will be paying for these cosmetic procedures? Are parents going to opt to give their daughters money for a nose job over a college education? Will boobs win over brains? I hope not!

I can only pray that someone will come along that will help erase some of the Kardashians obsessive need to share their “selfie selves”! Wouldn’t it be refreshing for our culture to have more individuals who see the world through the lens of humility rather than the lens of self-absorption?