Some people may have negative thoughts about the selfie. Some people may think they're overrated, or annoying. I've heard many people complain about them while scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. At this very moment, I searched the hashtag "selfie" on Instagram. There are over 178 million pictures in that category. The selfie has also turned into day-oriented posts. There are such things as "Selfie Saturday" and "Selfie Sunday", where people post their self portraits under that hashtag. Some have even taken it to the next level, adding "Selfie" to the beginning of each day of the week (i.e. "Selfie Tuesday"). So, what is it with this phenomenon? Why do people take them? Are they annoying? Is there a point to them? Is there a limit to how many you should take? I am here to answer one question: "Why should we support the selfie?"
I've grown up around women my entire life. I am the youngest of five children, and four out of five of them are girls. I went to an all-girls school for high school. I started as a youth leader for girls when I was 17, and still am today. My mentor is the director of women's ministry at my church, and through seeing her influence and experience, women's ministry has become one of my passions. One could say that I love being around women. I'm always reading books and studies about teenage girls in order to keep myself up to date on the most current issues. Some people laugh at that, because I'm only 20 years old. I will tell you one thing about working with youth ministry: times change quickly. Teenage girls deal with issues at 14 that I didn't even know about until I was 19 years old. They are faced with more pressures and hardships than I ever did. It scares me! After talking with many different women (ages 14-60), I learned one thing about women collectively: almost all women suffer with negative thoughts about their image. This doesn't just include their body; it includes the look of their nose, the size of their breasts, their post-baby bodies, their height, their hair, you name it-they've got it. I've got it too. As women, we are bombarded with images daily that throw an idea of "ideal beauty" in our faces. Ads, television, movies, songs-almost all media portrays this image of "beauty". The problem with this ideal beauty is that it can never exist. Women are portrayed as flawless in the media. Photoshop will kill us as time evolves. Some women spend their lives striving for that beauty, for that perfection, not knowing that they will be let down. I wrote a post about how perfection does not exist, and you can read it here! My point is that some women will feel that they are not pretty enough, not small enough, not big enough, not skinny enough, not tan enough, not toned enough-and all of these stem from our society's biggest lie: you are not good enough.
DoSomething.org put out statistics about body image***. I wish I could say that I was surprised when I read them.
Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their body type.
Only 5% of women naturally have the body type that America deems as "ideal".
58% of college girls feel pressure to obtain a certain weight.
Studies show that the more reality television a girl watches, the more likely she is to find appearance important.
These are all 2014 statistics. Is this what our society has come to? While there are many studies, statistics, and proof that the "ideal image of beauty" is distorted, there is still nothing that is being done.
With all of these statistics in mind, it brings me back to a time where there was no such thing as the selfie. It was old fashioned-we had a physical camera, not a phone, and we would take group pictures, not just of ourselves. I also remember when Facebook invented the "tag", which was a feature that when you scrolled over someone's face, it would show you their name, and you could click through to their profile. One specific thing I remember about this, is how many times I heard girls say "Don't tag me in that picture! I look horrible!" or "Take that picture down! I look so bad!". I heard this everywhere, and I saw some of my own friend's remove their tags in my pictures because they didn't like the way that they looked.
Here is the reason why we should support the selfie: people take these pictures of themselves, and they like it enough to post in online. Somewhere down the path of selfie-taking, a girl or guy will look at their pictures, and pick one where they feel attractive. They post it online because they feel confident about the way that they look. Girls feel beautiful enough to show the cyber-world their picture. Guys feel handsome enough to show people what he looked like that day. Selfies are forcing us to look at ourselves, and admit that we are GOOD ENOUGH. They are forcing us to stare at our face, and believe that we are beautiful or handsome. While I may consider myself "behind the times", I'm not naive to what goes on in the selfie process. There are most likely 20 other pictures that have been deleted, but the important thing is that there is one good picture that the person likes. I also know that there are such things are "filters", which are different effects you can add to a picture (black and white, sepia, color darkening, etc.) that may enhance the way you look. Who cares if someone makes themselves black and white? The idea is that they are enjoying how they look and they want others to see it. That is MAJOR! I love selfies because of this.
I also understand that there are some people who may "abuse" the selfie game. I understand that there are some people who post selfies every single day, and viewers may be annoyed with that. I challenged myself to say one positive comment, or more, about each selfie I see-and I challenge you to do the same. We should be empowering one another, and building each other up. You make think selfies are dumb. You might even hate them. Once I realized the beauty behind each selfie, I changed my thought process too. If I can help one person believe that they are beautiful, you bet that I'm going to like their selfie.
*Selfie is named Word of 2013- http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/press-releases/oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year-2013/
**Selfie statistics- http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/selfie-statistics-2014_b55825
***Dosomething.org body image statistics- https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-body-image
I challenge everyone reading this to post a selfie this week-believe you are enough, because you ARE enough.
In Him forever & always,
