THE SELFIE CRAZE!

Our latest obsession!

I’m sure all you Facebookers, Twitterati and Instagramers would know which newly coined word was declared as the Oxford Word of the Year for 2013 as social media was literally flooded by the news. The word and world of ‘Selfies’ have taken over Gen Y by storm and not even our parents’ and grandparents’ generation are immune to it! Just flip out your phone and take a look at the WhatsApp/Viber profile pictures in your friends’ list. Aren’t a good number of them selfies? Wait. Even you might be sporting a selfie pic in it. You get my point! During the glittering Oscars ceremony in LA, California in early 2014, the host Ellen Degeneres took a star-studded selfie photobombed by many red-carpet celebrities (Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey..you name it!) and uploaded it which got so swiftly and rapidly re-tweeted across the globe that Twitterverse actually crashed for a few minutes due to heavy online traffic! It just goes to show the dominance this phenomenon has had in our daily lives.

For the uninitiated and unacquainted, a ‘Selfie’ is the Internet slang term for ‘Self-Portrait’  - a fast self-portrait usually taken at arm’s length (and in front of a mirror with a flash), clicked with a smartphone’s camera and immediately shared in social networks as an instant visual communication of where we are, what we’re doing, who we think we are, and who we think is watching. Selfies have changed aspects of social interaction, body language, body image, self-awareness, privacy, humor, irony and public behavior and sentiment. The advent of digital cameras and the ubiquitous mobile cameras can be considered as the main culprits for the epidemic. When I use the word epidemic, I use it with caution for I am not implicating that it is a disease per se but a certain degree of acquired malady of the mind is at hand here according to many ongoing and published research. In fact, a recent study published by a reputed University in the US created an uproar when it declared that the so-called Selfie Mania is but a different manifestation of Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Narcissism! 

Its no secret that the fairer sex are the ones obsessed with taking selfies. Not that guys are far behind though! Boys and guys showing flexed biceps, sculpted abs and sweaty gym sessions to sporting flashy rides and expensive gadgets have emerged in contrast to girls who usually click a million pictures of themselves in front of mirrors at the best possible vantage angles. Let’s have a closer look at this craze – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly! 

The Good: Well, for starters, people have turned more image-conscious. We groom ourselves better and tend to seize opportunities to click the best-looking and the most flattering image of ourselves. It’s a self-esteem booster according to some friends who claim that a good selfie pic makes them feel happy about their physical appearance and feel that the lengths they’ve gone to get that look (a new haircut perhaps!) finally paid off when they get that perfect selfie. Also, the appreciation we receive from our friends who ‘like’ and ‘comment’ on the picture stimulates us to take more and more selfies in future albeit with changes in pose, locale and look. A self-propagating self-love!

The Bad: Plenty to say here, I’m afraid. We spend an inordinate amount of time in front of mirrors or sifting through pictures in our phones’ gallery and editing them with a million apps till we are satisfied with the end result – a good looking portrait! Does it end there? Nope. Dissatisfaction often creeps in fuelled by the subconscious mental image of friends who have managed to click a far better selfie than us. Click-View-Edit-Upload. The vicious cycle goes on! A gross waste of productive time and energy for something so trivial! Alarmingly, many teens and adolescents who are less physically endowed than their good-looking friends end up having low self-esteem and depression at not being able to be on par with their peers in terms of looks. A disquieting trend whose tentacles have insinuated their way into our mainstream lives is the way cosmetic products and picture editing apps have started to become indispensable! Almost every beauty product shows an A-lister celebrity endorsing a particular product and clicking a gorgeous selfie (“Be seflie ready!” as one actor croons from the TV) as if the sole reason why they’re looking that delicious ain’t the hours spent in the dressing room but by the single use of that product. And we as faithful consumers lap it all up! *facepalm* Yet another worrisome habit that has spawned is the inopportune moments we seize to take a selfie and shout out to the world that I-was-there-when-it-happened. For example the ‘Funeral selfie’ that never went public – that of US President Barack Obama with British Prime Minister David Cameron  and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took a group selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in 2013; we saw only Roberto Schmidt’s photograph of them doing so and a visibly miffed looking Michelle Obama sitting two seats away turning her face against the indelicate gesture displayed by her husband and other leaders at the funeral of a great man. That act drew a lot of scathing criticism at the irreverence displayed by world’s top leaders and the opportunistic mindset that has taken over us. Another sound example would be the ‘Accident Selfie’ when a person poses in front of an accident scene and clicks a picture of himself in its backdrop. Seriously. WHAT are they trying to tell the world? That they’re so full of themselves and so ‘cool’ that they actually can’t deign to lend a helping hand to those in distress behind them? Ugh. 

The Ugly: The one that irks me the most personally. I like good selfies by people don’t get me wrong but there are just some poses that grates the nerves like anything. The most hated selfies of all according to popular vote is the ‘Pouting selfie’ nicknamed as the ‘Duckface’. Restricted to girls mostly they show selfies of girls making pouty face with their lips and other grotesque postures which they erroneously think are cute and adorable. Sorry to spill the beans kids but no one really wants to see anyone’s lips magnified and focused in a picture as soon as they log into their social networks unless they’re of stalkerish tendencies! The kiss-ready pose has been dubbed as the worst kind of selfies showcasing narcissism and true to human nature that’s the number one trending selfies among girls. Unfortunate! Guys are of no exception. The various sweaty ‘Work-out selfies’ from the gym showing pumped up biceps, the coveted 6-pack abdomen and monstrously large muscles are anything but appealing sometimes! But they just don’t get it, do they? 

Did I just discourage y’all (or myself) from taking selfies ever again? I hope not. Did I succeed in enlightening you to the growing narcissistic tendencies and at times disrespectful gestures involved in being absorbed in taking pictures of oneself? I sure hope so. Mission accomplished! All I’m concerned at this point in time is that our generation does not transform itself into an insensitive and self-absorbed young herd who would go to many lengths to get a picture of ourselves and drown our creativity and energies to accomplish a task so trivial and inconsequential in life when we can be devoting our time to Live! And not just appear to live via frozen pixels to showoff before others!

So until the next wave of change hits our mania-prone technology-reliant generation, signing off on this note with a hope that we all will hitherto not overindulge in a fad that can potentially change our psyche and not for the good. Oh and before you go, update your latest selfie or atleast take one if you haven’t. Might as well jump on the bandwagon. Just take care not to travel too far alone. Over and out!

I KNOW YOU USE THE ‘F’ WORD!

- An Insight into how your friend’s friend’s friend affects your Psyche, and much more!

Before you leapdive into the conclusions that your fired up Brain is churning forth the moment it saw the phrase ‘F word’, allow me to explain myself.  While I’m not denying that the title was a deliberate wordplay to grab attention (aren’t titles supposed to do that??), it just refers innocuously to Facebook and not the profanity I know you thought at first! And although the title sounds uncannily like the I Know What You Did Last Summer movie-series, it does not in anyway reflect what you’re about to come across in my write-up. If I’ve succeeded in arresting the page-flicking tendency of your fingers long enough to spark an iota of interest, read on...

 I do not intend to write about Facebook or Twitter and weigh their pros and cons. They are a much clichéd discussion topic now gathering rust. I merely would like to analyze what it is that attracts us to social networking sites so much and why Internet is a resource as vital to us as the air we breathe!

So onward to the million-dollar question: Why are we obsessed with Internet and Social Networking? Perhaps the easiest answer that springs to my mind is the oft-heard explanation that ‘Man is a Social Animal’.  True. Human beings are gregarious creatures. We tend to mingle and interact. And what better a platform than social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and Blogger and Hubs? Here one can add friends and share photos, tweet about what is happening around us, blog about our lives and argue our heads off regarding shared topics of interest. Now if things were this simple, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this piece…

Today, these sites are not merely places where you interact with people in your life (albeit for some, people they’ve never met also!). They are places where you live out your best Alter-Ego. Come on, we’ve all done it! No one ever puts up self-derogatory comments or photos (unless yes, they are pathologically depressed) and always tries to project one’s best facet to the public. (Big reason why one should always be wary of online relationships – whether it be love or friendships!)

So just think – How many times have you hunted your gallery of pictures and let out a frustrated sigh at not being able to find that perfect profile picture? How many times have you logged in minute after minute to check for new status updates or tweets from friends or the celebrities you idolize? Or to see how many ‘like’s and ‘comment’s your photo upload or status or share has garnered? (Hey I’m not judging. Been there, done that!)

The thing is, we’re all starved. Yes, starved for acknowledgement of our existence (stemming from the fear of going unnoticed), for acceptance as someone of worth and for praise. It has been said that Praise nearly equals Power in its aphrodisiac qualities! Except that here, the love it generates and tries to sustain is self-love a.k.a Narcissism. No wonder socialites and icons who used to be in the limelight can rarely thrive outside it! But I digress. Let’s move forward.

Our day-to-day lives are influenced to a very vast degree by online networking, whether you realize it or not! If you want me to exemplify, here goes:

·         Every time you go dress-shopping, you tend to buy branded attire even if it lasers a huge hole in your wallet – why? Because your photos in Facebook may showcase it, that’s why!

·         Before selecting a new mobile or car or home appliance, you mentally go over the popular gadgets that your friends sport – why? Because you want to buy something that equals or rivals theirs so that yours can become the talk of the town, that’s why!

·         You dislike a newly-released movie or book after seeing some downbeat reviews without even giving it your chance – why? Because you tend to value others opinion more than yours, that’s why!

·         You pretend to like a popular chartbuster or a new food fad even though you didn’t like it personally – why? Because your peer group is crazily tweeting about it and you don’t want to be not doing the same, that’s why!

·         You cast your vote for a candidate without bothering to check his/her credentials – why? Because you saw that their fanpage in Facebook or Twitter profile had more likes and followers, that’s why!

It is exactly on this kind of ‘Herd Mentality’ on which that social networks thrive. I’m not opining that it’s bad, neither am I saying its all-good. Just that, the individual assertion of views seems to be lacking in many a circumstance and it is a powerful influence on our perceptions of right and wrong and our opinions! It is innately hardwired in us biologically to mimic others (after all, we’re said to have descended from the Apes right?) And Darwin sure was right about his Survival of the Fittest theory. It is the opinion and the trends set by the ‘fittest’ (i.e. intellectually, socially and financially better placed) individuals that dominate and mould the perceptions of the gullible - who strive mimic them to fit into the Hot & Happening dance floor than remain as a Wallflower of the party of Life!

My dear readers, your well-intentioned writer is not asking you to forego any of the pleasures that social networking can bestow. All I’m asking is for you to stop and think and act rationally. Just because you saw while browsing that some of your friends have got a new BMW from his wife or recently acquired a Samsung Galaxy SIII (does that make him/her more human, like their ad says?) or went to exotic locales for holidaying or got a promotion, it does not mean that your life sucks (excuse the strong language – it is just to drive home the point)!

People tend to showcase only the most witty, joyful and bullet-pointed success versions of their lives. By making conscious or sub-conscious comparisons with their lives (in an apparently greener pasture!) you are making yourself vulnerable to a loss of self-esteem and fear of asserting your individual opinions dreading the contemptuous looks or remarks you might invite from your more highly-placed ‘friends’. Are they then your friends in anyway?

So after all that dire Freudian psychoanalysis of mine (Sigmund Freud, pardon me!), I really hope I’ve not deterred you from the social networking bandwagon! Trust me when I say that Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, LinkdIn, MySpace and the like are immense fun and a novel way of keeping in contact like never before! It has enabled me to keep in touch with all my friends right from kindergarten to college, most of my school teachers are there in Facebook, not to mention neighbours and family members who have settled in different continents altogether. Temporal and geographical boundaries blur and only their physical presence is wanting. Even my parents have joined up and revel in meeting up with their spread out family, long-lost classmates and batchmates of their erstwhile college life, plus their current colleagues and students!

My take-home messages? Simple.

·         Cease to compare your life with that of others. Do not judge a book by its cover and a person by their looks or online persona alone.

·         Preserve and nurture your self-esteem. Do not let it pale in comparison to the projected facades of others or their supposed accomplishments.

·         Be honest. Online and offline. It makes life a lot less complicated.

·         ‘Blood is thicker than water’ – Family always comes first, friends only next – whether real or virtual.

Cyberworld is here to stay. We use it to network, for our travel purposes, for research,  business transactions and for entertainment. It is sutured so securely into the fabric of our daily lives that there’s no escaping it. To be a good digital/real-life citizen, the best analogy I can come up with is to urge you to be like the goblin-crafted Sword of Gryffindor (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, remember?) – imbibe only that which strengthens you and be impervious to other detrimental influences! So what are you waiting for? Go log in!!