From New York Post, November 11, 2017, by Jennifer Wright:
“There’s a fairly common refrain in these pieces that selfie takers are “narcissistic,” despite the fact that a 2017 study from Brigham Young University indicated that’s not generally true. As Alicia Eler points out in her new book “Selfie Generation” (Skyhorse Publishing), “Generally, it’s men telling women that they are narcissists for selfie-ing.” She further remarks that “young women are simultaneously told that their self-worth depends on their appearance, but they are referred to as ‘vain’ and ‘narcissistic’ if they post selfies, which are all about appearance.”
When society is constantly telling women to make their faces look pretty with lotions, makeup and skin-care regimens, it shouldn’t be shocking to anyone that women want to show off their faces when they feel they look pretty.
It’s also far from a new phenomenon. After all, there’s never been an era where attractive female faces haven’t been one of society’s favorite things to look at. That’s true whether you’re considering the Mona Lisa in the 1500s or a picture of Cindy Crawford in the 1990s.
The only difference is that those images used to benefit (typically) the male artists or photographers capturing them. Women were supposed to be looked at but not in control of their own image or all the profits that came with it. Today, Richard Avedon is more famous than most of the models he shot. Leonardo da Vinci’s name is better known than Lisa del Giocondo’s (the supposed model for the Mona Lisa.) Female models might achieve a measure of fame in their own era, but it’s the people capturing their images who are remembered.
Selfie culture subverts that traditional arrangement.
In any other era, Kim Kardashian, whom Eler calls “the embodiment of the selfie” would likely be a model. Her image would be making a lot of money for a company like Revlon. Perhaps it would also be making a photographer famous. Instead, as Eler states, she’s found a way to “create and commodify her own image.”
