Selfies. It’s 2015, they’re in the dictionary and they’re not going anywhere. Show me yo’ duckface. Selfies get a lot of stick and are synonymous with narcissistic internet teenagers – I say lighten up! Not a new phenomenon, I distinctly remember craning a nine-year-old wrist around to try and take pictures of ourselves on one of those little polaroids that made your photos into stickers (my friend Chloe had one, tiny little cool kid).
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, aka the front camera, there’s no need for this kind of contortion. IMHO we should make selfies a shining salute to independence. ‘Want me to take a picture of you?’ ‘NO THANKS NO HELP REQUIRED. I GOT THIS.’
On the other hand there’s such a thing as ‘taking-it-too-far’. I was pretty horrified to read this week that one of the men who was killed when hit by lightning walking the Brecon Beacons was, apparently, most likely struck in the storm because he was carrying a selfie stick. This prompted further office conversation about the popular little poles and from what I can gather they’re at least partly responsible for quite a few deaths. Think people stepping backwards into the road and that sort of thing. Major sad face.
Aside from physical accidents, for some people, selfies have an extreme impact on their mental health and their relationships. Earlier this week, 23-year-old Charlotte Michaels told The Sun that her obsession with taking selfies had become a way of life – and is the reason she’s single. As in, she’s so into taking, retaking, editing and uploading that boyfriends cannot cope.
‘My selfies come first, and if these men can’t handle that, it’s their problem. There isn’t room in my life for a relationship and selfies.’ Uh huh.
Charlotte’s views might be extreme but selfie-taking is becoming an art form. Rare is the event that some stunner’s self-portrait sees the light of day (social media) without a slew of rejects being left languishing in the camera roll.
Just what’s the deal? Saunter past the mirror, yep I can work with this, flip the camera aaaaand – why the hell does my face look so WEIRD? Do I look like this all the time? How is my whole face suddenly wonky?!
Fear not selfie-snappers, turns out there’s a proper explanation and it’s called The Exposure Effect. Basically, us little humans tend to be comfortable with what we’re used to. This can be applied to all sorts of day-to-day stuff, like why we choose the clothes we do, but also pops up to make us feel better when our selfies betray us.
The key word is ‘exposure’. You’ve been looking at your face for your whole life – but in the mirror. All the time you spend gazing at yourself, whether it’s brushing your teeth, plucking your eyebrows, or just checking whether the back of your spoon is dirty, gets added up to a picture of yourself looking ‘normal’. When you suddenly get to see your face flipped around, your brain doesn’t quite know what to do – it’s definitely your face but just a bit… just not quite right. Generally, we interpret the differences as flaws or ugliness.
I’ve encountered a few people who like to take their selfies in Snapchat because they’re ‘more flattering’ – really this is because unlike usual cameras, Snapchat sneakily flips the images so you see yourself as you do in the mirror, as you’re most accustomed to.
Brilliantly, however, (and I’m getting to the comforting bit), everyone else around you has been exposed to your face, too. Your friends and family and the fit one who works in the coffee shop round the corner have been seeing you from that flipped point of view the whole time! That’s what they see as normal – they’d probably have the same reaction if they saw your face as you do in the mirror.
In summary, while you might think a picture of you looks properly weird, they think you look as marvellous as ever. Hurrah!
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Follow Gemma on Twitter @GemmaAnnStyles
Photographed by Matilda Hill-Jenkins
With thanks to AirBnb
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.