Making Connections:
In chapter three, Rettberg describes a few ways that we take and display selfies. She also goes on to compare reactions to the selfie displays.
Ahree Lee and Noah Kalina were two of the first individuals to have made time lapse videos with their daily selfies. Lee was a graphical art student when she had taken a daily picture of herself for three years. She posted a time lapse video of the pictures in August of 2006 on YouTube. Two weeks later, Kalina posted a similar video of the daily pictures he had taken over 6 years. Both videos were very popular, with over 800,000 hits each in less than a week. But, the reactions to the videos were very different.
Looking at the comments on the two videos, it could be a matter of race or gender. The United States has gotten much better in these two areas, but we have a long way to go. President Donald Trump has made several comments that show this. In his presidential campaign he proposed a wall at the Mexican border and the mass deportation of immigrants. In more recent times he has been using the name “Pocahontas” in a derogatory fashion to refer to Senator Elizabeth Warren.
These types of comments feelings are not limited to the President though. Racial and gender bias have been well documented in our history.
Summary:
While taking selfies with smartphones and posting them on the many social media outlets may seem relatively new, it’s not. In chapter three of Rettberg’s “Seeing Ourselves Through Technology” we find out a bit of the history of the selfie.
There have been many individuals who have used selfies as a way to make art or to document their lives. Suzanne Szucs took photos of herself every day for 15 years, using a Polaroid camera. She has displayed those photos in art galleries, and exhibits, which may have influenced the creators of Instagram. Ahree Lee and Noah Kalina were pioneers of the time lapse videos that can bee seen on YouTube.
The pictures we use on our social media may not always be a selfie but, it could give hints into the person’s personality. Whether we post a picture of our nation’s flag or we use a drawing we made it is one of the ways we represent ourselves.
Automatic portraits have been around for many decades. Photo booths were patented in 1925 and allowed for the easy taking of your own pictures. The booths allowed one to test out several facial expressions and get instant feedback on how it looks. This process has been replaced with our digital cameras, smartphones and selfie sticks.
Cranial Notations 