The Selfie Post

“But first, let me take a selfie!”

Taken when my son was 5 months old, I took this selfie to send to my wife. Laying on the floor in his room, he was having fun, watching something on my phone. I swapped over to take a picture of us while my wife was out. She was quite happy to receive the picture.

With both of us smiling and laying on the floor, this was a photo of opportunity, taken for no other reason than for pure enjoyment. No technical filters were used. There was, however, a cultural filter used. This is a pretty standard, father and child, selfie that has probably been taken by thousands of dads. My self-representation in this picture is one of joy and fatherly love.

My first selfie with my daughter, this was taken within the first few hours of her life. I basically took this to document her day of birth.

I’m making a kissing face because I love her already. There were no technical filters used. Here, again, is a very standard cultural picture.

A true selfie, this was taken while I was in the Army, while on a training exercise. I had been gone for several days and I sent this as a quick “Hello!” to my family, at home.

My hair is a mess, though with the early hour it was taken, I didn’t really care. No camera filters were used. I am smiling goofily to show that I’m still in good humor, even after being away from home for several days.

This is a selfie I took to use as a profile picture.  Rettberg states, “We often use photographs taken of us by other people for our profile pictures, so they are not always selfies, but a profile picture is a visual expression of identity, and our choice of profile photos is clearly a form of visual self-representation.” (40) While this particular picture is a selfie, she hit the nail on the head. I used this photo for a LinkedIn profile picture. It’s a simple picture taken straight-on and of my shoulders up, I’m not making a strange face or trying to be funny. I tried not to get a busy background. All of these things are supposed to convey a professional appearance, for a professional networking site.

Nearly every selfie I take is for a small audience of friends or family. The selfies are conversational and not generally planned. They show a lot of humor, goofiness, and smiles. I like to change my facial expressions often, creating a bit of fun or adding my personality. I also find that I am more likely to take a selfie with other people in the frame, than I am to take one of just myself.

I believe that someone, who doesn’t know me, would think I was younger than I actually am. I like to have fun in my pictures, and don’t usually show my more serious side. My self-representations are often comical or goofy. I like to think that I’m fun to be around and feel that I do a decent job of conveying that online or with selfies. However, I rarely take selfies.

I think that a large part of this can be attributed to my lack of social media use. My lack of a social media presence is both a personal choice and a learned discipline. While I was on active duty we received training annually about operations security, and how what we post can be used against us. In an article on the Wall Street Journal’s website, they discuss how your pictures can be used for this purpose. “Islamic State’s efforts to advertise and recruit online have already provided valuable intelligence for the U.S. In 2015 the U.S. Air Force announced it had identified and bombed an Islamic State command center after a fighter posted a selfie from it. U.S. assets have been targeted with the help of social media for more than a decade. In 2007, several soldiers took geotagged photos of a newly arrived fleet of Apache helicopters in Iraq. Insurgents found the posts—and the helicopters, four of which they destroyed in a mortar attack.” (Allen and Herber).

Selfies have a lot of power. They can be tools that can change how we represent ourselves. They can remove so of our vulnerabilities. They can even be used to create conversation. For these reasons, and many more, selfies are here to stay.