nowadays all facebook is is articles, not necessarily news articles but 'newsworthy' apparently to people in their mid-20s; buzzfeed, huffington post & the like. most i skip by, but my friend sara posted this one about a young girl who runs a tumblr (which between blogs, tumblrs, websites - everyone's got something) like most people, she has posted a selfie or several & would think nothing of it, until she started getting cruel anonymous comments of hate from people she has never, and will never know. she decided to turn what is a completely negative act into an art project screen capping these comments & putting them over her 'selfies'.
this of course is nothing new on the internet. anonymous comments are something that any blogger, tumblr, etc deals with, more often times than not, on a regular basis. this is what happens when you put yourself out there, there are people who troll the internet and spread hate. why? i will never know. there are entire websites out there dedicated to bullying! it's disgusting. one website in particular is dedicated to starting forums about bloggers & putting their lives down...because blogging is now a full time job, that means that someone can make a website to bash them. that makes sense right? is it revolving around jealousy? is it that they actually physically hate these people (that they've never met) SO much that they NEED to spread negativity? it makes me feel sick to my stomach that someones entire life revolves around spreading hate...and that there are thousands of people like this & websites like this for that matter, who then visit this website and read or comment or choose to participate & fuel this awful website. and this is just one website...amongst what i'm sure is thousands of websites just like that one. not to mention the millions & millions of comments that are left for people to read every.single.day on their own website (that no one asked this commenter to visit may i remind you) ...why is this a thing?
all of that aside (it could be a blog post on it's own) i started to think about the 'selfie' everyone does it...ok, not everyone, but those that do...why do we selfie? i've heard some people say they do it to document things; a new haircut (hello!) an outfit they really like, a particularly good day, etc. some people think that people post pictures of themselves to get 'likes' to feel worthwhile due to the amount of people who like their photo or comment on their photo. they need reassurance of how they look, they are asking people to tell them that they're pretty. is it for validation that people take selfies or are we looking too far into this and people do it just because it's what people do. instagram has created this whole other world, it's crazy insane actually. every time i visit the 'explore' page it basically brings up several teenaged kids who have gotten 'instagram famous' just from posting photographs of themselves. again, another blog post entirely, but it's weird don't you think? i guess i'll never understand that part as i'm not 13 but it's bizarre that these kids have thousands of followers and they're essentially nobodies (in the sense that they aren't famous or in the public eye). their heads are probably larger than the moon after receiving thousands of comments on one photograph telling them how hot they are or how 'omg i'm so in love with you' & do you think this is a bad thing? i'd be curious to talk to these kids & see if they're posting to validate something, or if they feel like they're missing something in their 'real life' and therefore need to have this online presence. or maybe they do it because it's what their friends do? the fact that they have an iPhone at this age is beyond me, but that's the way of the future right?
so back to the selfie. why do we selfie? have you ever really thought about it...or is it just something you do? do you feel narcissistic when you do it? are you looking to validate confidence? another conversation that came up in sara's post about this on facebook, asked if people would still take a selfie if all comments & likes were disabled?
i feel like i could write a million more things on this topic. selfies, bullying, self love, etc...but i'll leave it with you guys. please comment. i want to hear what you think on this. part of me wishes i was still in school and could write some sort of thesis paper on this...so many thoughts!!
tell me what you think! if it triggers a blog post for you, link me in the comments.
& because this post wouldn't be complete without a selfie...
now tell me how pretty i am in the comments ;) lol
