The Selfie Gene
There is something about the selfie that bothers me — it is not narcissism because whatever we do bears a trace of narcissism anyway.
by Sumana Roy
It might soon become difficult to come across a person who has not taken a selfie at least once in his life. (It was the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2013: “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”.) We are aware of the genre, running into it as we do on social media all the time.
There is something about the selfie that bothers me — it is not narcissism because whatever we do bears a trace of narcissism anyway. It is the sameness of expressions and angles (how much can one do with a camera in one hand?) and the gross privileging of the face over other parts of the human body.
Why can’t these paintings by Rajib Chowdhury classify as selfies? They are together titled ‘Portrait’, a brilliant name.
Or why doesn’t one’s X-ray report qualify as one’s selfie?
Recently, Solidry, a 3-D printing store in India, decided to print 3-D ‘dolls’ of children. You take your child to the Solidry booth in a mall or store, the staff takes photos from a variety of angles, you wait for a little while and lo, a doll in the exact likeness of your child is in your hands. If the company’s policy allows adults to have toy replicas of themselves, a day might not be far off when you have a cupboard or at least a shelf of dolls in your likeness, with a variety of hairstyles and attires worn over a period of time. Who would need Barbie then? Or a photo album?
My favourite fantasy would be to reduce the soldiers of warring countries into 3-D toys and see battles disappear.
What would you do with your ‘doll’?