Take the selfies down a notch … or three

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we have entered the age of the selfie. From trends like “selfie Sunday” to Snapchat, everywhere you turn people are taking a picture of themselves. I find this incredibly annoying; perhaps even more annoying than sayings like “YOLO” or “swag,” if that’s even possible.

I suppose a selfie every once in a while isn’t the end of the world, and I understand the reason behind some Snapchat selfies, but the overall concept of the selfie is entirely narcissistic. You take a picture of yourself because you think you look extraordinarily good, and you post it on a social media site to show everyone else how good you think you look. Some say, “If you got it, flaunt it,” and argue that selfies signify confidence. But, to be completely honest, most people don’t “got it,” and in my opinion, the only thing a selfie represents is shallowness and vanity.

I find it so rude and obnoxious when I’m trying to talk to a friend, but they aren’t listening because they’re too busy taking selfies. Even President Obama is guilty of taking part in this ridiculous trend, and at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service nonetheless. I find it pretty inappropriate that at a service intended to honor one of the greatest leaders of all time, our President was distracted with taking a picture of himself. It’s become a sort of obsession in our society; in fact, studies have shown that taking an excessive number of selfies can legitimately cause narcissism and addiction. People spend so much time and effort taking pictures of themselves, that it’s actually affected their mental health. That’s sad.

And as if your average selfie participant isn’t bad enough, there are those who take selfies to the extreme by posting a picture of themselves almost every day. Why someone would feel compelled to do that is beyond me. You look the same today as you did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Unless your appearance has drastically changed since the last time you posted a picture of yourself, no one wants to see another selfie. It’s unfortunate that some people’s main source of confidence comes from the number of likes they get on a picture.

But, of all the irritating things associated with the selfie trend, there is one in particular that definitely takes the cake. I absolutely cannot stand it when someone puts a picture of themselves on Instagram or Facebook, and captions it with something like, “Eww, I look so gross today.” Obviously you don’t think you look bad, or you wouldn’t have taken a picture of yourself and shared it with the world. You know as well as everyone else that it’s a perfectly good picture; you just want people to comment and disagree with you and say how beautiful you are. The lengths at which some people will go to get attention truly astounds me.

There are so many other ways to feel good about yourself that don’t involve taking a thousand pictures of your face. If you have time to take that many selfies, your life must be pretty lame — go out with your friends instead. I think that the feeling of surrounding yourself with good people and making real memories is much more fulfilling than the shallow, short lived high you get from a “like.”

I seriously hope this fad goes away soon. I really do enjoy social media sites like Instagram; it’s nice to be able to keep up with old friends who I don’t get to see very often since we’ve dispersed to different colleges. But, when every other picture is a selfie of someone, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of social media. You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve unfollowed because of their ludicrous number of selfies. So the next time you think about putting up a selfie, ask yourself if it’s really necessary. If not, spare everyone the inconvenience of taking up unnecessary space on their news feed, and don’t post it.

Allie Woeber would love to be on social media without having to see everyone’s selfies. Feedback can be sent to letters@collegian.com.

In Brief:

The selfie trend is vain, narcissistic and very annoying

It’s not healthy to take that many pictures of yourself, and there are so many other better things you can be doing with your time

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