Since 2011, when selfies were first uploaded on social media, it has become a quickly rising trend. The selfie trend has had big implications all around the world, particularly since 2013. So what are the reasons for the selfies spread all over the world?
The desire to attract attention and narcissism are said to be the driving forces for the selfies popularity. However, recent research suggests that reducing this situation entirely to narcissism is incorrect. People use selfies to share particularly joyous and entertaining moments of their lives. In this way, they hope to convey to others that their lives are cheerful and enjoyable.
As we learned in class, selfies aren't just for capturing our fun and happy moments. It can also be used to convey political themes. The Istanbul Convention, which we discussed in class, is an example of this, in which people swap black-and-white selfie images in order to keep the contract alive. This demonstrates how a selfie may be used to send a political message.
The world is a stage, according to Erving Goffman, and we argue that we are playing roles here with the masks. We see people taking on roles that are not their own in selfies. As we can see from this, people use social media to display themselves in a variety of ways, with selfies being a prime example.