I have to ask though...are they talking about selfies taken by preteens and teenagers and young adults? Where they are scantily clas or looking like a slob (there are both versions), where they are lips pursed in the most awful duck face ever, with so much eye liner and eye shadow that it looks like someone socked them in both eyes before they rolled out of bed. Personally, I find THOSE selfies annoying.
Usually because the person is standing in their bathroom posing for what...the toilet? They don't pay attention to what is around them and usually you see...a messy bathroom. Then they post that online. I mean, really? We've all seen the photos that have 'floated' online that have made us laugh hysterically of the girls that have taken bathroom selfies and you see a floater in the toilet, or over flower bathroom trash can, or their friend/sister whatever, actually sitting on the toilet going about their business while their friend snaps a selfie in the mirror apparently not realizing they got their friend in the background. The out of focus, fuzzy, poorly lit photos that are uploaded by the 100's (possibly 1000's?) to Facebook, and Twitter and Instagram and Flickr EVERY single day.
Yeh. Those. Are those the ones they are talking about?
OR are they talking about the bored mom stuck running errands with her kids and she is JUST trying to keep the kids occupied and she didn't bring anything for the car because you weren't supposed to be out THAT long (your husband said running into this store would ONLY take 5min, and yet here you sit 20min later in a van with 3 squirmy irritated annoyed children who are "booooored" and want daddy to "hurry it up").
You frantically dig through your purse trying to find SOMETHING that'll keep them occupied. Your daughter is at the end of her rope and is getting anxious and her sensory issues are starting to kick in which means...singing along with the radio to entertain the kids (going full on rock star by the way), is out of the question because no matter how quiet the radio it is, she still says it "hurts her" in the back seat. SO no music. That's out.
They get excited as you bust out your little silver, sleek pocket camera you keep tossed into your purse for those moments you are NOT lugging your nice camera around. They know what that camera means!
They get to pass it around back and forth taking pictures, and that Mommy is going to take pictures of them making silly faces. Keeps them busy for the next 10minutes so that's a plus.
We have a mirror in the front of the van that faces directly towards the kids in the back seat so the driver and passenger can always see what they are doing back there. I was thrilled when we discovered the van had one of these built in! Similar to those ones you can buy at the stores in the baby aisle, only this one was pre built into the van. We spent a good while making silly faces and taking pictures in that mirror. Too bad you can't make any of them out, because it's a "cheap" mirror everything is all slightly out of focus. Doesn't mean it wasn't fun though, and it kept them occupied!
That's not mental illness (well...I guess that depends on your opinion?) I see it as DESPERATION, PANIC, creativity, self preservation even.
How about when you are that mom that practically lives in her PJ's (which is NOT something you used to ever do before kids), and you forget what you look like when you ACTALLY wear jeans and a shirt that ISN'T covered in random stains brought on by being a mom. When you forget what your hair looks like when it's fixed properly, when you have almost forgotten how to apply make up without looking like Ronald McDonald.
Is it ok to take a selfie when you FINALLY get that rare opportunity to strut your stuff like no one is watching? You finally get the chance to wear something a little cuter and more adult and apply more make up than just a splat of lip gloss? If you don't take a quick selfie, chances are no one will believe you actually got the chance TO dress nice, they'll think you made it up, or you will think you dreamed it happened.
You need photographic evidence.
When is there ever someone taller than your knees (ok mine are all at least as tall as my waist now) around to snap a photo for you? If they do, it's blurry or they chop off your head or there is a finger or smudgy print in the way. SO you might as well do it your self, MINUS the duck lips ladies, PLEASE!
Or there are just times when you are on vacation or on a trip and by golly you just don't feel like carrying a tripod or a professional photographer with you so you do what you gotta do and take that camera (or cell phone) and turn that sucker around and just smile pretty!
If Mom's don't take selfies with their kids....chances are they will have VERY few photos with their Mom (or dad). I WISH my mother would have taken selfies with me when I was little. I don't have that many photos with her. Even a silly goofy photo would be better than nothing.
So I think it all is a matter of opinion on the whole "taking selfies = you have a mental disorder"
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| Selfie taken, just because I felt half way nice this particular day, and I was sporting my new earrings that I looooove. |
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| My FEIRCE face, as we hit the road on our family vacation last year. I had just been informed I was going to get to do 95% of the driving to Nebraska to the Henry Doorly Zoo (that's an 8 hour drive...took us about 10...with 4 kids ages 1 year up to 5 years...you make a LOT of unexpected stops!!) |
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| Stretching our legs at one of our stops. If I didn't get selfies with my husband we'd have no pictures of us together! |
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| Because sometimes you just have to stop and reflect.... |
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| Selfies with friends are always fun, especially when you are a couple of moms finally getting out of the house to do something, and you are helping a good cause! In this case we were attending a fund raiser for the local animal shelter in our area that I volunteer for. |
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Yay I actually got to dress nice! HA! I was so excited to be out and about and attending the fundraiser. Selfie with a best friend you only get to see ONCE a year, totally acceptable.  Selfie with another bestie, who like you knows what it's like to "lose" a portion of yourself in parenting. Sometimes it's just good to get back to "you" for a minute. Dress up, go hang out, be silly together! Sometimes, you just need it.  Selfies in the middle of a snow storm with your other bestie? Well of COURSE! Gives you something to talk about for years to come. "You remember that time we walked through the blizzard together just so you could go take pictures? We were both so covered in snow and FREEZING" Why yes, yes I do remember, I even have a picture of us that shows how covered in snow we were. |
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| If I didn't take selfies I'd have no photos of the fun my husband and I had before and after we got married, the times we hung out together and just had a great time. This has always been one of my favorite photos. |
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| If there were no selfies my kids would have zero to just a few photos of their mom and dad before they had kids. |
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| Aw yes....my old "college" selfies (ok so this was like a few months before my husband and I got married). Infact, in this photo I was showing off my new hair cut LOL |
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| Again, if it weren't for cheesey and grainey web cam photos of my (not quite husband at the time) then we'd have no photos together! |
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| Another pre child selfie (again I don't think my husband and I were married yet)
I think it would be easy for some people to become "addicted" to selfie pics. Now days with the help of the internet it is far too easy for people to get caught up into "trends". Thank you Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. It becomes a crowd mentality, we have to do whatever else is doing to stay "cool and hip".
Good thing I've never really cared about being "cool and hip". I have put more stock in being me than keeping up with anyone else. A few selfies here and there aren't going to hurt anything, they don't mean you are mentally ill. They are a good way to look back over the years and see how you changed. A way for your family to look back and see how much you changed over the years. A way to see how much fun you had as you lived your life. Did you really "LIVE" your life? If you are taking selfies in front of a bathroom mirror EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Then you aren't really "LIVING", you are stuck behind that bathroom mirror, stuck on yourself. Move beyond that. Move away from that. If you are going to take a selfie, at least make it interesting. Make it tell a story. You can still be the main character of your story, but give it other character too. Let there be a plot, let there be more than one character, make it a story worth telling.
I remember back when I first started blogging back in 2003. No one at that time really knew what blogging was it was relatively new. It was likened to journaling. I loved having a written journal my entire life. I lived to write I always had a pen or pencil in hand scribbling away writing something, anything. When I went away to college and stumbled across blogging....well, it seemed like a real no brainer.
There were a few people here and there picking it up but it wasn't really 'catching'. Now days? EVERYONE has a blog for everything. If you don't have a blog it's surprising. There are good blogs, bad blogs....boring blogs (that's probably where mine falls). Blogs for fashion, food and recipe blogs, travel ones too, frugality, coupons, natural living, babies, cloth diapers, blogs following family illness, blogs about celebrities, parenting blogs, awareness blogs, pet blogs....you name it there is a blog for it. If you have an interest in it...you can blog about it.
Selfies are not a new concept, not by any means. However it is something that kind of took off like wild fire into popularity. Launched itself into the world wide web of wonder.
Cell phones are a device that has really made selfies become popular. You can use that cell phone to quickly snap a photo and then instantly upload it to places like Instagram and Twitter and Facebook.
We choose to be a cell phone free family and MOST of the time it's a good thing. There have been a few times I've been like "Oh crud..if I had a cell phone I wouldn't be stuck wondering how I'm going to call so and so at this moment in time..." We like just having a home phone. Keeps it simple. No distracting "stuff" while I'm out with my family. I can focus on what they are doing. The most "tech" I use when out with my family is my camera! A REAL camera no camera phone, just a simple camera that does no thing else other than take photos. No internet, no instantly uploading photos, no commenting or tagging right away. Just photos. Of that moment. With my family.
I can post them later after my kids go to bed. I can comment and tag later. I can blog about stuff later. It works for my family anyway.
Plus it's one less bill! HA!
There's been a campaign (so to speak) for breast cancer awareness. Asking people to take no make up selfies. Honestly, don't really see the connection between a no make up self and breast cancer, but ok. It would make more sense to take a picture of yourself wearing no bra (I don't mean topless, I just mean a photo of you not wearing a bra under your shirt). I mean, after that is more connected to breast cancer than your face. Besides, a lot of women don't wear make up anyway! A no make up selfie wouldn't work for me, I'm already without make up the vast majority of the time anyway! It's a rare occasion when I actually get to put it on.
I like what Hot Mess Mom over on Facebook did. She started the "Underboobpalooza" and turned it into an awesome way to raise money for breast cancer. Go on over to her Facebook page by click her name, and see exactly what Underboobpalooza was. I didn't participate, but it was still hilarious, awesome, and at least it was a breast cancer fundraiser that ACTUALLY involved the usage of your boobs! It ended up raising $10,000 in 7 days, not too shabby eh? I say kudos to her!
I know I'm not a huge fan generally of all things "pink" and breast cancer, but I loved her approach and it wasn't all "pink ribbon this and pink ribbon that and BLAH BLAH BLAH" she didn't think the no make up selfie made much sense either. Sometimes, you have to think OUTSIDE the box.
Besides, by now...if you haven't heard about breast cancer, you must have been living under a ROCK or in the middle of the Amazon forest., or on Mars. What they NEED to be doing, instead of posting no make up selfies, is posting facts. Statistics. How breast cancer relates to YOU. We all know about the once a month self breast exam (if you don't seriously you need to check it out). We all know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (and that they start their "awareness" campaign apparently in March and rail road any other cause that may be in April, May, June, July, August, September (Think Childhood Cancer 'GO GOLD' gets squashed by "GO PINK" every SINGLE year), and it goes on and on. Hence, why I'm anti pink wash. I always say starting in AT LEAST August I get a severe case of "pink eye" that lasts until at least the end of November. Ugh. (However, that's a WHOLE different blog entirely so forgive my rabbit trail. There seem to be only 2 causes in this world worthy of talking about Autism, and Breast Cancer, anything else and you don't hear much about it, but it's ok because I DO support Autism 100% and I DO support breast cancer just in my OWN way, there are certain organizations I do NOT support for it)! Again, that's a whoooole different blog.
SO if you are going to "selfie" don't do it excessively. You don't need 50 albums full of 300 photos of you standing in front of your bathroom mirror. That is when people might start to accuse you of having a "mental illness".
Now say if you were taking a selfie while jumping out of a plane....naaaaah there's nothing crazy about that, that's just having an adventure! Erm, just remember your parachute, k? Don't be so busy taking your selfie you forget to pull your parachute string either!
Also probably not a good idea to take a selfie in the middle of a busy high way....how about if you are going to get out there and have an adventure we take safe, yet exciting selfies, k? Safety is always important.
Although, I think the most dangerous place to take a selfie would be in the bathroom, don't they say most accidents and injuries happen in the bathroom? I guess that could be pretty adventurous!
Mae
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