Don’t Be A “Mean Girl”: Stop Selfie-Shaming!

Don’t you just HATE it when people take pictures??? OF THEMSELVES?????

Then you probably have issues you should deal with in a more constructive manner than attempting to pressure others into ceasing this behavior that you shouldn’t be letting affect you.

You all are only recently experiencing this as the ubiquity (that means something that be erry’where) of high quality cameras on mobile devices but I have experienced it my entire adult life as I’ve been self-photographing since kindergarden. But if you’ve ever taken a picture of yourself, you know what I’m talking about. The act is a subject of scorn and ridicule. and for no good reason.

I’d like to say there was a classy reason behind selfie-shaming. Something like, that perhaps it stems from the long standing tradition of a photographer being exclusively *behind* their camera and there being something inherently immature and self-servingly opportunistic and classless about violating that standard to gobble up the spotlight for oneself.

But nope. It’s really just a bunch of Basic Bitches tryin to tear y’all down.

Through about 2000-2010, the snide comments would come from the act of frequently pointing my video camera back at myself for commentary and reaction. Not always the first or second time, but after several witnesses the same type of person would consistently have something passive/aggressive to say about the action.

Since then, as everyone with a modern phone began having an image-capture device on their person at all time, the practice was more common. Before this era, there was the “mirror pic” which still exists in abundance but before large screen devices with front facing cameras, was the exclusive method of taking a picture of yourself. The practice was almost exclusively pure-vanity, with no other purpose for taking the picture other than the subject/photographer thinking they looked good at that moment and wanted to capture that goodness on digital-film and did so by finding the nearest reflective device in order to do so.

Sounds simple, but there are sociological consequences to such an action. Mainly, the obsession that the weak minded have with “equality”. The weak are faced with their weakness constantly and this makes them bitter to various degrees, depending on the levels of which they embrace or healthfully process such reactions. But this feeling of inadequacy often manifests itself in a Leftist urge to suppress and control those at the perceived top of the scale instead since they have perceived themselves to be stuck or otherwise incapable under the Rightist philosophy of merely being given the chance to lift themselves up to levels joining those higher areas of the scale. So in other words: Instead of working on themselves, building confidence and becoming a person they would be proud of – they instead seek to cut the confident upper classes down to their level as a way of making themselves feel better about their condition.

All it is is that scene from Mean Girls where Lohan is given the curveball of being told she looks pretty and she falls into the trap by saying “thank you”, which means, according to the social-manipulators, that she thinks she is pretty and that the compliment was acknowledging that observation. WRONG, according to the Plastics… Everyone is UGLY and must FEEL ugly at all times. Compliments are charity to make an ugly person feel less ugly and must be treated as such or else that person must be made to feel as ugly as everyone else feels so there is not a power-imbalance of confidence.

It’s a scam that must be fought against.

Sometimes people want a picture of themselves. Sometimes they want 900. Sometimes there is no other person around to take said 900 pictures of oneself and they must be both photographer and subject. This is not a problem for you if you are strong.

Selfie-shaming is a battle on the wrong side of morality. It is a fight for group-think as its very premise relies on enforcement of a persons self-worth being defined by those around them instead of independently.

Do not engage in selfie-shaming. Do not stand idly by while others engage in selfie-shaming. Make this world a better place and stand up for you and everyone else’s right to capture images of themselves at any time (as long as its not endangering the safety of oneself or others) and for any reason.

Selfies are a wonderful thing and should be embraced and appreciated.
Not mocked and shunned.

Update: this post originally used different phrases to refer to “selfies” a trendy term I didn’t like at the time of its writing but have since grown to accept. It has been updated to reflect the times.

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