Selfies all started with Myspace. Remember when it was fashionable to turn the contrast up so high that no one could even see your nose? Now, Instagram and Snapchat have revolutionized the form and it’s safe to say the selfie is here to stay. Nowadays your nose is covered by an animal's face or freckles, but at least it hasn't disappeared. Kudos to Snapchat.
As selfies have grown, so have the people who take them. We’ve transformed from young girls to beautiful women. And, I think that selfies have played a bit of a roll in that transformation.
Walk with me on my selfie journey.
MYSPACE 101
My first official myspace profile picture. Round of applause for 7th grade me.
Let's move along to 8th grade. The sideways crop was intentional. It added a dramatic "I'm artsty and different" effect.
I think my 9th-grade selfie game was consistently paired with an AFI song.
High school got a little better I think? Right? Maybe... I never know what to do with my hands.
BAM this is me now.
Kidding.
Oh, here I am. I've evolved a little bit.
Back to the original point.
Think about this for a second. How much of our sense of self-comes from selfies? It’s likely that our idea of appearance rooted from the selfie. Even now, a lot of us turn to selfies to judge our blemishes and analyze our features. Hell, I'm guilty of that on a daily basis. In many ways, those endless snapping sessions are the only accurate reflections we have of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we place ourselves in a perfected version because we stand at the angle we know looks best, and might even try a couple expressions in the mirror to flatter some features, but, the reality is we don't wear our mirror face all day.
I don't know about you but my selfie face and my mirror fae run in the same circles but, you can be sure that, during a snap session, some pictures won’t be so polished. Those photos are where the real lessons lie. By clicking through, you can gain an accurate idea of how you look to the rest of the world.
Sometimes I'm psyched, other photos I think "Yikes."
But instead of looking at those photos in a negative light I think this could be looked at as an opportunity to help grow our self-esteem and become more beautiful.
The ability to change what you can
A poorly timed selfie can reveal a multitude of sins. Something as small as a spot staining on your teeth you never knew was there. Call Horizon Dental and rectify the issue. Or, maybe you realized that you look like a six-year-old when your ears are in photos. You can stop doing it, and ensure no one sees you in your child like form. Those are easy quick fixes if they really bother your outer appearance.
And accept what you can’t
You can’t change everything you discover about yourself. Your nose might be bigger than you like, or that strange dimple you have on your forehead may look a little more prominent. While you can’t easily alter these, you can grow accustomed to them. The more they appear in your selfies, the less they’ll bother you. Eventually, you may stop seeing them at all. More times than not, the only person who sees blemishes are you and no one else sees them until they are pointed out (typically by you).
A documented journey
Remember, too, that our generation documents our lives more than any before us. Once, photographs were few and far between, taken only during the holidays or family reunions. Now we have easy access to evidence of how our bodies have changed and evolved. At the click of a button, you can look at 14-year-old you. One more click, and there you are - twenty-one and gorgeous. If you ever doubt yourself, look at old selfies to see how far you’ve come, and remember how far you still have to go.
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