Selfie Article Response

Garrett Hollowell 

Photography 100 

7/8/18 

Eric Roman 

For most of the arguments posed in the article, I can kind of agree with the author.  However, there are specific parts of some of these arguments where the author and I diverge opinions.  For instance, on page 31, Maddox argues that part of the success of selfies comes from its use by "Others", people who fall outside of the able-bodied Christian heteropatriarchal category.  While this is clearly true since most people aren’t able-bodied straight white male Christians, some of the reasoning behind Maddox's argument seems like a stretch.  Maddox argues that the selfie is a way for Others to find self-achievement and a sense of control over their own lives.  To me this seems like quite a stretch into the importance of a selfie.  From my experience and asking friends who would be classified as Others, selfies have always just been little ways of appealing to our own narcissism.  Technically, even I'm considered an Other since I'm not Christian, yet I've never seen selfies as a source of control over my own life.  Then again, I am a straight white male so it's not like I've ever really been oppressed so it might be ignorant of me to say, but selfies really aren't meaningful to people in the sense that it breaks them free of their oppressor's chains.   

Part of me does agree with what Maddox says about having control over one's own photo and the importance of being able to produce whatever you want in your self-portrait.  For Others especially it's good that they can produce whatever type of selfie they want and not have others control their image.  However, even though we can all produce whatever selfies we want, it doesn't stop others from judging how we choose to photograph ourselves.  In the paper by Maddox, there are meme's scattered throughout that show what society tends to think of when they imagine the selfie.  However outdated those memes are, the message behind them is still pretty relevant.  People really do tend to associate selfies as being a strictly feminine thing.  Honestly, it is a sexist notion and should really be shot down quick.  The idea of a selfie is the narcissistic need to see ourselves and share it with others as if they should care, but it's something that almost all of us do.  So, to associate it strictly with females and say that it's not "manly" can affect people on both sides.  On one hand, ladies end up being associated with narcissism and portrayed as egotistical.  Likewise, men are viewed as weak and less masculine if they take selfies.  No one want's to be seen as weak or narcissistic, but they do want to be seen as how they are in their selfies.  Even though we know these stereotypes and acknowledge how we might be seen if we take selfies, we still share them because of our own egotism so really at some point it stops becoming society's fault as to how our selfies are portrayed.  Right there is really where Maddox and I diverge the most.  Can't blame it all on society.