Nothing other than a rise in vanity

It’s easy. Flip the camera on your phone so that its forward facing, hold it up high so that it makes your eyes look bigger and your cheekbones more defined. Hold your thumb over the big round button and click. Simple. A selfie.

It was the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year in 2013 and it has rapidly become the world’s most predominant craze. Some argue that is shows a rise in confidence amongst young men and women. But is it really about confidence? Or just simply a rise in vanity?

The word selfie really needs no definition. We’ve all done it, on our own or with our friends. Either way, it’s happened and we’re all guilty of it. If there were ever a time where we felt like an attention seeker for posting a selfie onto social media, this feeling is fast receding into the distance. To post a selfie portrays a thousand words. You are pleased with yourself, you like the way that you look, you are happy for the rest of the world to see you in this light, with your head tilted in this way under the X-Pro Filter. Everything that you could never say out loud.

In today’s culture, self-confidence for females is rare and a valuable commodity. So to be able to glorify your good hair days and cute outfits surely is a positive thing, right? Sure. But only to a certain extent. Selfies encourage an obsession with physical appearance. Taking a photo of yourself and posting it upon social media sites requires no intellect, apart from the occasional pun within the caption. The sad truth of selfies is that even the caption comes with an asterisk. “I like the way I look,” but under a thousand filters with my stomach sucked in and under this tilted camera angle. At 14, does your Mum or Dad know that you’re posting photos of yourself in your underwear and a baggy tee for the rest of the world to feast their eyes on? It’s not a boost in self-confidence, it’s an act of rising vanity. Drawing attention to yourself in provocative natures is not where the concept of a selfie derived from.

Miley Cyrus is joining in

Kylie Jenner is also on the bandwagon

An online image is everything these days. Posting a selfie is an empowering act that allows you to control your image online. But your self-esteem may start to be tied to the comments and number of likes that you can receive on each post. Where’s the boost in that? There are people who look upon this selfie generation with huge disappointment- but can you blame them? After all, a selfie teaches males and females alike that you have to look good if you want to show yourself to the world.

Whilst there is a mixed opinion on the elevation of selfies, it really is up to you whether you believe it is lame or legit. Either way, you can change the shape of the future selfie culture. Ask yourself the question of whether selfies are taken for fun and entertainment or whether they are taken in an attempt to get more likes and comments than the last? There may be an element of both, but the latter will always be a big factor in this craze. Everything and anything that you share on social media reveals a small a part about you, and you are in control of it. So it may be that travelling is an interest, or food and drink. Why not post that? Create your online profile and image in more ways than one.

Is it a bare-faced cheek?

“Selfie.” A photograph taken of yourself using a reversible camera, usually accompanied by a ‘kissy’ face or the individual looking in the opposite direction of the camera. To some, pointless. But the increasing popularity of this selfie trend has led to a viral campaign of which women posting a “no-makeup selfie” has raised over £2 million for Cancer Research UK in just 48 hours.

The campaign sparked after a huge cancer awareness vs. narcissism debate and is proven to be one of the most successful viral campaigns of this day and age. Remember planking? Well clearly women plastering bare-faced photos across the social media is a better way of raising awareness and money for cancer. Cancer Research UK announced that they had received an explosive 800,000 donations in the first 24 hours and the most overwhelming element of this whole campaign is that they didn’t even start it in the first place! The trend started off the back of Cancer Research posting the text code for donations over Twitter and Facebook and since then, women have taken to “no-make up selfies” as a more original way of raising money for charity.

So why a selfie? Well as much as this campaign is proving to be a success, it has had some backlash and criticisms as to the relevance of posting photos of yourself across the social media. Obviously, posting a photo isn’t going to raise the money, but it does raise the awareness and encourages more and more people to donate. Twitter and Facebook have even seen the bare faces of Kim Marsh, Michelle Keegan, Imogen Thomas and a number of others that have seen the charitable side to this trend. Most ‘selfies’ are accompanied with a nomination and #cancerawareness to continue the trend among their friends and family. Oh, and in case you’re not quite up with the times a ‘#’ is the way in which us “youngsters” create trends on Twitter when discussing similar topics.

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But besides raising awareness and donations to Cancer Research, women going make-up-free online also has an underlying message: being happy with your own skin, no matter what you look like, what you do or don’t have, what you have suffered from or what you are still fighting. Many of us have lost a family member or friend to cancer, and if you haven’t then you can count yourself incredibly lucky. So, you can protest until you’re blue in the face if you really dispute this “no-makeup selfie” trend but before doing so, make sure you find a better way to raise more than £2 million for Cancer in just 48 hours. Oh, and while you’re at it, text BEAT to 70099.