Teen Olympia Nelson takes stand against sexualised selfie photos

Updated

When Melbourne schoolgirl Olympia Nelson made headlines earlier this year with her critique of explicit selfies, it was not the first time she had been at the centre of a media storm.

As Australian Story reveals, Olympia first found herself on national front pages in 2008 when she was 11.

At issue, was a picture taken by her internationally renowned photographer mother, Polixeni Papapetrou, and reproduced on the front cover of Art Monthly magazine.

The stylised photograph showed an unclothed Olympia, aged five at the time, against a painted background in the style of a famous picture from the English Victorian era.

It was published in the wake of the furore over artist Bill Henson's works featuring pubescent teenagers, and then prime minister Kevin Rudd denounced the picture, saying he "couldn't stand this stuff".

Now 16, Olympia has been critiquing another development in photography - selfies, or self-portraits, posted on social media.

The phenomenon has exploded over the past few years, but Olympia felt compelled to make a stand against the increasingly competitive trend towards sexualised pictures aimed at garnering 'likes', or votes, from an individual's followers.

Encouraged by her parents, she sent an essay on the subject to The Age newspaper in Melbourne.

The newspaper published her thoughts in a column, sparking renewed debate about selfies and exhibitionism on the net.

Age editor Andrew Holden said the column instantly generated a reaction from readers.

"Olympia's column for us was a fascinating insight into teenage girls these days and how they're using technology," he said.

"She drilled into the sexual nature of them and the competitiveness of girls getting likes around these photographs."

Being rewarded for showing 'more of your sexuality'

Jamila Rizvi, the editor of online women's site Mamamia, said she was blown away by the column.

"One of the girls at the Mamamia office brought me Olympia's column and my reaction was, 'Oh my god, how is this kid only 16'," she said.

"She's not a prude, she's not bothered by the photos for any particular reason, she's interested in why girls are going that extra mile.

"You post a photo again, you pull your top up, you get seven or eight likes.

"You're being rewarded for showing more of yourself and more of your sexuality."

Ms Rizvi told Australian Story it highlights the impact the confluence of pornography and technology is having on teenage culture.

"One of the things with the accessibility of the internet is that porn is easy to get, [for] Olympia's generation, it's easy - it's a click of a button away," she said.

"So you've got 10-, 11-, 12-year-old girls, and importantly boys seeing women behaving in a particular way and they think that's normal.

"There's an element of imitation, that's what you do when you're a 'tween or a teen. You're learning to become an adult so you look at the adults around you and you look at the adults on the computer."

Olympia says the celebrity driven aspects of popular culture are helping drive the trend.

"I don't have anything against selfies, but it's a sad thing selfies have to be so sexual in order to have likes," she said.

"I think our culture is awash in this objectification of women, I think social media adds to this. If we see celebrities posting raunchy pictures on Facebook we want to do that because that's what they are doing."

Olympia's story airs tonight on Australian Story on ABC1 at 8:00pm.

Topics: women, community-and-society, science-and-technology, mobile-phones, melbourne-3000, vic, australia

First posted