How Selfies Became My Tool For Empathy

An alternative analysis and explanation of selfie culture

Since 2009, I’ve taken a selfie nearly everyday. That means I’ve taken approximately 2920 selfies over the last 8 years (many days I take several selfies, so this number is probably more like 5000 at the least). The funny thing is, every time I take a selfie, it feels like I’ve never taken one before. Each time I pose for the camera, I feel like a new person; I often don’t recognize who’s in the image. The emotional experience of taking a self portrait is always entirely anonymous and unique. The one thing that never seems to change, however, is the overwhelming anxiety of facing misunderstood judgment whenever I share a selfie to social media.

Selfie in Berlin in 2014; Android

Will people think I’m vain for taking a photo of myself? Will people unfollow me because they think my selfies prove my content is poor, shallow quality? Am I actually vain? Do selfies really mean I am obsessed with myself?

These questions run through my mind every time I tap SHARE on Instagram. But I press that haunting button because I know my answer: I am not vain. I take selfies because I actually do not know myself; because in many ways, I despise myself, but every time I take a selfie I see me in an entirely new perspective. I can imagine myself as who I really feel I am, versus who I think other people (mis)understand me to be.

My Definition of a Selfie

Selfie (noun) — an image I decide to take which intentionally includes my presence in the visual. I may take the photo using my arm or a tripod or ask someone else to take it.

The defining factor here is my intention to take a photo with me in it; however, the point is not to take a photo of me, but of the moment.

An after shower, androgynous selfie; October 2016; iPhone

I often oscillate between saying “selfie” versus “self-portrait.” I feel shy to say I take so many selfies because of the shallow, negative, self-absorbed connotation “selfies” have, whereas a “self-portrait” sounds artistic, professional. But I want to redefine the negative association with selfies through my story and positive relationship with the medium as an art form, and a reflective tool for self discovery. To me, the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait is that, with the latter, the image is assumed to be art, but with the former, the image is assumed to be an ephemeral product of the everyday — they seem to take less time to create, therefore its value is lesser than art or a self-portrait. But in the repetition of taking selfies, in the montage of creating new images of myself everyday, I am finally beginning to understand the lasting, longer term value of storytelling my own identity.

A selfie at a shoe repair shop in Midtown, waiting for my shoe to get fixed; August 2016; iPhone

There are three key ways in which selfies have helped me over the years:

To See

Selfies helped me look at myself in a way I never could otherwise.

I started to deliberately take selfies around my junior year of high school in Seattle, as I entered the then-small, intimate community of fashion bloggers on Blogspot — back when it wasn’t about sponsors or fame, but when it was just seriously exciting to connect with other ladies trying on different and similar styles across the globe.

An outfit photo from my fashion blog in 2009, Sony Powershot (my first camera)

I took a photo of myself in my room after school, to show my Internet friends what I wore. It was amazing. Fashion blogging made me excited to experiment, excited to be more myself when I felt like being myself at school was uncool and didn’t get any positive feedback whatsoever. I tried wearing tights with shorts, curling my hair, layering shirts, sweaters and dresses with colorful, different leggings — I was unpacking a sartorial paradise and realizing I can do anything with my clothes and body. I didn’t have to copy all the kids and trends in the closed off world of my one high school!

Most of all, people connected with me through my clothes and my daily stories that all came alive through my selfies. Before I was 15, I had already lived in four very different towns (Passaic County NJ, Bergen County NJ, Bundang in South Korea, and a suburb of Seattle). I often felt displaced from moving around and starting a new life as a kid so much, but this daily ritual of taking a selfie to show who I was to other girls each day made me start to feel a concrete sense of self that I had never experienced before.

Selfies thus became a natural part of my toolkit in growing comfortable with myself. Even though I continue to feel foreign unto my own body (and I have a feeling, I will always feel this way), each selfie helps me cement my understanding of who I am more and more. Visualizing myself makes me feel more at home, no matter where I am. The truth is, we can never take our eyeballs out of our sockets and see our whole selves; we only see ourselves through images of our bodies, or through how others may define us. Selfies have become my medium to see me, at least a part of me, a perspective of me I otherwise would never know.

To Understand My Identity

Through my montages of selfies, I’ve begun to accept my multi-faceted identity.

Growing up, I only believed I was what everyone else identified me as: I am short, I have small eyes, I am shy, I am weak, I am a polite female, I am a quiet Asian American, I am an unqualified, young, vain, self-centered millennial.

August 2016; iPhone

Selfies are my way to reclaim and define my identity on my own terms. Through my unique style of each one of my myriad selfies, I reimagine how I would like to appear, or who I think I really am right now; as I would take photos of myself in different outfits, with different facial expressions, I visualized myself as not just one me, but all the many versions of me. I can dress like a small newsboy if I want to, or a strong woman in a retro suit, or an Alice-in-Wonderland-esque girl roaming a new city, or an androgynous anonymous unsexualized entity. These visuals allow me to play all the different parts of me that make up who I am.

Social pressure constantly seems to shout at me “Erin, what’s your personal brand?! Are you a serious artist? Or are you a funny selfie-loving girl?” Through selfies, I can accept my unique multi-faceted existence, that I am serious, humorous, cool, artistic, nonchalant, and intelligent all at the same time. Selfies allow me to believe in myself. As I take each one, life tells me, “yes, Erin, you are exactly who you need to be in this very moment.” In the performance of my best self, I can find a real me through the noise of how media, peers, anyone may judge and define me.