I have no shame when it comes to selfies. Shit, I’ll stop in the middle of the damn street if I’m feeling myself and the lighting is right. These snapshots are instant moments of pride and indulgence, confidence and vanity.

I’ve spent the last four years in a love triangle with my camera phone and tumblr. In case you don’t understand the cultural gravity that tumblr carries, transfers and absorbs, I recommend you sign up. Not only does Tumblr circulate images, breaking news stories, tweets, videos and articles (it has everything), it creates a space for multi-dimensional personal representation unlike other platforms — I’m looking at you Facebook and Instagram.

I can post a selfie, then reblog the comedic retaliation against Islamophobic on bus ads in SF, and after, watch a compilation of babies eating lemons for the first time, obvs.

Point being, my tumblr collection is my avatar — my personality, my humor, and my social concerns. Tumblr provides a sanctuary in which I am no longer saddled with the fear of invisibility or no-likes — there is entirely too much stuff posted to Tumblr for everyone to see everything…anonymity is the standard.

One of the many things that Tumblr has taught me is that selfies are an act of self-indulgence, but more importantly a reclamation of a face, mind and body.

Selfies offer a glimpse into my mind and the way I view myself, in which I control the capture and distribution.

I recently deleted my personal Instagram, due to the fact that I must be reminded by those closest to me that likes do not equate to self-worth. This is a concept that I personally combat, as I believe Facebook and Instagram facilitate an insatiable need to be liked. Deleting my Instagram was one of the most liberating steps I‘d taken, since entering the online world as a young adult, Instagram is without a doubt the most shallow — based purely on imagery, asking followers to base their judgements of the book (aka me) solely on the cover. It goes without saying that everyone and their grandmother is now on Facebook, which requires Millennials to censure themselves, cuz I know y’all are incredibly crude and disillusioned, myself included.

However, Tumblr offers a space in which images and articles can be posted without context. It holds the ignorantly blissful knowledge that my photo will serve no higher purpose than to add to my own microcosmic online showcase.

I’ll reluctantly admit that posting a selfie online with the intent of receiving likes can lead to a diminishing sense of self-worth, knowing the sad and unwavering reality that we constantly seek approval from others. Though, ultimately, I argue that selfies are a basic form of seizing momentary confidence. As Naomi, the raddest — nonchalant chick I know, puts it;

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it,

does that make your selfie any less bomb?”

These pictures do not demand any other acknowledgement other than the recognition that I felt good about myself in that moment, so I took a selfie.

A selfie inspires a sense of self-worth from within, with which I can guide the perception of my physicality. My mind committed my body to follow through with the act of pulling out my phone, opening the camera, snapping the picture, with the end result and destination of that image being entirely my decision. From a seasoned and avid selfie-taker, I can assure you that 80% of the selfies I take live securely locked in my phone and serve as kind, unobtrusive reminders that are externally stored and remain uninfected by clouded self-hate. They simply state, “I felt worthy of myself today.”

WEB Dubois

There are a number of rants I can launch into from here concerning my residual and ongoing battle with learned self-hate, but I will attempt to keep this as non-binary as possible. It is not only women who struggle with body image and self-confidence issues. I will be the first to admit that my generation has become overrun by social media, but I do uphold that there is an inherent majesty in our ability to publish our identities. We are experiencing a time in which the proliferation of visual exhibition makes us hyper-transparent and unfiltered despite corporate and government machines — purely because “they” can’t get a firm grasp on the reigns of the bucking bull that is the Internet. Mike Brown and Eric Garner’s stories would not have gone viral without the fuel of social media. Our country would still be quietly festering in its own cesspool of infectious hate and colorblindness without it. At least now, those who have historically not been in control of their own public reception, have the opportunity to build identities which are then be presented to the world. WEB DuBois’ ideology of “double-consciousness,” theorizes that;

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

While this ideology still undoubtedly holds water with American Black bodies, it applies generally to those who do not fit within the social construction of white male heteronormativity and are therefore denied political and cultural capital; ie female, queer, brown, nonbinary, transgender, and otherkin bodies…

Booker T Washington

When I say that those who have been systemically denied the opportunity to display themselves in their inner diversity, now possess the chance to create their own identity, I believe that movement, begins with selfies. The generation of DuBois and Washington, as in Booker T, were confined to a monolithic representation of their identities that likened all people of color to the lowest socio-economic class, which included Italians and South Eastern Europeans as racial others as well. Selfies are the most basic form of self preservation that is widely accessible, regardless of socio-economic class. With or without a camera phone, culturally we have accepted selfies as a form of self-presentation that transcends social stratas and traverses inter-generational knowledge gaps. A picture of one’s self taken by one’s self is no longer a novel concept. We now control the external gaze on the most rudimentary level.

Recommend this essay so others can enjoy it.