Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
I have been hearing this a lot lately: “all your generation cares about is taking selfies.”
The implication? That we’re self-absorbed. Self-obsessed. Selfish.
Maybe. Maybe not. And you know, I’m kind of over it. I’m tired of the selfie hate. And I want to offer a different take on the topic, which some may argue is in and of itself an attempt to redirect attention to myself and therefore proves the narcissism that is so pervasive in our culture is true and real. I get it. But there’s no room for that here. Instead, open your mind and let’s be honest about what this technology has the power to do: It has the power to give us instant access to our memories and moments. It has the power to make us more connected to our present. And most importantly, it has the power to build self-esteem.
I think of my smart phone like this: It’s a tool that gives me visual record of my life. My memories are with me at all times. Constantly updating. Regularly evolving. Cataloguing the past and making the present documentable like a living, digital scrapbook.
Never before in our culture has this been the case. And our technology has allowed for this in a way that has made the outside eye less relevant than ever. Based on our current rhetoric, the addition of an outside actor, or photographer, takes away or reduces the implication of egomania. Somehow, another set of hands pressing the button reduces any possible incrimination that we as humans are self-obsessed.
As a professional image maker, I can tell you this: people’s weird insecurities, quirks, self-hate, self-loathing and general obsessiveness about how oneself looks does not go away because I am the one composing the image. All it does is delay the negative talk and commentary about crow’s feet, hair color and tummy pudge until the moment when I reveal the image to them. Almost always, I spend time lifting people up, helping them see their beauty and generally avoiding negative words that may contribute to a less than positive self-image.
What makes me even sadder is that these notions of ugliness are almost aways coming from the mouths of women. I’ve heard countless speeches from incredible women who loathe the way they look. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous or stunning she is: she sees herself and she sees flaws. She sees herself and thinks: not photogenic.
I always have this thought: She is totally comfortable telling me she hates herself. What terrible things could possibly be going through her head when she turns the camera on herself and I’m not there to buffer?
Big idea: I think selfies could help us overcome these feelings.
Maybe if people took more selfies, they could see what I see when I hold the camera. They could get used to their face. Get used to seeing their past and their present in the image staring back at them. They could appreciate their individual quirks. They could begin to understand how to compose for their most stunning assets. They could start to get used to positive self-image.
This week, I took a bunch of selfies to remember the moments and feelings related to spreading my Papa’s ashes in my hometown. It was a weird thing to do, but I took this picture at the end where I can honestly see his eyes in my eyes. I didn’t look at the picture and see all the things I don’t like about my face: I saw all the things I really needed to see to be connected to my ancestry. Me, acting as photographer and model, could capture the thing that I needed to appreciate in that moment. My editorial awareness made me feel better about it. And there’s nothing narcissistic about it. It’s about my connection to this earth. To the people in my life. And visually, it’s about seeing it when I look at the screen in front of me and feeling it in my soul.
What if we shifted our thinking and stopped suggesting that wanting to understand our visual identity isn’t an attempt to bathe oneself in egomaniacal glory and instead viewed it as a tool for which we can better understand our existence as humans? What if we stopped believing that wanting to see oneself wasn’t born out of narcissism but instead out of a deep need to connect to our being? And what if we challenged ourselves to view the very act of taking selfies as a step towards self love and acceptance?
I selfie so I remember.
I selfie to build confidence.
I selfie so I appreciate myself.
I selfie so I can see my mother’s cheekbones and my father’s hair and my grandpa’s eyes.
I selfie to build my self-esteem.
I selfie with my best friends.
I selfie with my crews.
I selfie in beautiful places.
I selfie for self love.
I selfie when something astonishing happens.
I selfie for the memories.
I selfie because I can.
SO what?
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Yet, so few of us are readily willing to allow others to copy our ideas, products, term papers - you name it.
Our Lady Geek of the Week, Johanna Blakely, is thinking outside that box. Her USC post at the Norman Lear Institute is trying to bring light to the benefits of merging Creativity, Commerce and Culture. The argument for such things? Well, the sales numbers alone might be enough to convince even the harshest critic.
The intellectual protection levels seem to be tightly related at sales figures alone. However, money can’t be the only motivator behind such things and it certainly isn’t the most important. See, it’s creativity that makes this argument so strong.
When one fashion designer copies another - is it a terrible sin of design or merely an improvement? Or a move to make the product more accessible to a larger audience? Or a trend emerging in our culture? It can be all of the above.
Think about it from the other side, though. It can also be a motivator for the copied.
To see what I mean, check out her TEDxUSC presentation, “Lessons from fashion’s free culture.”
Key takeaway points here for the average lady geek: Imitation is a true form of flattery, sure, but what should inspire us more is that by sharing the collective knowledge of the creative giants and encouraging the spirit of reinvention, we can push our products, food, tattoos, comedy, websites, video, writing to improve the whole. Furthermore, it pushes us harder to create without boundaries and seek ways to truly make our idea stand out as it’s own - completely unique.
So Johanna Blakely, we salute you as our Lady Geek of the Week for inspiring us to think beyond our desire to protect our ideas, but instead improve our collective creative spirit.
