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?
When I was in the 6th grade, I organized a group of girls to sing Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT at a school pep rally. We wore matching shirts and danced around with feather boas while belting out R - E - S - P - E - C - T. I’m not sure anyone in my school particularly cared, but it’s a distinct memory for me as an adult. Maybe it was because a pep rally is an odd place for this kind of show. Maybe it’s because I clearly had underlying feminist motives as a pre-teen girl. Maybe it was the boas.
Sixth grade was a pivotal time for me. On top of this musical performance, I dressed as a female CEO for Halloween. I decided to embrace my bookishness and intentionally sat in the front row of the class. I stole my mom’s suits and wore them on any given Tuesday.
And it was the year I figured out I wasn’t “beautiful,” by conventional standards.
One day while waiting in line for lunch, a classmate said to me: “you have Elvis mouth and it’s weird.” At 12, I was not only being told I looked like a dude, but that I was weird. There’s nothing worse at this tender pre-teen age than being told you are not normal. Being compared to the opposite sex in the looks department is devastating enough, but when it’s said as a tool to point out a negative differentiator between you and other girls, it’s particularly heartbreaking.
I can remember exactly how it felt to hear someone say that to me. The meanness and the contempt practically spraying itself from the words onto my face. For what it’s worth, the girl was somewhat accurate in choosing that description. When I start talking really fast or get super excited, I do have the tendency to speak out of the right side of my mouth. Think of how Margaraey Tyrell AKA Natalie Dormer does her little side grin in Game of Thrones. It’s kind of like that. As a result, I’m getting more wrinkles on the right side of my face now that I’m older, but that’s irrelevant.
What is relevant is that after I heard that, I truly NEVER believed I was an attractive woman.
I was a smart woman.
I was a brave woman.
I was an eloquent woman.
I was an ambitious woman.
I was a funny woman.
But I was, without any shred of doubt in my mind, NOT a beautiful woman.
Beautiful women are symmetrical. Beautiful women have big beautiful lips and even complexions. Beautiful women don’t become less beautiful when they open their mouths. Beautiful women don’t get compared to Elvis.
Somewhere in high school, I forgot about being compared to the gyrating King. I dated and even had a few boyfriends. I did as teenage girls do, I enjoyed their company and their kisses - in the backs of cars, against trees, behind the school and on my mattress which I had thrown on the floor in the corner of my room as some kind of protest against furniture. Not one ever pointed out that my mouth got a little asymmetrical from time to time. Not one mentioned if my oral peculiarity impacted my make-out abilities. Not one seemed to care. But somehow, despite all this, I still felt fundamentally un-pretty. I thought they liked the smart, brave, eloquent, ambitious, funny me. I couldn’t even see myself as anything else.
More than a decade of dating later, I was on a date when a dude mentioned that he liked how my mouth was a little off center. It charmed him. It added to my personality. He didn’t call it beautiful though. And immediately, the words from the girl standing in front me in line in the 6th grade hit my chest. I absorbed the negative memory before allowing the compliment he was offering me to take hold.
This feeling is bullshit. And I hate that it’s an emotional tether that I’ve allowed to impact how I felt about myself for years. The even bigger tragedy is that nearly every single woman I know has a story similar to mine. There are countless beautiful, bold, brilliant babes who were the recipient of an unflattering comment that still wander around this earth carrying that criticism like a calling card.
Are you one of them?
Aretha’s iconic song is about a couple navigating the strangeness of the intersection of love and mutual respect. It’s about creating a culture of equality in all elements of cohabitation between partners. But when I sang that song as a 12 year old girl, I was asking for a different kind of respect. I wanted to respect myself enough to be able to get up on stage and demand it. Today, I’m closer to middle age than I am to my primary education, and I wonder how a fundamental lack of respect for my own beauty has changed the course of my life. I don’t want to live like that anymore. And we shouldn’t be allowing ourselves or the little girls growing up today to experience that same weight.
I’m asking you to throw that comment away. The one that you’ve been carrying around since 4th grade or 8th grade or last damn week. I’m asking you to respect yourself enough to know that you are MORE than an ugly observation about what *actually* makes you beautiful.
Beauty is not perfection, but rather the quirky qualities that mark our individuality and transcend our very human existence.
Yeah, my mouth is a little wacky. But, dammit, I’m still beautiful.
