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It certainly wasn't, but it also was not normalised to the extent it is today. People laughed at selfies only 5 years ago, thinking it was a bit self-intereste

It certainly wasn't, but it also was not normalised to the extent it is today. People laughed at selfies only 5 years ago, thinking it was a bit self-interested, now it's a normal part of the culture.

jacobolus 8y ago
I took a college course about photographic culture in ~2008, wherin we read 150 years of essays complaining about how vain everyone was having their picture taken all the time, how they all took the same uncreative tourist photos, how sitting through people’s slideshows from their trips was a bore, how smiling at cameras is contrived and artificial, how photography wasn’t real art and didn’t require any skill, how the availability of cheap photographs was degrading the concept of a portrait, etc. etc. This is not even close to a new phenomenon or a new complaint. The main difference is that almost everyone carries a camera all the time now, the marginal cost of taking additional photos is basically 0, and sharing pictures is easier than ever.
- ctdonath 8y ago
  IIRC, someone built a "camera" that searched for photos that had been taken from that location & direction already, returning the best existing approximation instead of actually taking yet another picture.
- JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
  I'm not saying its new. I'm saying its more normalised than it was. Vanity has always existed, and as much as it's a dirty word in many's eyes, it does have a purpose. However, for whatever reason (there are tons of reasons and probably all of them play a part), it's more normalised and common than it ever has been before, for better or worse.
ryandrake 8y ago
People still laugh at selfies. Narcissism and attention-seeking has never been normal behavior.
thousandautumns 8y ago
Your timeline is definitely off. Selfies were absolutely part of the cultural norm 5 years ago. I don't know when they normalized, but it was definitely between 2009 and 2011, as smartphones proliferated to become something most people had.
- JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
  I suspected it might be, the years are becoming a bit muddled together in my mind when it comes to culture. I can say with confidence that only rarely were people taking photos of only themselves 15 years ago. Today its a regular occurence. Whether that is the vanity that has increased, the ability and proliferation of photos that has increased, or just the normalisation of the expression I don't know, because as other have said, vanity has always existed, but certainly selfies themselves are way more regular and a self-interested culture appears more normalised. Perhaps through all of time people would be stepping on an anonymous soapbox had it existed, but it's only available today?

jacobolus 8y ago

I took a college course about photographic culture in ~2008, wherin we read 150 years of essays complaining about how vain everyone was having their picture taken all the time, how they all took the same uncreative tourist photos, how sitting through people’s slideshows from their trips was a bore, how smiling at cameras is contrived and artificial, how photography wasn’t real art and didn’t require any skill, how the availability of cheap photographs was degrading the concept of a portrait, etc. etc. This is not even close to a new phenomenon or a new complaint. The main difference is that almost everyone carries a camera all the time now, the marginal cost of taking additional photos is basically 0, and sharing pictures is easier than ever.

ctdonath 8y ago
IIRC, someone built a "camera" that searched for photos that had been taken from that location & direction already, returning the best existing approximation instead of actually taking yet another picture.
JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
I'm not saying its new. I'm saying its more normalised than it was. Vanity has always existed, and as much as it's a dirty word in many's eyes, it does have a purpose. However, for whatever reason (there are tons of reasons and probably all of them play a part), it's more normalised and common than it ever has been before, for better or worse.

ryandrake 8y ago

People still laugh at selfies. Narcissism and attention-seeking has never been normal behavior.

thousandautumns 8y ago

Your timeline is definitely off. Selfies were absolutely part of the cultural norm 5 years ago. I don't know when they normalized, but it was definitely between 2009 and 2011, as smartphones proliferated to become something most people had.

JauntyHatAngle 8y ago
I suspected it might be, the years are becoming a bit muddled together in my mind when it comes to culture. I can say with confidence that only rarely were people taking photos of only themselves 15 years ago. Today its a regular occurence. Whether that is the vanity that has increased, the ability and proliferation of photos that has increased, or just the normalisation of the expression I don't know, because as other have said, vanity has always existed, but certainly selfies themselves are way more regular and a self-interested culture appears more normalised. Perhaps through all of time people would be stepping on an anonymous soapbox had it existed, but it's only available today?