I saw this photo on facebook and felt compelled to really talk about it.

I remember my early days of being an internet junkie. Cell phones, webcams, social media, and instant messaging were really in their neanderthal stages. This were during the dial-up internet days where you and your parents competed for using the computer or the home telephone.

Neopets, Gaia, Xanga, Myspace, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN were all the kings of my world. If you wanted to socialize or put yourself out there, these are the places you went.

There was a distinct hierarchy as well. You had people who were popular because they were completely anonymous and vague about their identities and then on the complete opposite side there were people who embraced self-love and narcissism by creating an empire of shallow behavior. They fed off of the attention and their community fed off of their image.

In this time, it was when selfies became a true form of culture. Emo, scene, and cyber-goth, ravers, etc... were the kings and queens of Myspace and the internet in general. Everyone wanted to be them, look like them, or fail really hard trying to be them. In fact, it was so popular that millions of people would hijack peoples pictures and pretend to be them and create ghost accounts and god... the amount of identity aids was unreal.

I remember being on sites like Neopets & Gaia and devoting many hours fishing out the real people from the fakes. Thank you image husking search for weeding out the phonies lol. I don't like to humiliate people, but when you are clearly pretending to be someone you aren't... you have it coming.
Imagine going onto a forum site where 3 different girls are pretending to be Kylie Jenner using photos that are scatted over a period of 10 years. Now take that but with a bunch of emo and scene kids. It was quite amusing and disappointing.

You were generally popular on the internet if you were one of the kids who had access to a computer 24/7 versus the kids who had strict parents and limited computer times. So having that constant presence online really lit things up for the culture. Then, if you were a kid who had the ability to take massive quantities of photos at random angles (you know the classic mirror pic or bathroom down-angle pose) then you were considered pretty awesome. On top of that, if you embraced the popular clothing trends and styles that helped as well. So it was really popular to take a selfie and do some minor editing on something like Photobucket, MS Paint, or if you were lucky Photoshop. It was really popular to add diamonds, bats, brass knuckles, skulls, wings, glitter, blood, spiders, etc... to your pictures to really jazz them up. Think pre-historic Snapchat!

I remember being 13/14 and really wanting a camera. So my family chipped in the money and got me a nice $150 - $200 camera which I still have to this day. I have taken THOUSANDS of selfies with this thing. I would get ready and like my outfit or hair/make up and then I'd go outside and find an interesting location and just take a bunch of photos at every angle possible. I would weed out the pictures that were out of focus or ugly. I would get rid of any where I looked like I was blinking, or making a weird facial expression. And after 250 - 500 photos in one sitting, I would maybe narrow it down to 5 - 10 photos. Then between those, I would edit them and pick my favorite to become my Myspace pic etc...

It was really popular to go onto peoples pages and like/comment their photos and they would return the exchanges. It was also a really big deal to make it into someones top 8. Scene Queen's were often established partners with each other to "whore each other out." Whoring was not a sexual term in this context. It was literally just one online personality sharing another personality and having their community show them some love and likewise the other person would redirect their community to other person. It's like a modern day Youtuber collaboration video.

Selfies were this way of expression and vanity to become internet famous. As technology and social media grew and developed, so did the quality and quantity of photos. Eventually everyone moved onto other forms of social media and expanded what kind of photos were being taken.

Some people think selfie culture is damaging to a persons personality and other people say that it is empowering. Honestly, I think both are true. I think the effect that selfie culture has on a person is completely up to the person and their confidence or how they respond to that kind of outward expression. For me personally, I take photos because I like seeing pictures of myself in moments where I liked how I looked. I wanted to capture and immortalize that moment. Of course there are times when I see other peoples selfies and I covet and envy them. We all know someone out there in the world that makes us wish we were them or looked like them. However, that idea never had an impact on me in the sense that I would get depressed or insecure. It just motivated me to keep doing what I enjoyed doing and taking pictures of myself when I felt good.

People have this idea that taking a photo of yourself is just an excuse to get attention or fish for compliments. And maybe that's true in some cases, but I think it's a basic human need for attention and acceptance. If your classmates don't accept you in school but random people on the internet do accept you, it makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you have self worth. It gives you a different kind of validation.

Selfie culture is a way for you to say hey I'm feeling confident look at me and it's an opportunity for other people to say hey, I think you look nice! Selfie culture doesn't need to be translated negatively. The only time I think it can be negative is if the person involved lacks confidence or is battling depression etc... or if people are bullying them. But other than those kinds of situations, I think taking selfies is healthy and entertaining. Documenting your style and appearance over the years is an awesome way to see how you evolve. Instead of tearing people down about taking so many selfies, instead... compliment them and remind them how beautiful they are!