Dear Friends Who Take Selfies,
I want you to know that I love it when you post pictures of yourself. I know selfies get a lot of bad press, but I think they’re rad. They give me a little window into your life, and you’d be amazed at how much I can get out of one little photo.
I love your pictures because I love seeing what you’re wearing – the outfits you build give me ideas about how to mix it up with my own wardrobe, and seeing you work your shit gives me courage to try clothing that I otherwise might have thought was too outlandish or revealing.
I love seeing how you do your hair and makeup. You look like a hot babe and I wish you would make YouTube tutorials explaining how you get your eyeliner just so. I want you to post pictures every time you change your hair, because seeing you cycle through all those neon colours gives me great ideas about what to do next with my own hair.
I love when you take selfies in your house. It’s neat to see where you live. When your place is cluttered, it makes me feel better about my own messy apartment. When your house is neat, it encourages me to get my shit together and do the damn dishes already. I like seeing the things you own and the art you put on your walls, because those things tells me so much about who you are and what you care about.
I love when you take selfies while on vacation. I don’t get to travel often, so your pictures allow me to live vicariously through you. The excitement on your face when you take a selfie at the Trevi Fountain or by the Arc de Triomphe is perfect and beautiful. I’ve seen a thousand pictures of the Louvre Pyramid, but the most interesting ones are the ones with you in it. If I wanted to see a picture of the Great Wall of China all on its own, I could just google the damn thing. You’re what makes those pictures special.
Mostly I love your selfies because I love seeing you feel good about yourself. I love how your face glows when you look like a million bucks and you know it. I love when you celebrate yourself. You deserve to be celebrated.
It’s easy for people to roll their eyes at selfies and make jokes about girls who just want attention, but the truth is that for lots of women – especially women of colour, trans women, disabled women and all the other women who see their existences erased in mainstream media – posting pictures of themselves is a way of challenging our culture’s narrow beauty standards.
Selfies are a way of saying, “I love myself, and I will fight anyone who tries to change that fact.”
Selfies are not a question. They’re not asking “Do you think I’m pretty?”
Selfies are a statement: “I am here.”
I see you.
I love you.
You matter.
Your selfies are inspirational. That might sound corny, but it’s true. When I see you love yourself, it helps me love myself. I suspect the same is true for lots of other people who see your pictures.
So please keep taking selfies. Please fill my Facebook and Twitter feeds with your wonderful face. Every picture you post fills me with so much joy. I love seeing you.
Obligatory selfie because what else would I add to this post?
The Belle Jar 
Agreed! The problems we face today don’t come from people not loving themselves enough. They come from people being self obsessed, selfish and shallow. Detached from the real world. Perhaps selfie addicts could use their time more constructively and do some volunteer charity work and step outside of their it’s all about me bubble.
I love it!!!
Pretty accurate! Love your open letter
This is a lovely article. Thanks so much for this. I totally agree with you.
Great post! Society keeps telling us (both women and men) to downplay our own looks even while judging us relentlessly for them. If somebody has the confidence to post a selfie, I think it should be encouraged!
Nice write up!
Fantastic post! And it’s a whole new and fresh way of seeing the ” selfies”! Great!
Well written
Reblogged this on meechtothemax and commented:
This is an amazing outlook! 💙
Love this take on selfies. While I suppose they can get to be a bit much or seem narcissistic – they are also in their most plain forms just someone acknowledging their own awesomeness. I’m pretty sure if selfies were an available option back in Mona Lisa’s day or even Marilyn Monroe’s history would be littered with vintage selfies or yore. In the very least – being loving and positive about it rocks.
Great post love it 🙂
excellent post !!
1. Beauty of and for self is inside and taking selfies does not reflect ones love to its face or body. It just show how self conscious you are.
2. It also kinda kill a way to interact with someone and ask them to take your picture. Most people do like to help you capture a moment in your life which you would remember for rest of your life.
3. The word ‘Selfie’ itself put a lot of attention to self making or showcasing person as Egocentric.
4. Time spent on taking selfies and retaking them multiple times a day could be well spent in increasing your knowledge or self-development. society needs humans with better developed mind and heart rather than faces.
Reblogged this on jesusxi.
wonderful post! Loved it.
wonderful post! Loved it.
I despise selfies because that is all people know how to do on their phones. All I ever see is snapchat and instagram being used for that by attention whores to get more followers. Some of the poses are really dumb especially the face when girls make the duck lips.
Also I find selfies to be to egocentric. That is exactly what the author is saying as well: “look at me, I am here.” Why would you also need countless pictures of yourself? Do people need to look at their phone to look at themselves and feel like the center of attention.
Your words are very kind and lovely, you are adorable too 🙂 keep posting! 🙂
Your selfie makes me feel all of those things you mention. Thanks 🙂
I had to read an article for my English class that destroyed and criticised so much selfies, and I just felt bad, I stopped taking them. Thanks for this article, you made me change my mind again! 🙂
Reblogged this on Jumbleskine and commented:
Take a selfie when you feel pretty, when you’re proud of the makeup look and/or the outfit you wear that day, but also when you’re sad, do you know it’s scientifically proven that when you smile, even if you don’t feel like it, after a while signals are sent to the brain that actually make you happy? Smiling can literally change your emotion. So please, smile, upload a selfie on your blog or instagram, tag me if you want (@ellarend), and, of course, have a nice day 🙂
I totally share your oppinion. I think those who don’t understand selfies also don’t understand the nature of social media. One gets familiar with a *person* and not with a mashine. We humans are visual creatures, thus we need to *see* the gestic and mimic of other humans in oder to get familiar with them. *Thats* what selfies are all about, not narcissm.
I like your view on this social media trend. I’ve often felt like I take took too many run selfies lol but I just LOVE to run! And it’s who I am. 🙂 thank you for this lovely post.
Love it! And your selfie too! 🙂
Reblogged this on Curious eye and commented:
Such a amazing way to look at people …. you really have a talent to see things differently…
hahahahaha! this is so apt. acknowledgement and acceptance! thats what we want, thats what we crave! very well done! thank you for making me chuckle
Well you’re right on a basic human level Moodsnmoments… and laughter is that spontaneous thing we don’t control. So we get to be aware of that pure space. Doesn’t matter if you laugh at the author or other people or ideas or at yourself. Desires are personal that way. Nothing wrong with a bit of push and shove among the women so we keep each other in order right? And sort of with a light heartedness where we aren’t just one sided… but can handle the adversity. Well “played”.
I got this quote from someone else but it seems to fit:
“That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing marked cards; sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. Don’t expect anything back. Don’t expect to be recognized for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.” (quote from Paulo Ceolho)
I’m actually glad to have your perspective today in case that wasn’t clear. Thanks. -TRE
Dear TRE,
It is a pleasure to hear from someone who understands the intent. Your quote and your thought say things which we oft want to hear. 🙂 thank you
Leaving you with another thought, not mine though
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Hello Moodsnmoments,
Brave New World conjures up so much.
I knew of someone who was working on his Phd in the history of science fiction (or something to that effect) and how it has shaped our present day realities. I guess as H.G. Wells was writing of an optimistic future Huxley wanted to take a jab at him and counter-weight his projections with a dystopian satire. Seems the dystopian took far more hold of our collective imaginations!
I like your Huxley quote choice out of context of all that though, as it mildly reflects the similarity of writers sentiment that Mark Twain held (and this is not a direct quote, my apologies) when he said: “the difference between the right word and the wrong one is like the difference between lightning and the lightning-bug.”
(again this is me paraphrasing Twain.)
The mention of X-rays, reminded me also of someone who just told me she felt like she could “see through everything” now because she’d learned too much, but it wasn’t like having a super-hero power. There wasn’t anything she could do with it! She was only more awake!
Ah well. My best wishes to you. Thank you for the dialogue. Pleasure to speak with you as well.
Thanks tabbyrenelle. You should knwo that its been a warm feeling, full of smiles, conversing with you. Good luck!
Reblogged this on milady2b and commented:
Story of your life >= selfie pic.
hehehe… i really enjoyed this, as i am ‘guilty as charged’ of posting selfies… not obsessively so, however. i am a photographer and i often try out new ideas and effects/apps on myself first, until get to grips with it.
i really enjoyed your article. i found it cute and quirky and it tickled my sense of humour. thanks for sharing x
I’ve observed that there’s a certain number of selfies from one person that I can tolerate seeing on my News Feed, before I decide to either 1) set it so that I see fewer updates from that person, or 2) unfollow that person completely. 😀
Reblogged this on wishiwascooler.
This is such a mood-boosting article!!! “When I see you love yourself, it helps me love myself” wow thanks for this this just uplifted my selfie spirits haha xx
Reblogged this on girlsofthistime and commented:
I love this 😀
Honestly could not love this more, you took the words right out of my mouth!
Damn
nice
I agree with julietjeske and wonder what happens next . I worry when selfie pictures are more inspirational than people actually walking outside without a phone and engaging in conversation or getting involved with each other. At the end of the day a phone is another thing, a gadget which can be replaced.
I think the same! Haters haw selfies and I’ve always wondered why. Thanks for writing this so well.
Reblogged this on ne242 news.
Wow! Beautifully said. I too am pro selfie. I can’t wait to share all my selfies with my grandkids so they can see what I looked like, who I was with, where I was. You are awesome.
follow me!
follow me!!!!!!
i dont take them but people i know do
Great post! I’ve been thinking about this, and I feel the same way!
💟 TOTALLY love your blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love this. Life is too short to worry about what other small minded people think. My friend are all beautiful and love when the do amazing things….like take a selfie. -J.
I read this expecting some sort of negative backlash to follow. Instead I was pleasantly pleased to find it was a positive piece.
A day wouldnt pass without a selfie!