Blog post #8: Selfie-Esteem

In order for you to have a good selfie that everyone will like and compliment, you must have first the confidence to do it. You must be ready for the positive and negative comments that they will say about your photo, if you're not ready for that kind of approach then you should gather your confidence first.

According to an article entitled "Are selfies good or bad for our self-esteem?" by Jessica Yadegaran in mercurynews.com, she said that, in short span of time, selfies have become our very own virtual diary. But some think that it is only turning our nation into a narcissistic country, but if it is done in moderation it has positive outcome for everyone, specially for teens, who struggle more in expressing who they really are in their current state and afraid to express themselves in their own very unique way. She interviewed a woman named Stephanie Eads, who made selfie a hobby. Stepahnie also said that if ever one of her friend is in a bad mood she immediately send that person a goofy face of her self to make the person happy, and it's her way of not being alone when she does selfies. Also John Casey, who said that, for him selfie is a ritual that he loves because he discovers more about himself. He also said that it it made introverted people to talk to him. Selfies can damage our self-esteem heavily, we are busy portraying someone else and we forget who we really are because we portray another person that was accepted by the society. Pamela Rutlidge said that we are the director, producer,  curator and actor of our very own story and teenagers are the most common story tellers in the internet world. A fifteen-year-old named Brandon Garnsey said that he likes to put inspiring song lyrics or quotes from movies in to his selfies, he said that it motivates him. It just means that selfies can help alleviate the person's mood and some times it motivates that person.

This article interests me because it gave positive feedback about selfie that can really alter the mind-set of those what normally people think about selfie. What they don't know that it can also benefit us and others for those who are stereotype that selfie will just make us narcissistic but I guess we can't tell what to think and what not to think.

Jessica Yadegaran said, "Some think it's turning us into a nation of narcissists, but psychologists say that in moderation, selfies are a feel-good and often creative way, particularly for teens, to chronicle their lives and emotions and express their personalities. And people who post selfies assert that they can have an effect on their moods and self-esteem."

What I have to say about this quote is that, yes selfie can make us narcissistic but it's only natural for us human beings to be like that because we love ourselves and what people don't know is that there is a good side of doing a selfie which they don't see, what they all see is the negative side of it.

Sometimes it's not the picture we're afraid to get criticisms, it's our face that we're afraid of. Yes we look beautiful in the picture, but if you think about it, will people still accept me for who I am when they meet me in person? Or will they prefer the altered one in the internet?

I came across this article that says a lot about herself and how she struggled, the title is "On selfies, Self-esteem and learning to love my nose" by Anne Theriault in thoughtcatalog.com, she said that she struggled through her life about her nose and how it look misplaced. Sometimes she does selfies by covering her face with her hair so that it would cover her nose, and how she thought of getting a nose job because she felt like no one likes her or some people laughs at her because of her nose. It really made her self-esteem decrease that way. But as she thinks thoroughly, she realized that, yes she alter her face in the picture, she can do make-up tricks that can,somehow, minimize the size of her nose but in reality it doesn't change the way her nose looks and she feels like a liar and manipulator whenever she posts her picture in social media, thought she doesn't use Photoshop to enhance it, she just find the right angles to make her nose appealing than distracting to people who see it and now she is slowly learning to love herself and her nose because for her we put too much interest on the beauty outside of a woman and not the beauty inside of her.

This article interest me because I hope that people will now realize how more important the beauty inside of every one of us than the beauty on the outside. It's like people are putting up a mask and try to hide who they really are because they are afraid to be judged and not accepted by the society, but what they really don't know is that they will also not be accepted if they weren't true to themselves.

Anne Theriault said, "The problem is that we put way too much emphasis on women’s appearance, and not enough on their thoughts or character or actions. The problem is that we criticize people for posting selfies “for attention,” but don’t ever talk about why those people might want, maybe even need, positive attention paid to their looks."

This quote goes for both male and female. We strive too much to make ourselves good-looking on the outside because we think that that's what people want and we often give it to them. But what we don't know is that they also want us to be ourselves and they also want us to show who we really are even though they can only see us in the internet and in that way we can gain more self-esteem just by acting natural.

All of us had struggled and had our self-esteem pretty reach a pretty low level that at one point in our life we don't want to face other people or become introverts. But we should always find ways to boost our self-esteem, do selfies, it may be embarrassing at first but once you get the hang of it it will just be a breeze. Though there will always be stereotypes in the internet world and say you're narcissistic and vain, don't let it get in to you, it's just natural for people to say that to you because they're jealous because they can't do what you had started.