Simmermon: Photos lack purpose
Posting online contributes to narcissism, guilty pleasures
Students are becoming obsessed with seeing their own photos. The thrill of taking and posting photos makes our generation increasingly narcissistic.
Friday, January 18th, 2008
What was once used to preserve a memory or leave a legacy to pass down through generations has now turned into an egocentric, self-absorbed facefest.
The idea of picture taking has made many unique transformations since the first cameras were invented.
I can’t help but think that American society is becoming more and more self-obsessed by the minute.
What was once known as “a Kodak moment” has been morphed into “a Facebook moment,” where shame has no meaning and the drunker you are, the better.
Taking pictures of ourselves has become an addiction, and, alas, I was not able to escape its digital grasp.
Now instead of just telling people what an awesome time you had, you can post your super-interesting, ultra-fun life on the Internet for the whole world to see.
In some ways, it’s nice to see what friends have been up to.
Whether it’s someone’s study abroad trip or pictures of a new baby, those things are at least interesting and monumental in that person’s life.
Then you get the albums entitled things like “My Drunken Sh*tshow” where there are 50 up-close pictures of Betty Sue and Bonnie Jane making different faces at the camera, with captions like “best night of our lives!” and “1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila...MORE.”
Somehow that outlines their super-rad evening.
Why is it becoming ritual to spend an evening taking drunken pictures of ourselves and then looking at them right away?
I can’t help but think that American society is becoming more and more self-obsessed by the minute.
And yet, I posted pictures of a recent trip online today. I do it, but there is just this twinge of self-doubt and guilt in the back of my mind.
Why am I posting these?
Who do I want to look at them, and what satisfaction am I getting from that?
It’s gotten to the point where people purposefully have their camera ready in hand when the party gets raging just to catch people doing disgraceful things. Their inner monologue saying, “Oh yeah, this is gonna be great,” with tomorrow’s new album title in mind: “beer + hoes = awesome.”
The next day there’s a picture of Jenny Lou straddling some guy as he’s taking a jello shot out of her cleavage.
The caption says something like “atta boy” or “FRAT” and Jenny’s comment about the photo is “OMG Johnny, I can’t believe you took that picture,” but she doesn’t untag herself and inside she’s thinking, “They like me! They really like me.”
I mean really, who cares, we’re in college, and it’s all fun and games until you need to get a job or run for a political office and those pictures resurface.
The picture of you lying in a pool of your own vomit is not going to do you any favors when your potential employer says, “Ah, so I see you’re on Facebook.”
The more I think about it, the more ridiculous the whole circus becomes.
My friends are always posting old pictures of me back in my “wild stage” freshman year, granted I’m not lying in a pool of my own puke in any of those pictures, but I still look like a jackass in a lot of them.
I wish there was a way to stop the madness and get back to what the picture was supposed to represent, not this perverse version of pictures that has taken over modern society.
But for some reason, I just can’t seem to click that delete button.
The power of the guilty pleasure is too much for this mere human to overcome.
Simmermon is a Leawood senior in journalism.
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