What you see is what you believe. In our Digital Age, the world perceives us through our visual bio-data, read Plandids – the new Selfies. To put it simply, it’s a planned selfie that looks like a candid shot. Lifestyle journalist Anna Hart says we live in a world where we’re all “photographic directors of our own lives”. We steer our image in the direction of our choosing...
Think about it. We don’t meet people to know them. We see them enough on social media to make up our minds about them – be it the way they dress or their political leanings. The selfie/Plandid of 2018 isn’t the selfie of 2013, when everyone was busy pouting. The Plandid today is your image maker. Or, should we say your image manager?
Art historian James Hall, author of The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History wrote in his book, “Through selfies people are trying to identify and reinvent themselves, just like they have sought to do through self-portraits throughout history.” Whether you are mere mortals or world leaders or the Pope, these days selfies are the carefully curated visual bio-data that determines how you are perceived by the rest of the world.
French President Emmanuel Macron, British PM Theresa May, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin, are all posting selfies with élan these days. Says psychologist Gitanjali Sharma, “For heads of state, selfie is a visual narrative to tell a larger story to create compassion and empathy.”
There is a clear agenda these days when people take a selfie – to push forward an image that you want the world to believe of you. Says image consultant Jaspreet Kaur, “Corporates look at your social media profiles when they are about to hire you to know beyond the CV you’ve submitted, or even the interview you may have given. They want to know how you see yourself through your pictures on social media.”
A new study published in the journal, Computers in Human Behavior, found that how you take a selfie could give insight into your personality – or at least tell you how others may perceive you. The researchers found that a person’s selfie corresponded well with their own self-evaluation of their personality. Here are a few interesting facts that emerged from the study...
If you make a duckface, you score pretty highly on the emotional instability scale. If you hide the location of your selfie, you are high on the privacy quotient. If you smile a lot, you are open to new experiences and if you look directly into the camera, you are super confident.
Selfie-isms
- The word ‘selfie’ made its debut in the Oxford Dictionaries in 2013
- There are over 246 million selfie hashtags on Instagram right now, and over 93 million are taken every day!
- In the sub-culture of selfies, there are spin-off terms like Belfie (a photo of one’s posterior), Helfie (a photo of one’s hair), Welfie (a photo of one working out), and Ussie (a group selfie).
- On Instagram alone, a search for ‘selfie’ results in over 230 million images!
Through selfies people are trying to identify and reinvent themselves, just like they have sought to do through self-portraits throughout history
— James Hall, art historian and author
In pic: Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu while attending the Shalom Bollywood event in Mumbai, this January, said: "I want all the Bollywood celebrities, producers and stars to join together for a selfie. Let a few hundred million people see the friendship." Later, he posted the picture on his official Twitter ID; pic above: Pope Francis with a devotee
For heads of state, selfie is a visual narrative to tell a larger story to create compassion and empathy
— Gitanjali Sharma, psychologist
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