Throwback Thursday – Unselfies

Walking in the park this morning, I came across three people (adults, yes) taking selfies of themselves in front of the lake.  When we traveled to Italy a while back, in Pisa people were taking selfies of in front of the tower.  All this focus on pictures of oneself seems to scream,” I am the center of the universe.”   But maybe that’s just my old-fashioned Inner Curmudgeon talking.  At any rate, here’s a repost of an alternative to selfies from 2014.

Every time I see people taking selfies (shiver … the term itself makes me throw up in my mouth), I wonder.  Are we in the midst of the most narcissistic period in human history?   Or does our assortment of mobile devices simply give everyman a means to manifest narcissism in more obvious ways?  Saturday night before the Diana Krall concert, people were taking selfies all over the Segerstrom Hall.  You’d expect that at a Bieber concert, but this was a mostly middle-aged and up jazz crowd.  And really, does anyone like the way they … and their spouse … partner … girlfriend … British Prime Minister (I’m talkin’ to you, president Obama) … look in a selfie, face distorted from the parallax of the camera lens?  Now, you might ask, haven’t you ever taken a selfie, Older Eyes?  Yes, I have:

Unselfies

Every time I see people taking selfies (shiver … the term itself makes me throw up in my mouth), I wonder.  Are we in the midst of the most narcissistic period in human history?   Or does our assortment of mobile devices simply give everyman a means to manifest narcissism in more obvious ways?  Saturday night before the Diana Krall concert, people were taking selfies all over the Segerstrom Hall.  You’d expect that at a Bieber concert, but this was a mostly middle-aged and up jazz crowd.  And really, does anyone like the way they … and their spouse … partner … girlfriend … British Prime Minister (I’m talkin’ to you, president Obama) … look in a selfie, face distorted from the parallax of the camera lens?  Now, you might ask, haven’t you ever taken a selfie, Older Eyes?  Yes, I have:

Words of the Year

Back in November, when the Oxford Dictionary folks selected Selfie as the Word of the Year, I considered posting on the subject.   Selfie isn’t a word, I might have said, it’s slang.  And juvenile slang at that.  Then I Googled Oxford Word of the Year.  It turns out that the runner up for 2013 Word of the Year was twerking.   For 2012 it was omnishambles (what the hell?).  2011 – squeezed middle (ditto).  Hmmm.  A little research revealed that the Oxford word of the year is based on its coming into prominent usage in the past year AND that there is no assurance that the Word of the Year will be added to the Oxford Dictionary.   That made me feel better.  Then I saw the picture of the president of the United States posing for a Selfie with with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt … at the memorial service for Nelson Mandella.  I’m not picking on Mr.Obama.  He is a product of his times and his generation and it beats the hell out of sex games with a cigar and an intern in the Oval Office.  But it did make me wonder if Selfie isn’t in fact the perfect word to describe the state of the species in 2013.