What is the latest selfie that has been most talked about lately? Is it James Franco’s inappropriate bed-side morning selfies? Is it Beyoncé posing with her daughter, Blue Ivy? The no makeup selfie of Kim Kardashian, maybe? What is a ‘Selfie’? Oxford Dictionaries defines it as ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website’. We share everything that is going on in our lives with social media. In today’s generation, even what you had for breakfast gets known by all, by simply uploading it onto the closest social media site. If you type in ‘#SELFIE’ into Instagram, you will get the results of more than 3,234,500 posts.
Popular culture theory can be defined as ‘ everything that the people of a society use in their “design for living” and pass on to the next generation as their “social heritage” ’ (DeFleur, 2010) There are various sources of pop culture and they are circulated and influenced through mass media especially TV, radio, magazines, movies, books and the Internet. Celebrities also play a huge role in pop culture through the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram etc. According to philosophy professor, Tim Delaney, popular culture encompasses the most immediate and contemporary aspects of our lives. (Philosophy Now, 2007) Selfies have found a way to be a part of the popular culture trend. The recent introduction of selfies increases the popularity of celebrities. And if celebrities are following the trends, everyone else will.
Celebrities humanize themselves through social media, via selfies. Why are we obsessed with celebrity selfies? What makes celebrity selfies so popular? It is all because of the media. At the...
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Here we see a selfie of Taylor Swift with no makeup, ready to eat a donut. What could possibly make her seem more down to earth than that? When celebs put up photos of themselves au natural, they gain immediate love and support from fans because the selfie humanizes them.
Take Louis Tomlinson, from One Direction, for instance. Here he is with a fan posing for the camera with a goofy expression. Fortunately for us, even celebrities seem to love selfies just as much as we do, and they're all for making silly faces.
The media depends on pop culture, because it is what the people want, it is what the people demand. And the celebrities are more than willing to provide them with photos, hence increasing their own popularity .Using the example of selfies, pop culture
All in all, we can see that through celebrities, selfies demonstrates the notion of pop culture.
There you are holding your camera an arm’s length away from your face, posing in the most flattering position to capture your best angle. There you are taking a photo of yourself to share with all of your Facebook friends. Taking a self-portrait photo, also known as a selfie, is something almost everyone has done in this new generation. This action is typically done without a second thought. In Alex Williams’ article “Here I Am Taking My Own Picture” that second thought is provoked through exploring the quickly spreading trend of self-portrait photography. In the article while Williams’ provides interesting examples on a changing generation as this trend progresses through social media and modern technology; Williams also leaves something to be desired within the article due to a lack of direction in the author’s stance on the topic.
Murphy argues that people who take numerous amounts of selfies have the same attributes as psychopaths and narcissists however, that does not always mean that they are. They are just unaware if they do something that may go outside of social standards, especially if it's for a picture. Murphy reveals that selfie takers are insecure and are looking for validation from their peers; however their insecurities are masked over by their confidence. The higher number of likes they get, the more confident they feel. Murphy further states that more people are getting cosmetic surgery due to being discouraged when looking at their selfies but with all the applications that can be used to alter one’s features it isn't hard to feel that way. The apps can make your skin clear and teeth whiter it's hard to look in the mirror when you’ve seen a better version of yourself and it seems attainable. Selfie takers wouldn’t be insecure if they learn that
In the article “What Your Selfies Say About You” by Peggy Drexler, she talks about self-portraits also known as the “selfie”, and how it has taken over social media and added a manifestation to society’s obsession with looks. Taking a self-portrait can be positive in the sense that you are proud of your image and are not scared to share it with others helping boost up your self-esteem. Although this may help others by persuading them to not be ashamed to share their true image, Drexler believes this can also affect other individuals whose focus is only on looks making them feel self-conscious about their looks. A recent study out of the UK found that the selfie phenomenon may be damaging to real world relationships, concluding that both excessive
“Selfies are not all about seeking external validation” (Rutledge). Selfies are generally understood as a form of self-portraiture in which the photographer is also the main subject or, one of, the photograph. Selfies have become a more prominent trend since “[…] appear[ing] on the photo-sharing site Flickr and on MySpace back in 2004” (Rutledge). However, desire for self-portraiture has existed since first commissioned in Ancient Egypt, self-painted since the invention of the mirror, and now simplified and cost-free with digital camera devices (Rutledge). As a result, the now widespread selfie has created a negative stigma that nearly makes them synonymous with narcissism, though such immediate reasoning
Popular Culture has changed drastically over the decades with the biggest question being whether or not popular culture is a positive or negative expression of our ideas and reflections. American Pop Culture has an extremely important role that influences the United States and around the world. There are countless topics that make up pop culture and it is nearly impossible to name all of them. Some of the topics are Television, Music, Religion, Politics, Arts, Economy, Education, Family roles and structures. Three of the cultures that I believe has changed the most and seems to cause the most controversy are television, music and religion.
A selfie is a specific form of self-representation (p1) and is usually taken from a smartphone. Smartphones allow individuals to take a selfie and share it instantly on social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, etc. as a form of self-representation (p2). The constant development of social media platforms and applications has allowed users to easily create and share their personal content, such as selfies, as social media is known to be a method for self-representation (p2) (p52). Snapchat is an application that was designed to take selfies, as there are various affordances to help create different types of selfies, such as applying filters or using different lenses. People use this application to create different types of selfies, as well as edit them before posting, to best represent themselves on social media. Selfies represent individuals as they include their physical appearance and demonstrate their behaviors based on their poses and expressions (52).
With everyone from Barack Obama to Ellen DeGeneres, Miley Cyrus to David Beckham getting in on the action, selfies have become a thing, and have exploded into one of the consequential social media trends over the past couple of
In the beginning, the relationship between everyday culture and mass media culture are closed but there are some difference between popular culture and traditional culture. The traditional culture is known as ‘high culture’ which refer to literature, art, music etc. However, popular culture is the produced by mass media, may know it as low culture. People used to entertainment or relaxation. It shared and spread rapidly in groups, communities, societies and so on. Some people may say popular culture help us to understand more about the world because of the globalization factor.
Popular culture is often dismissed as frivolous, unimportant or simply mindless entertainment, both by media critics and by academics. However, it is important to examine and think critically about popular culture and what it can tell us about the society that we live in. In the specific case of the relationship between gender and popular culture, popular culture is informed by the way gender is structured and the structure of gender is, in part, reinforced by popular culture.
Victoria, Woollaston. "Selfies Are 'damaging' and Leave Young People Vulnerable to Abuse, Claims Psychologist." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
One of the trends today is taking selfies. It is believed that Self-portrait or selfie’s have been practiced many years ago. It just happen that there are increasing number of people who use the word “selfie” whenever they take pictures of themselves through the influence of social media. As a Filipino, we cannot deny that many of us were addicted or so attach on taking selfie’s and many of them are teenagers. Resulting from this new trend of taking pictures of ourselves, Philippines is declared as one of the selfie capital of the world.
I’m not saying that I like pop music or what they stand for, but I respect the fact that they influence media, videos, and people with the images that they convey. For example Britney Spears has fifty-nine websites that are dedicated to just HER. Can you believe that? Most of them are fan sites too. That is ridiculous. But you have to hand it to those pop stars; the way that they dance in their videos and the sexy clothing that where makes people want to be like them. The way that camera angles are set up in videos creates a very sensual atmosphere in a lot of videos. Also on the other hand a lot of pop stars grab public attention by singing about a controversial subject for example Christina Aguilera’s song “Beautiful” talks about the openness of homosexuality. It is not just pop stars however that sing about controversial topics other genres of music do the same thing, but the point I’m trying to make is that pop stars can influence their followers through music videos and image that they have the right opinion on certain topics that affect everyone. The messages pop stars show in their videos and the image that present affect everyone in both positive and negative ways.
Popular culture embodies the beliefs, ideas, perspectives, attitudes, and images of various cultures. Popular culture is heavily influenced by mass media, key celebrity figures, movies and related entertainment, as well as sports and news. However, in the past decade, the Internet and social media has come to be a significant influence on pop culture.
The Selfie has been the norm since the beginning of the 21st century. Today, we feel the need to post "selfies" in order to garner likes and feel better about ourselves. I have been caught up in the selfie craze. I would consider Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr to be some of my guilty pleasures, but I do realize that the more that I participate in selfie taking the more self absorbed I get. The new craze has been taking over both the younger and older generation, affecting them both positively and negatively. The “selfie” can raise confidence but it can also bring you down further than you already were. Some say that it is not good for you and some say that it will raise confidence and make you feel like beautiful person that you are, but one thing that we all know is that selfie culture is evolving.
Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,