#shameless selfie

selfies in popular culture:
feminist? antifeminist? agentic? empowering? discriminating?

goal: look at selfies in a broader context

neoliberalism & postfeminism

• structured by a current of individualism
• the self-regulating AND self-reinventing subject
• women required to manage, regulate & transform self

“notions of autonomy, choice, and self-improvement sit-by-side with surveillance, discipline and the vilification of those who make the ‘wrong’ ‘choices’ (e.g. become too fat, too thin, or have the audacity or bad judgment to grow older)” (2008, p. 442).

24 hrs
#godawgs
5017 photos
1592 posed

- 20% (n=290) were 'single-person' selfies
- 80% (n=231) were identified as women

- 54% (n=156) had some or all of the head cut out of the frame
- 92% (n=143) were women

#blonde
#perfecthair
#pretty

location of photos

• home - 139
• car - 50
• stadium - 8
• campus - 6

...continued

• street/downtown - 5
• other - 8
• unsure - 74

Untitled Slide

“Women are not straight-forwardly objectified, but are portrayed as active, desiring subjects who choose to present themselves in a seemingly objectified manner because it suits their liberated interests to do” (2007, p. 151)

Untitled Slide

thank you!