Take a Picture (It Lasts Longer)

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock  

Moma Rock chose this week’s topic, and she suggested :  Selfies.

            Surprisingly, I don’t have a strong opinion on selfies – odd, since I seem to have a strong opinion on just about everything else.  I’m guessing it’s because I’m not too firmly entrenched in social media (and because I’m old).  I am a regular Facebook user, but I haven’t ventured into photo-driven Instagram and only rarely dabble in Twitter (and mostly because Bill Murray’s tweets are hilarious).  Of my 384 Facebook friends, a small subset really ever posts selfies; of that group, a mere handful does it to an extent where I actually take notice.  Further dividing that group, most are of the age where I expect selfies – which I consider to be somewhat generational and thus belonging to the world of ‘tweens and teens and twentysomethings – while a couple are closer to my age.  It’s funny:  when the youngsters post their self-images, I don’t think much of it.  But when my peers regularly post selfies, they kind of bug me.  Not every selfie by every peer at every time, of course, just the ones from the friends who seem to post more than a few.  They strike me as a bit narcisstic.  They make me think, Hmmm, someone likes herself a whole lot of herself.  To me, regularly posting selfies screams, Look at me!!  I’m pretty, goddamn it!!  Because don’t you have to think you look good – or at least want to hear that other people think you look good – in order to voluntarily share a photo of yourself with the sole goal of having people look at you? 

            This is the exact reason I don’t take selfies.  And because I don’t take them, I obviously don’t post them.  Have I ever shared a photo of me over social media?  Of course.  But I tend to limit those to pictures in which others are present, or simply to using certain ones for my profile pic.  I’ve taken selfies in limited situations, like when I want a not-currently-in-the-same-room-with-me friend’s opinion on a shirt or a new haircut, but I don’t share those.  And I always put my hand over my face before I take the photo.

            I have noticed that the subject of selfies has been in the news of late, thanks to some bizarre-sounding study that found men who post a lot of selfies may or may not be psychopaths.  Seems like a stretch to me, but I am a terrible judge of character, particularly of men, so what do I know.  Narcissists, sure.  That makes sense.  Psychopaths?  Maybe not.  But, then again . . .

            When I was looking around online for the psychopathic-selfie-taker article (which I read and found lame, so I won’t link to it), I stumbled upon a piece written about selfies at funerals.  Apparently, there is an entire website dedicated to this phenomenon.  I?  Had no idea.  I have been to many, many funerals and I can honestly say that the thought of taking a photograph at the funeral has rarely crossed my mind.  At first, the idea appalled me.  It made me want to slap the phones out of the hands of the young photographers.  But I read on, and the article raised some interesting points.

            First, the Selfie Generation has a view of technology, privacy, and sharing that differs a bit from the one held by my age group.  For that reason, events someone my age might never think to document with a photo and share might seem totally ok to photograph and send around by someone of the Selfie Generation.  That generation regularly captures significant events on film – and a funeral is significant.  Makes some sense, right?  This is no longer the day in which we had to go to Walgreens to buy a roll of film, take ten minutes to load the camera, remember to carry it with us, take the photos, re-take the photos because they were blurry or someone blinked, take the film back to Walgreens, and wait a week for the photos, which turned out blurry anyway.  These days, we always carry our phones; as such, our cameras sit constantly at the ready – and we get instant results, which we can share just as quickly.

            Next, we all grieve differently.  You’ve seen it, I’m sure:  you attend a wake or funeral and someone is bawling, someone else is laughing, another person is awkward and quiet, another won’t approach the coffin, and someone else is hugging the deceased.  All of these reactions are normal, because there is no one “typical” reaction to death.  Taking a selfie may just be a way of coping with grief, a means of shifting attention away from the uncomfortable feelings.  It’s not my way, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way.

            Then, too, funeral photography was not uncommon back in the days of black and white.  While combing through antique stores, I’ve seen many photos taken at funerals – and not of the grieving, but of the deceased!  I know people today who take a photo of their loved one in the coffin.  If I really think about it, think about the life cycle from beginning to end, it isn’t so jarring.  It actually makes sense.  We photograph (and often videotape) newborn babies, even when they are covered in goo.  We take photos of major and minor life events:  graduations and first steps, lost teeth, broken legs, school assemblies.  Sometimes we take photos of people heading into the end of life, perhaps at a chemo session.  Is it really such a stretch to take a picture of someone who has passed?  It’s full circle:  the entire life cycle preserved on film.

            Having said that, I struggle with the thought of selfies taken with the deceased in the background.  From my glance around Selfies at Funerals, there was only one photo like that, and it was allegedly inadvertent.  It seems disrespectful to me, someone not of the Selfie Generation.  But, then, I also think it’s disrespectful to wear jeans and short skirts to a funeral (and there were many photos like that), so I guess my age is showing.

            If you’ve read this post carefully, you may have noticed I said the idea of taking a photograph at a funeral has rarely crossed my mind.  But it has, and I have.  It wasn’t a selfie – it was of my cousin B. and his young daughter.  We were burying my B’s father that day.  It was a somewhat relaxed funeral – just family at a small service at the cemetery chapel and then a walk across the road to the gravesite for the burial of the ashes.  Graveside, B. crouched down with his young daughter and whispered in her ear.  I don’t know what he said.  They stayed that way for a while.  I was so struck by the moment, I took my phone from my purse and discretely snapped a few photos.  It was just so sweet. 

            Months later, B. and I were messaging and I told him about the photos.  I truly had no idea whether he’d want to see them (or whether he’d freak out and unfriend me), but he did, so I sent them over.  I don’t know his reaction, other than to thank me.  Maybe he deleted them, perhaps he kept them.  I don’t know.  I never shared the photos beyond that (and I won’t share them here), nor have I again looked at them, the image already so clearly burned into my memory.

            I suppose I don’t have to “get” selfies any more than I have to like today’s pop music or anything else the generation du jour loves and understands.  I can try to pass along my sense of propriety to my own children and hope for the best, hope they don’t become the kind of girls who take selfies at my funeral and post them on Instagram or Twitter, hashtag:  #thewickedwitchisdead.

BONUS:  If you’ve read all the way to here (all five of you!), you’ve earned a reward!  I want to give you the opportunity to suggest future blog post subjects.  I choose the topic every fourth week, and I’d love to write about something you’d love to read about.  Is there a question you’d like answered, or a topic you’d like me and my co-bloggers to discuss?  Just post a comment containing your suggestion, either here or directly on my FB page, and I’ll choose one (or maybe more).  Offer not open to my co-bloggers!