Selfies and Superpublic

I’m not the first person to mention  Kim Kardashian today, but when people think of selfies, hers is one of the first faces to come to mind. In 2014, Kim cropped her baby out of a selfie, giving her much negative attention. Many tabloid articles were born from the Insta-scandal. Fans commented that she was selfish, wanted the whole spotlight to herself. One even wrote Kim “is a slutty mom who don’t care for her child”.

In last week’s readings, Rettberg said that sharing selfies can be compared to reaching out to hug the viewer- the viewer is closer to the subject than the camera. Celebs use this as a way to bring fans closer to them, making it seem like they are completely open. The fan thinks they know everything relevant about the celebrities life. This is the very idea behind a “selfie nation”. Nothing could be further from the truth. A lot of celebrities keep their children from the public eye as much as possible, children being the one small thing they won’t share with the public. However, Kim recognizes the post 9/11 attitube mentioned by Boyd: “if you hide something, you’re a terrorist”. Therefore, she and Kanye West have been extremely open and forthcoming with pictures of and information about their baby. This way, they aren’t hastled, and they handle the media on their own terms. The baby-crop scandal is proof that as soon as Kim censored her life the slightest bit, fans couldn’t handle it.

I wonder how the selfie city project would differ if it was taken on by celebrities instead of normal people posting Insta-pics. It probably wouldn’t- aside from being a lot more manicured. I take a lot of selfies in bed when I wake up. I also take a lot on the toilet. In this way, I am inviting people into the very intimate moments in my life. I expand Boyd’s definition of the superpublic to include the fact that with selfies, all spaces are in the public sphere- even the most private places in the home. I also wanted to note what “public” is. Boyd touched on the fact that the notion of a public is highly subjective- and a public may include members that a speaker doesn’t realize her or she is addressing. The “public” is a metaphysical term- and it is a concept that would not exist is we did not have a word for it. People in this age have the luxury of choosing their own public. With “selfienation”, it is apparent that the technically connected have chosen to make our entire lives public. People in very different cities all over the world have very similar image plots, which even further proves that many boundaries and distinguishing factors between nations no longer exist.

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