This is probably the very first selfie in the world.
The Library of Congress keeps the photo and estimates the young man had to hold this position in between 3 and 15 minutes, depending on the amount of light in his backyard during the exposure. People need to take a selfie in so many efforts in the past. After the investment of mobile phone, the front camera helps people a lot. People can look at their face in the monitor and take the selfie within a few seconds.
But first, what is a selfie?
According to the International Journal of Communication by Theresa, “a selfie is a photographic object that initiates the transmission of human feeling in the form of a relationship. It is also a gesture that can send (and is often intended to send) different messages to different individuals, communities, and audiences. This gesture may be dampened, amplified, or modified by social media censorship, social censure, misreading of the sender’s original intent, or adding additional gestures to the mix, such as likes, comments, and remixes.”
In a simple way, a selfie is tended to send and present your own feeling to the public.
It is very normal to see a selfie in the modern world since most of the people have their own mobile phone, people are very obsessed with social media. People not only obsessed with the social media platform also obsessed with likes and comments. I believe most of the people care how others think of themselves, in 20-century people think of a way to measure this. People started to focus on the number of likes, the most likes mean the most popular or good.
It is also a reason that people started self-branding by posting their selfie or their life on social media. It is marketing themselves and make their careers as brands, we can also think this is a self-packaging.
Kylie Jenner is a successful example on self-branding, she knows what she is good at and interested in which is makeup. So she makes herself as a brand, “KylieCosmetics”, she will try it on and take selfies to show the product through social media to the public. It is only one selfie, she not only shows her face, but she can also deliver a message to her fans about the release of the new eyeshadow palette and the new lipstick.
Selfie can be are powerful things that change your life. Self-branding not only works on celebrities, but so many ordinary people also get famous because they know how to self-branding themselves.
Tana Ashlee is an MMA model who always updated her Instagram. Most of the gym lover follow her because she will share her perfect fit body, selfie or even workout to the
public. She is just a normal model before she using Instagram to self-branding herself, but now she becomes a personal trainer with her own business in Las Vegas. She will also share her pregnancy diary on social media, and how she gets fit after the pregnancy. It does attract many people who have the same experience to follow her Instagram or even may find her to be their own trainer. It can really help to boots Tana business.
A selfie can be a way to express people feeling or even be a powerful tool to self-branding toward people business. Internet is very amazing to let people explore the world to reach something new and interested. No matter where I am, I can use my phone and login to Instagram and see Kylie’s post. I may get interested in her makeup product by looking at her selfie, what I do is only click her brand website and buy the product which she just uses in the photo. It is such easy and convenient to all of us, and it shows how powerful for a selfie can do.
References:
1: Grenoble, R. (2017, December 07). This Is (Probably) The World’s First Selfie. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worlds-first-selfie-1839-robert-cornelius_n_4392804?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABylymTg6HYbKpsAX2HvCPMvIJPHo0BN0IkU2vQ0jd0LdsHO97ZMME5TD40osDcp3FkWfwUdUcfQhCbA0gJPLwsRY0eCCbNCfMDsTT9J3RzQm9QuiN-6Oxlo6bep5fKN0LySXN0ez68pIxHg7mzr5n1j5h9D2i-wVnPgvQWLQY-_
2: T. M., & N. K. (n.d.). What Does the Selfie Say? Investigating a Global … Retrieved from http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/4067/1387
3: K. J. (2018, August 3). Kylie on Instagram: “birthday glam using my new 21 eyeshadow palette, Queen Matte Lip from my bday minis, and champagne showers highlighter! I can’t wait for…” Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_OR7wAtGS/
4: T. A. (n.d.). @tanaashleee • Instagram photos and videos. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/tanaashleee/?hl=en
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