Summary

It is a Monday morning and I am reading chapter 3 of Seeing Ourselves through technology by Jill Walker Rettberg. So this chapter is called Serial Selfies so I start thinking that this chapter is going to be about selfies. This chapter is not only about selfies but the background of what happened years before this age where selfies were not the same. what consisted of selfies back then is not the same as it is now, we are in a new era where we can take things like time lapse selfies, status updates, tweets, instagram posts. Self-representation is a big part in this chapter. Jill Walker Rettberg states “Digital self-representation and self-reflection is cumulative rather than presented as a definitive whole” (35). We use different social media sites to express how we look or represent each other but the way we reflect on those pictures could be totally different. We use our technology to make ourselves look better. We take a photo look at it and try to fix something about us to seem different like fixing your hair or posing in a different position. Whereas back when everyone took pictures with photo booths we couldn’t pause to do some of these things.

Key words/ Terms

Genre- A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

Selfies- A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.

Serial- Consisting of, forming part of, or taking place in a series.

Reflection- The throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it. Or a serious thought or consideration.

Expression- The process of making known one’s thoughts or feelings. A look on someone’s face that conveys a particular emotion.

Visual- Relating too seeing or sight. A picture, piece of film, or display used to illustrate or accompany something.

Analysis

I don’t really have a side in this argument, because I think that both sides have good points. technology is more modern everyday, look at apple for example and how they always come up with something new with something being better than the previous product like phones. With things such as time lapse photos and posting them on youtube as Ahree Lee and Noah Kalina did. We can see how posting things like this on youtube or other social media sites can also be bad. People were saying and commenting mean things. Jill says “There are slurs against asians and women (‘now do it again with your tits’)”(37). There will always be people that say bad things to try and hurt someones feelings so always posting things on social media sites could also be bad for some people. Posting things online is also a good way to spread new trends such as the time lapse selfie. Rettberg states “After Lee’s and Kalina’s videos went viral, hundreds if not thousands of similar videos had been posted online, and many of these have become very popular too”(38). So all together I don’t have a side since social media is a good thing and also could be a bad things for people and their selfies.

Works Cited

• Rettberg, Jill Walker. Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014..https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9781137476661.pdf