I sat in front of my computer yesterday to take a new Facebook profile photo in Photobooth. And it struck me...I was alone, taking a picture of myself, with the technology to see it right away, edit, delete, and make it look as good as possible. Inside of that was the desire to do just that. As I continued thinking, I thought about how much of a "craze" it seems to be right now to self-portrait...to take multiple pictures of oneself, funny faces, serious faces, edited and enhanced faces....and then display them to the world.
How many times have you looked at someone's Facebook, Blogger, Myspace photo albums to see album after album of self-portraits?
Why do we do that? Are we becoming increasingly vain and self-centered? Or are we merely enjoying our technological advancements?
Aren't there myriad other beautiful things in God's creation to take pictures of then ourselves?
Just a random thought.
8 comments:
America is so vain!!! It's hard not to absorbe what is all around you.. and not only can it make you vain...but the vanity of the 'world' can also have someone second guessing their looks and self-worth..and on and on it goes..... When choosing a photo for my facebook/myspace pages... I made sure it was a decent shot of me...it took quite some searching to find one I felt was even slightly acceptable.....and even then, I was none too happy about it... aren't we created in His image...shouldn't that be good enough? Where do we pick up all these crazy habits!!!
la la la la la You're so vain, you probably think this post is about you, You're so vain...la la la la la
Anyway, enough random singing. I think sometimes we're vain without realizing it and sometimes we're vain and we know it. AND sometimes we're just having fun with our technology. Now....how deep was THAT?
la la la la la
One could argue that having a blog where we talk about ourselves and what we are learning and what our opinions are is for more vain than the picture that accompanies it. I take a shower most days. Not because I'm vain but I'm doing what's reasonable to look my best. Maybe photoshoping your profile pic is the same idea. Maybe it's part of the communication of who you are and so becomes as much a parts of your message as what you say. Blogging and Facebook are all about self exposure.
That being said people who take tons of pictures of just themselves are weird, vain maybe, but definitely weird - it's as if they suspect that some day they will forget what they look like and not be close to a mirror and so they are building a giant digital repository just incase
Mmmm....good points, indeed. (And funny too.)
Thanks. :)
something I've been thinking: nature is really beautiful. I love it. but when I look at people (all of 'em) I could cry over how beautiful they are. People are God's favorite creation. they captivate Him more than the flowers or stars...so perhaps our obsession with faces and portraits (while with a quick judgment is very vain) is actually an echo of God's heart hidden in man: "you are created in MY image. look at yourself. I made you. you are the most beautiful thing on earth to me!" people edit themselves b/c they want to look good. man is looking to find goodness in himself, even through facebook self portraits. while it seems ridiculously vain I think it also speaks of the intense longing for redemption which is not-so-far buried in every heart. just a thought.
Oh Lor....leave it to you to be incredibly insightful and poetic! lol I love your insight...I definitely did not think of it like that before. I miss talking things through with you, dear sister. :(
Between my Facebook and here I've gotten very diverse reactions to this random thought. Thanks...it was just random, but has proven interesting.
I enjoyed this thought. I had a similar thinking experience while I was in Jamaica. Most of the pictures of me on the trip were taken by others...I set my focus consciously to observe the beauty of Jamaica and not just myself with the beauty behind.
We get very self-conscious and selfabsorbed when it comes to taking pictures.
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