Flipping the Lens: In Defense of the Selfie

July 18, 2016 Karin Hitselberger

Anyone who knows me, or even just follows me on Instagram , Tumblr, Facebook, or other social media, would probably tell you I post a lot of selfies, and I am not here to deny that. It is an absolute fact that I post a large number of selfies all over my social media accounts, but the thing is there is nothing wrong with that.

In our culture, we have embraced the narrative which says that sharing images of yourself with the world, as a young woman indicates that you have some kind of flaw. It has been declared that the taking and sharing of selfies by millennials shows a lack of self-satisfaction and a need for the approval of others.

I have heard time and time again Selfie critics decry the act of taking it sharing a photo of yourself as the penultimate in vain behavior. Selfies have been denounced as the symptom of self-involvement that some claim plagues our generation, but the truth is for a lot of people, including myself selfies have nothing to do with vanity, and everything to do with a reclamation of strength and power.

I exist in this world as a fat, visibly disabled woman in her 20s. I spent most of my childhood being absolutely disgusted with what I saw when I looked in the mirror. My body was covered in too many scars, my legs did not work right, and until I was 18 years old, my plastic leg braces were an ever-present accessory.

From the time I was five years old , my primary means of navigating the world was with the use of a wheelchair. Oh, my wheelchair, my first one was bright pink, and I never had a negative association with my wheelchair the way I did with my braces, in fact as a child I remember thinking it was quite cool. My wheelchair may have not been problematic for me, but it certainly was for people around me.

Everywhere I would go people would stare. They would offer their condolences for my existence to my parents, siblings, and friends, praising them for their willingness to associate with me. When I was young I was adorable, seen through the gaze of others as something akin to a puppy, who they could pat on the head, and use to brighten their day. As I grew, the wheelchair stayed, but I went from an adorable child to an awkward preteen, still hearing the saccharine sweetness of strangers who would comment on how “inspiring” “cute” and “precious” I was.

The staring never stopped, but I started to notice it more, internalize it, and it began to destroy me from the inside out. The staring, I hated it. I hated the look on people’s faces when they would stare as if I was a zoo animal on display to gawked at. I hated the unmistakable pity, and sometimes even disgust. I hated it, but I could not avoid it, and the message was coming in the loud and clear. My body was problematic. I was problematic. At best I felt like something adorable meant to warm your heart, and at worst I felt like a mutant.

My teenage years are marked by intense struggles with body hatred, undiagnosed eating disorders, and self-harm . My early 20s were not much better. I hated my body, and I hated feeling like an object for everyone else to project their judgment of my existence on. There was a time when I could not look in the mirror without crying. There was a time when I believed the lie that I could only be pretty, only be worthwhile if I fit into the standards our society sets. There was a time when I thought people were right when they would say, “you would be so pretty if you were not in a wheelchair.”

There was a time when I could not stand to be on camera. There was a time when deep in my heart I thought it would be destroyed by my own self-hatred, but luckily for me, things changed. It was a lot of things, and it did not happen all at once. I found the disability rights movement and came into my own as a disability rights activist. I learned to be proud of who I was instead of hating myself for it. I learned to stop trying to overcome my disability and start trying to learn how to live with it.

In the midst of this transformation, I fell in love. I fell in love with a boy who saw things in me I did not know how to see it myself. I learned to be gentler with myself. I learned that I was worthwhile because of who I was, not in spite of it. I fell in love, and in doing so, I started to learn how to love myself. Unfortunately, my romance did not last, and a few months after our breakup, my former boyfriend tragically passed away. Losing him was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through, and I am still nowhere near close to healed, but the night he died I made a promise to him and to myself that I would find a way to hold on to all the things he taught me about myself. I promised to try and see myself a little differently.

I intended to keep that promise, I just had to figure out how.

Shortly after that, I started a fashion blog. I needed to find a way to see myself as beautiful. I needed to come to terms with the girl in the mirror, and I could not rely on anyone else to do it for me. It was in this that I discovered the immense healing power of the selfie.

I loved putting on makeup, picking an outfit, and getting to decide for myself what side of me I would show the world. As I began to post my selfies, I began to learn about the experiences of other people similar to me. I began not to mind the staring or the idea that somebody was looking at me because I was in control of it. I was choosing it. For the first time in my life, I truly felt like I was defining my own visual narrative. To me, selfies became a way of saying “go ahead and stare I am not going anywhere.”

Selfies became the antidote to the years I spent literally trying to make myself disappear. They were the rejection of the idea that I did not deserve to take up space, and the best thing I could do was literally destroyed myself trying to blend in.

My selfies became my act of rebellion. My rejection of the idea that somebody like me could not be considered beautiful. They were my answer to the years of uninvited gawking and critique. I was not something to be stared at quickly as you pretend to avert your eyes. I am worthy of being seen and truly acknowledged for everything that I am. I am beautiful as I am, and selfies allowed me to turn the gaze inward on myself and taught me to understand that I have value, and I am worthy of being truly seen.

I take a lot of selfies. Smiley pictures with lips coated in every shade of lipstick imaginable, rocking dresses, and various pairs of bright sneakers.

I take a lot of selfies, and you can usually see my scars, or at the very least my bright orange wheelchair. I share my selfies because they allow me to control the way people see me. They allow me to show that I am not a thing to be pitied, there is nothing inherently flawed or wrong about my existence.

I take a lot of selfies because they remind me that I am not broken problematic simply because I exist outside of what our society considers normal. I take a lot of selfies because I have learned to refuse to disappear. I take a lot of selfies because I want to be unavoidable and impossible to forget, not as an individual, but as an idea. I want my way of living to be seen as worthwhile of being seen, rather than as something that needs to be hidden.

I take a lot of selfies because the disabled life is not one that has often been photographed, or at least rarely in a positive way. I take a lot of selfies because they quite literally saved my life, and taught me to see myself in an entirely different light. I take a lot of selfies because my story and stories like mine are worthwhile and valid, and I am going to tell it.

I take a lot of selfies because they are my revolution. They are my unavoidable statement that who I am is valid, beautiful, worthwhile, and worthy of being truly seen, not just stared at on the street.

I take a lot of selfies, a nd there is nothing vain about that.

[Image Description: white text on a black background reads, "Flipping the Lens: In Defense of the Selfie" underneath that text another line of white text reads, "www.claimingrip.blogspot.com. On the right side of the text are two selfies of the same young white woman with blond hair and black rimmed glasses wearing lipstick. In both photos she is looking at the camera and smiling.]