Module 5: Pinterest Boards - Meredith Leary

 

History of the 'Selfie'

Link to my Pinterest board.

For my Module 5 Mini-Assignment, I decided to explore the concepts from Module 4:Identity, Representation & #Selfies. While reviewing the module readings, I was particularly intrigued by the history of self-representation and self-portraiture, particularly as described by O’Hagan and Spilioti (2020) in their article,The Edwardian Selfies: A transhistorical approach to celebrity culture and pictorial bookplates. There is a popular assumption in modern media that 'selfies' are revolutionary new ways of self-representation, however, the history of self-portraiture indicates that this is far from true. As O'Hagan and Spilioti indicated, "a transhistorical perspective is not about reading backwards to a finite point, but rather identifying antecedents in the communicative histories of individuals and communities that shape a text’s creation" (p. 2). Humans have been creating self-representations as far back as historical records can show. As new technologies are made available, new self-representations are created, however, that does not mean self-representations are new. This Pinterest board focuses on the history of the 'selfie' in particular - self-portraits that are photographic in nature - from the first 'selfie' to mainstream usage.

Image crop from Sony's 'Selfie' Infographic. (2014)

The first pinned image on The History of Selfies Pinterest board is an infographic created in 2014 by Sony to celebrate the release of the Xperia C3 selfie smartphone. This infographic features a short timeline of the selfie as well as statistics around selfie use and selfie users. Of particular note is the section titled "The Top 6 Things That People Would Retouch in Real-Time Before Sharing". O'Hagan and Spilioti (2020) note how Edwardians took advantage of the invention of the Kodak Brownie camera and chemist-bought tinting kits, decals, masking, add-ins, and montages to enhance their photographs and hide facial defects, similar to retouches and filters made common today with social media photo apps (p.3).  

The first 'selfie' - Robert Cornelius 1839. Image credit Library of Congress

The second pinned image on the board is that of Robert Cornelius - his 1839 photographic  self-portrait, or widely known as the first selfie. "Cornelius’ picture, a daguerreotype, is considered the earliest extant photographic portrait in the world" (Maloney, 2022). This self-representation was taken just months after Louis J.M. Daguerre published his invention of the daguerreotype process (Maloney, 2022). While this may have likely been done to showcase the formula adjustments made by Paul Beck Goddard to shorten the sitting time from 25 minutes to up to 2 minutes, this photographic self-representation indicates a level of importance and perhaps desire of the time to reflect the self in photographic portraits. 

The first 'Mirror Selfie' - Anastasia Nikolaevna 1913. 

The third pinned photos is that of Anastasia Nikolaevna, who took the first known 'Mirror Selfie' with the Kodak Brownie camera in 1913 at the age of 13. This event ranks at number 5 in Jonnathon Coleman's Medium article, 10 Pivotal Moments in the History of the Selfie. The Kodak Brownie camera is noted as making photography increasingly accessible, allowing people to explore with self-representation in new, more convenient ways. 

The Pope posed for this picture with youngsters in August, with the resulting selfie going viral

The fourth and final pin on the History of Selfies board is an article by BBC News, "'Selfie' named by Oxford Dictionaries as word of 2013". The pinned image is that of Pope Francis in 2013, before 'selfie' was named word of the year, posing for a 'groupie' with a group of young adults. This article outlines how 'selfie' became word of the year in 2013, despite having been first recorded in use in 2002. While selfie technology has continued to change and innovate, 2013 marks the point where photographic self-representation had become so ingrained in modern culture that the slang terminology for the type of self-representation became recorded as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, and so prolific that even the Pope would pause to participate in this form of imagery. 

In creating this Pinterest board, I had to relearn how to use Pinterest. I appreciated the article by Schwamberger (2019) Pinterest Strategy Tips for 2018, as it provided some tips to create good content. A challenge that I noted with using Pinterest in the is manner is that if a website and image have already been pinned, the unique descriptions I made were not saved, even as private comments. I did not realized this until it was too late, and I unfortunately lost most of the unique descriptions that I had crafted. I am hopeful that I have addressed all of my original insights here, however, I was unable to go back to the Pinterest board and add my notes to the comments. I think this is important for Pinterest creators to be aware of, as it appears that new and unique images and content are important for Pinterest success. 

References:

BBC News. (2013 November 19). 'Selfie' named by Oxford Dictionaries as word of 2013. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-24992393

Coleman, J. (2018 April 10). 10 Pivotal Moments in the History of the Selfie. Medium. https://jonnathancoleman.medium.com/10-momentous-moments-in-the-history-of-the-selfie-169d7183c21d

O’Hagan, L. A., & Spilioti, T. (2021). The Edwardian Selfies: A transhistorical approach to celebrity culture and pictorial bookplates. DISCOURSE CONTEXT & MEDIA, 43. https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100522 

Maloney, W. (2022 July 25). Robert Cornelius and the First Selfie. Library of Congress Blogs. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/robert-cornelius-and-the-first-selfie/

XB. (2014 July 8). Sony details all you need to know about selfies in this infographic. Xperia Blog. https://www.xperiablog.net/2014/07/08/sony-details-all-you-need-to-know-about-selfies-in-this-infographic/