Takin' Selfies

PLEASE BEAR IN MIND, that apparently contrary to popular belief, a "selfie" is not a recently invented cell phone app. Oh, hell no. Selfies have been quite possible for quite some time, and have in fact, on rare occasion, taken place. its just that, until now, even American society wasn't sufficiently self absorbed and narcissistic to create a selfie fad. Part of it, of course, is the simple fact that, with today's smart phones, selfies are just too darned easy to take, and therefore too tempting not to take. However, they have always been a possibility. Fifty years ago you could hold a camera at arms length, and snap a quick picture of yourself. Its just that nobody did it. Nobody thought of it. either you held the camera and took a picture of something other than your own sweet self, or somebody else took a picture of you. It was that simple, and that's the way it was. Hell, for that matter, it was probably doable in the nineteenth century. You would have had to set up the big bulky camera, attach a rope to it, stand in front of the camera, pull the rope, and just stand there for ten minutes or however much time it took, and make a selfie, in slo mo. It might be just a tad blurry, since you would suddenly appear in the frame while the metal plate was already exposing. But again, nobody did that. Who in the hell would want to, at least until you get to the third millennium, cell phones, and inflated egos? Or whatever. Who knows, maybe folks way back when woulda been snapping selfies along with the rest of us had they but had cell phones...but still, even with the primitive cameras they had, they could have taken photos of themselves....and didn't. What do selfies say about us? Maybe not much. Social media is just another way to create community, but nothing may entirely take the place of good old fashioned face to face interface. Selfies would seem to harm no one, and maybe, just maybe, they do not prove that we are all a bunch of self worshipping egomaniacal maniacs.