There is Nothing Wrong with Taking Selfies — Says Me, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Raphael...

by Vincent R. Pozon

With hope or hurt, we stretch that arm,
when we love and feign love,
we take a selfie,
in parties, at work, when we wade into wakes.
We stretch that arm, insinuate ourselves
into snapshots of sunsets.

The Selfie is an attempt at immortality.

Why do we demonize the selfie so? It is a function available to this generation, readily provided by the devices that they have in their hands all day.

That they are able to take pictures of themselves, register their locations with their respective swarms, commit their moods to the cloud, pout and all, show who they’re with and what they are doing, is an ability far more useful and entertaining than twiddling thumbs, and that is what it is being compared with —the business of otherwise idle hands.

(And if you haven’t noticed, the selfie is a convenient mirror).

You cannot call it a habit, condemn it as addictive when there are no benchmarks for this addiction. Are five selfies a day selfish?

I suspect people who do condemn it are like me, old and all thumbs; unlike them though, I admire the skilled.

Ben Dreyfuss, Mother Jones' former editorial director for growth and strategy, offers a withering comeback to anyone who says that selfies are wrong: “What about Rembrandt, man? Rembrandt completed more than 60 self-portraits."

The Selfie does not make the kids today any more vain than the boys who carried combs in their back pockets or the girls who tissed their hair in class a generation or two ago.