It must take lots of practice, as my few efforts at a selfie always depict me with some manner of ailment that might be characterized as far-gone dementia. Mind, the use I make of my iPhone extends to the now rare receipt or placing of telephone calls, and the much more frequent placing or receipt of text messages- except in England, where the cost of a single text message is about equivalent to a starter, entrée, and pudding at Rule’s. So, displacing texts in some quarters, substitute emails.
With all that, I do need to take a selfie, albeit rarely. The Warburg Institute, where I hang my academic hat of late, requires an updated ID photo, to affix to an updated ID card, annually. Given that the full compliment of Warburg scholars is only about 80, one can imagine that, with all of us well known to each other, it is rarely anyone has given my ID card even a first look, much less a second. Good thing because, as noted, had anyone done so, they’d opine I was some manner of mental defective and had no hope of flourishing in an environment of advanced scholarship. A sidebar- that sounds ego-driven, as I am not sure to what extent I am in actuality flourishing. However, I am still there, with my colleagues still friendly, but it might be they’ve taken pity on an old man of diminished capacity.
Now I have put my colleagues on their mettle to come to my defence, and before the cries of ‘no, no- you’re highly valued’ become overwhelming, let me crack on.
Of course, those cries would be voiced virtually, and that’s what I really want to write about, the confluence of selfies and social media. Can one in this day and age avoid social media? In the olden days, that is, three years ago, when we closed down our last gallery location, we had already established our presence on Facebook, Instagram, Medium.com and Twitter- which isn’t even Twitter anymore, but not claiming social media maven status, I don’t remember what it is called- so take that, Elon Musk.
Our motivation for all this was entirely venal, or should I say, less cynically, ‘commercially motivated.’ We’d have images of current stock, images of stands at various antiques and art fairs, images of the gallery spaces, and, just rarely, ourselves depicted within, doing whatever it is we were doing. Although a lot of what we were doing was hoovering the floor, most typically we were shown expatiating, and this generally linked to the images of the gallery interiors, in our attempt to provide some manner of virtual experience for punters.
Did it work? Was any of this worth it? Well, frankly, yes. We achieved a few sales early on from people who, ultimately, never did darken our door, and with our need to move on in life and eventually close down our bricks and mortar premises, we believed that, along with the Chappell & McCullar website, we were well along the road as successful online merchants.
As perhaps we were. We quickly determined, however, that we were not the only venal ones, and that our online posts were hardly seen by anyone save being ‘boosted’ with some manner of strange and mystical algorithm that magically presented our posts to those others who, based on their online affinities, might be interested in what we were selling. So far, so good, one might say, and, for a time, it was. We acquired friends and followers, most of whom one would have to stretch the general understanding of those words to so characterize them, but we had them all the same, and in vast numbers.
And sales increases thereby? Well, no. The magical algorithms regularly linked our stock in trade with things like painted flower pots, throw cushions, and pet care items. Go figure.
However, the cost to promote our posts was cheap, but did require the keeping on file credit card information and that, finally, is where we had to part company. Despite so very many assurances that our credit card information was secure, we were repeatedly hacked and while nothing ever happened beyond the inconvenience of having to cancel the card on file and then replace it with another, we figured, reasonably enough, that we were just asking for it. Besides, the utility of the posts for sales purposes had run its course. I found, like so many others- so many millions, in fact- I was viewing the success of a post by the numbers of times it was liked and the numbers of new followers/friends it engendered. This very nearly became a mania, or addiction- you choose- from which, thank goodness, I recovered. Hello, my name is Michael- I am a social media whore. By the way, it was my third nephew then age 27 who so characterized me. I suppose that might be counted an intervention.
And so it is, I suppose in my recovery I feel some manner of superiority to those sods who are still in the throes of addiction, posting selfies every damn day, or more often, in any manner of inane activity. Mind, the more comely the person depicted, the more followers they seem to have, but I would also note, very many of these ostensibly non-commercial posts are promoted by the poor sods. The question is, why? ‘Friends,’ or ‘followers’, or what have you, that are having their addiction fed by others
- Living vicariously, ‘liking’ images and activities more attractive and interesting compared to what’s happening in their own dismal lives, or
- The selfie posters attempting to live vicariously through other’s lives, with the hope of some vague affiliation and ego strokes from ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ who will provide kudos about one’s otherwise inane posts.
That of course, if one were on fire, these same friends or followers wouldn’t provide an ounce of piss to put out the flames, even if they could, has, sadly, restructured the heretofore generally accepted definition of friendship. Friendship, it now seems, no longer implies a degree of intimacy that carries with it an understanding of frequent, and person to person, social interaction.
That interaction, the central tenet of friendship, has gone out the window, and what there is of it that does survive, survives only to the extent it mirrors one’s ‘friendships’ on social media. And I suppose that’s where selfies form some manner of matrix, that if one meets a person in real, as opposed to virtual life, if that person does not accord with the facial imagery one has chosen to befriend on social media, one gives that real life person the go by. With all that, I doubt the late great director of the Warburg Institute, Sir Ernst Gombrich, would fare very well on social media, but then, I can’t picture him taking very many selfies, either.