If you’re an Instagram user, you’ve probably noticed a hashtag called #2017bestnine circulating in your feed during the past few weeks. It’s from the Top Nine app, first launched in 2015, on which users enter their Instagram handle into a field and an algorithm forms a collage of the nine most popular photos from their accounts in that calendar year; people then post the montage on their Instagram pages. In 2017 my top nine included five selfies, four more than in 2016; no selfies were in my top nine in 2015. This change is indicative of why Chicago native Alicia Eler’s debut book, The Selfie Generation: How Our Self-Images Are Changing Our Notions of Privacy, Sex, Consent, and Culture, is a timely addition to growing research on selfie culture. Weaving first-person narrative and conversations with tech and social media experts, the Minnesota Star Tribune journalist offers a wide-ranging exploration of the effects of the selfie on our cultural relationship to technology, privacy, and gender.
That question pervades conversations around privacy and consent. Selfies can skew gendered power dynamics by allowing women to commodify what they’ve been taught is their only value—their appearance. Perhaps more significant is how selfies present a way for women to claim space, to prove they exist. Selfies enable a feeling of control over an image that has historically been defined by men. The male gaze is inescapable, however, which leads Eler to ruminate on the inevitable sexualization of women and what this means for culture in general.
By Alicia Eler (Skyhorse) Author reading Thu 1/18, 7:30 PM Women & Children First 5233 N. Clark 773-769-9299womenandchildrenfirst.com Free
