I’m going to be completely honest and admit that the male outrage I have seen around the term “selfie” completely scares me. It’s basically like seeing society play Level 1 of the Ted Bundy game where the Final Boss is Female Confidence. They say when people think in large groups they think less effectively i.e. stupid. Even on an individual scale the human mind determines physical attraction largely by non-verbal and sub-conscious factors and cues. In other words, humans are intellectually incapable of understanding why they are attracted to something while they are attracted to it. (It’s kind of like asking a guy right before he’s about to get a lap dance from a stripper what factors made her preferable over the five other strippers available at the bachelor party……..you won’t get an answer from him. Ask him over coffee the next morning, that is, if you’re not a hungover Wolfpack, and he might be able to verbalize it more. But only a little. Biologically, the male brain is programmed to be too busy pursuing what it is attracted to than to sit around figuring out what factors attracted his brain. In the same vein, female minds are absolutely programmed to consider the factors they are attracted to as it determines the factors their offspring will have towards attracting mates—fulfilling the ultimate objective of homeostasis and keeping. Life. Going. Anyways, squirrel. )
So, male brains, here’s some help with that. Science, studies AND statistics indicate that the male brain finds confidence attractive in a potential mate. You want women to be confident. Any brain, male or female, lacking confidence is more easily stressed. With stress comes increased cortisol and the magnification and escalation of any weaknesses in the operations of a physiologic system. Translation, a brain prone to depression will likely become depressed under stressed. A personality with disorders in their behavior patterns will display those behaviors more when they are under stress. Have I made the case for confidence thoroughly enough yet?
Ok, moving on. When women are taking photos of themselves AKA “selfies” their aim is often multi-sourced and multifaceted. First off, let’s state the logical given that women often take selfies after they have invested considerable time and resources to looking the way they did right before they took the fucking picture. So at baseline a selfie is merely the Adam Smith equivalent of documenting, performing a quality analysis and, if we get lucky, even profiting off one’s investment. Which I believe many important philosophers have deemed an overwhelmingly masculine way of thinking. So please, don’t smack us for playing by your rules. You made them. We offered you to play by our rules. But every time we try you call us witches, burn us at the steak or put us on psych meds and shit……..
After spending so much time laboring over their physical appearance, women post selfies on your innocent, unsuspecting news feed to put their visage out into the world. It is the equivalent to a female gazelle going up to the watering hole or going to the theater. Or the Kentucky Derby. So yeah, you could get pissed at women for posting selfies. And other people will Like your post because they identify with the feeling of intimidation they get from the fact that every time they see a selfie that instantly, briefly redirects blood (a limited resource, after all) from their brain to their penis. Their brains are uncomfortable because they lose control of their minds for a “hot” second. But it’s OK. This can keep happening. Because even if Every Woman On Your News Feed posted a picture of themselves every 24 hours…..well………that would be a Book of Faces, wouldn’t it. Dare I say……..a Face……book???? WHAT IN ~T*A*R*N*A*T*I*O*N IS A FACE BOOK?!?!?!?!?!?!?
On the contrary, if enough guys started posting negative comments about the concept of selfies, eventually a “group” would form. I mean, it would absolutely stop there, right? Because, certainly no group of people with similar mind states have ever made any impact on their society or history. (How come they don’t make Best Wishes cards with Swastikas on them, Mommy?) Imagine a group of people that were against the concept of women exploring and understanding themselves through this love child of photography and social media we term “selfie.”
I am scared because I am seeing two very dangerous mental outcomes from discouraging selfies. The first is that to discourage selfies is to discourage confidence. What happens when you discourage confidence to a certain extent? If the negative reaction to selfies could yield a chemical salt similar to how Walter White synthesizes crystal meth, well, hot ticket son, you just made Unabomber. Similarly, if you gather enough antisocial or sociopathic traits (you know, the ones where you don’t like to see or feel things about people?) together in a group, well, hot damn, you just made Ted Bundy!!!! (Don’t worry, you’re only Jeffrey Dahmer if you eat it.)
So let’s make a deal selfie, haters. We’ll play two rounds of this Social Media Made You Look Shit. One round we’ll play by your rules, the other by ours. Except this time we go first. And we really only have one simple rule these days ever since the dawn of the Power Puff Girls. That is, “Play nice, silly!!!”