Self-ie Conscious

I used to be selfie conscious. Meaning that I used to be really insecure about taking selfies. I partly think it's a generational thing. Growing up, pictures were always taken from the point of view behind the camera. I still remember going to one-hour-photo shops with my disposable camera - twenty four pictures - half of them blurry, a few that I accidentally took from my pocket and 10 that I liked. Now when I want prints of family photos I upload them to Costco and they get mailed to me a week later.

I was thinking the other day about how I have more pictures of my daughters last year than I have of myself from the first 30 years of my life. I think I have a lot of photo from my childhood but its nothing compared to the amount I have of my children. I’ve got multiple albums thick and heavy with pictures and boxes full of VHS tapes. 

We used to sit around as a family once a year and watch home videos of earlier life. The VCR would do that fuzzy crackle thing in between the moments from a family reunion in Minnesota to jumping forward 6 months to my t-ball game and then to my brother playing in the backyard. 

Fast forward to today and I currently have 4,040 videos on my phone ranging from five second clips to five minutes of candid life. Just thinking about going through all of those memories gives me anxiety but I know there will be a day where I will sit down and go through hours of those videos crying my eyes out watching my girls when they were little.

It makes me wonder however, what will the current technology do to their memories as they grow up?  What will their earliest memories be and how vivid? My earliest memory is a vague recollection of a birthday party around age four. I remember making cheerio necklaces on licorice ropes. I remember a green wall or was it a green fridge? The feeling of sitting on a plastic tablecloth and the shape of the living room. I don’t remember any faces or names.

If I dug around I might be able to find a picture or two from that day. But for my kids' birthdays, I have hundreds of pictures and videos of each one. Sometimes five or six of the same photo that I just never deleted. When they want to go back and see those memories, the amount of content I have will essentially allow them to relive almost every moment of that day. That’s one of the plus sides of technology. That we can capture the moments that mean so much to us.

So why then should I feel insecure about capturing a moment with my kids or myself because of the angle of the camera? The answer is I shouldn't and the truth is I no longer do but it took a while for me to get to that point.  

The earliest selfie that I have in my phone is from seven years ago and is a picture of me in front of Tom Brady right after he won his fifth Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. I was working the post game trophy presentation for the game and clicked an unflattering and quickly timed photo as he was about to give his dad a hug. My tongue hanging out and my face squarely in front of the legendary football player in his moment of glory.

I remember being self conscious about it for a number of reasons. There was this voice inside that said “selfies are so self indulgent and vain”. I don’t know where it came from but honestly, I’ve since told that voice to fuck off. I think it’s a voice that we’ve all heard regarding whatever insecurity we may have. This nose in the air or low key petty attitude that just silently judges. I hate feeling it, I hate seeing it in others and I hate that I let it influence me in the past. 

Luckily it doesn’t exist with my kids in this context (they certainly will and do have their own insecurities) because my phone has over 1,000 selfies from the past seven years and my girls don't hesitate to take one with me or of themselves. So what better place to capture a bunch of moments with my girls than spending an afternoon at the Denver Selfie Museum?

On a sunny Saturday afternoon we did our own little artwalk of downtown exploring murals, pop up installations and the museum designed for taking selfies. The place was a lot of fun and had all of these really funky and well designed backdrops to take all kinds of creative photos. My girls were buzzing with excitement as they came up with different ideas and poses in each setting. From a bathtub full of plastic balls to a flowery garden background and a couch with a brightly lit neon sign that says “I CAN'T CONTROL MY SELFIE”. It was a place designed to allow for people's creativity to flow and embrace taking pictures and creating memories. There was nothing self indulgent or vain about it. 

With digital technology and an unlimited amount of space to store it. You could theoretically hit the record button on your phone and never turn it off. You could record your entire life. From the mundane and insignificant moments alone to the glamorous and exciting ones with family or friends and everything in between. You could relive your entire life. What would that experience be like? 

Would you necessarily want that? Are some moments better just being enjoyed as they are? Does it ever go from capturing a moment to holding it hostage? I am so used to hitting the little camera button on my Home Screen out of instinct that I’ve realized there is a lesson in mindfulness here that I need to not only practice but also teach my girls. Sometimes the introduction of the camera or phone can alter the moment being had and change the dynamic. I lose the moment in an attempt to capture it. It’s about finding a balance because I want to have the memory so I can relive it especially when I feel like my kids grow up so fast. 

We all have our things that we are self conscious about. Luckily I’m no longer “selfie conscious” but still have my insecurities. Elements of me I live with on a daily basis that in certain moments I’m acutely aware of other people's perception of. As I work through those insecurities, it is helpful to frame them through the lens of parenting. Modeling and teaching my kids the way my dad taught me. 

I grew up watching my dad always behind a camera. Being in video production he was always editing, photographing, assessing the lighting or directing some sort of scene. It was actually hilarious when other parents had their little 90’s family camcorder at a soccer game and then my dad was on the sideline with his beta cam looking like the news channel showed up for the 6th grade soccer match. But because of that, he taught me the importance of capturing moments with my kids. And he didn’t care one bit how conspicuous he looked because he was so proud to watch his sons doing whatever it was they were doing. The advance of modern technology has made it so easy that now I have to learn to hit pause a little more often with my own children despite how proud I might be of them. 

So whatever you’re self conscious about, let it go, remember you are who you are and as Oscar Wild said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken”.