Taking a Fabulous Selfie

For those of you out-of-the-loop a Selfie is a self-portrait photography one typically takes with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone and often associated with social networking and photo sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc…

Admittedly I was quite against this new fad of taking photos of oneself and posting them online – I found it quite derogatory and almost self-promotional. But over time I’ve found myself lured into this world of taking a picture of myself and posting it online.

I wonder though how I would feel if my child starting taking photos of herself and posting them online in her teenage years. I probably wouldn’t like it to be honest, but I do value the self-confidence it may give her.

I grew up in an age where one was quite sacrificial. You pleased your elders, by listening and never spoke back. Don’t get me wrong, I loved how my upbringing taught me to respect those around me and to have self-respect, and only hope I can instill some of these similar values in my daughter. However, I do feel though, this new “selfie” birth, allows girls to value themselves a little more, and they sit up and take notice of themselves.

I think it has to be done wisely and appropriately and at the correct age. Blowing kisses into a camera at the age of 13 is not appropriate in my opinion, then again, having a phone at the age of 13 in my opinion is inappropriate. In society, we’re giving our children too much information which they cannot and are not able to handle.

 

I am a selfie taker, but I started at the age of 32, wanting to share my fashion finds or actually wanting to finally be happy about taking a photo of myself and sharing it with the world without actually caring how many people ‘like’ it. It is fun to do but it is dangerous too – you don’t want to get carried away and you wonder what type of role model am I for my daughter. I want her to love herself, I want her to not worry about being overweight nor worry about being accepted and I want her to find an avenue to embrace her own beauty.

If you can take a selfie while being true to who you are, then do it, and enjoy it. If you feel you can’t be yourself and have to pout, add 5 layers of make-up and pose (to cheat an angle) maybe you should look inside yourself and think are you cheating your audience or yourself because everyone around you, sees the real you.

Sharon Taggar

By Sharon Taggar Sekhon, Senior Make-up Artist at Drama Queen Studios

Tweet: @SharonTSekhon

Instagram: @sharontaggarsekhon