The selfie tool. The grelfie (group selfie, a la Ellen at the Oscars). The belfie, the tool that helps you take a selfie of your, ahem, rear. 10 essentials for the perfect selfie (resist the clickbait if you dare). A world seemingly obsessed with itself. Or so social media would have us believe.
And with just a touch of the twilight zone comes this two minute short film from Matthew Frost, starring Kirsten Dunst. I hadn’t seen it before yesterday (thanks, @chrissiebutler for the share), although it came out late last year.
In summary, “… the actress and director Matthew Frost pull focus to this weird cultural trend that has replaced those archaic pen-to-paper autographs. Although posing for a photo alongside another person seems like it would be more of an interactive experience, Dunst and Frost suggest that it is just a shallow attempt to document this faux-interaction for social-network bragging purposes rather than connect human to human. If there is no social-networking evidence of that interaction, after all, what’s the point?”
It seems to me that this would make a great talking point about the way digital technologies increasingly pervade the way we interact (or not) – and from there into thinking about bigger questions such as:
- how do we validate ourselves, internally and/or externally?
- what is the nature of fame in these days of celebrity, 24-7 gossip media and reality shows?
- what role does social media play in the way we pitch and frame our identities in virtual spaces?
- whose voices do we not hear online and why might that be?
In many ways, I prefer this movie to the ‘Look Up’ viral ‘sensation’ which came out a few months earlier. There is a weirdness, a pause, an invitation to us to consider the nature of the interaction without the preaching of the ‘Look up’ video.
I have blogged before about the way different voices are/aren’t heard online and the way we may feel pressured to perform in a certain way to validate the way we appear to others.
The irony of my participation in #28daysofwriting, to a public audience, on-shared via social networks, is not lost on the author either….
Image by R4vi – ‘selfie stick’
karen spencer 
Hi Karen
I too love that it provokes thinking rather than demands how to act. Small glances and what the characters aren’t saying are just as important. Also the question around the title – who is aspirational – the girls looking for that hit of fame or Kirsten wanting the interaction?
Stephanie
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