Autoexposição e imagens: uma análise do fenômeno selfie na sociedade de consumo

Abstract

n contemporary consumer society’s tecnocultural context, we’ve watched a growing virtualization of human’s relations .The individuals become potential web terminals of data’s reception and transmittion, being images a great part of that data. In this scenario, a certain type of image detaches: the selfies. At those, individuals self-portrait themselves on smartphones or webcams to share their images on social medias. This practice has increased broadly and has enclosed many life’s aspects. For example, we highlight moments in bed (bedtimeselfie), while driving (drivingselfie) and even after sex time (aftersexselfie) . Also, there is a certain kind of selfie called braggie that seeks to cause envy through desirable objects or social experiences. Therefore, the selfies have become an important vehicle of contemporary ideals and lifestyles. The aim of this study proposes a selfie phenomenon analysis, considering the cult of self-exposition through consumption ideals and a reflection about the repercussion of this phenomenon on individual’s subjectivity and sociability. In order to do this, we approach the phenomenon, in a qualitative perspective, using the Critical Theory from Frankfurts’s School as a theoretical and methodological referential, in addition to contemporary critical authors that thematizes about aspects involving the object of the research. Methodologically, it was made a use of Critical Theory proposal, whose micro logical approach conceives the particular as a revealing index that remits to social whole. By this mean, we elected selfie phenomenon as an index able to uncover the totality of contemporary significant consumption ideals. Therefore, objectifying this phenomenon’s comprehension, we first percussed a documental stage, being oriented by details, marginal data, vestiges and evidences connected to the presented phenomenon. The documents considered were: selfies, reportings, hashtags, cybernauts’ comments, documentary, tutorials and videos. Afterwards, the collected material was organized on three key-categories by certain themes: Dolce Vita, Telerrealidade and Ideal Body. The first one refers to a certain lifestyle found in the analyzed images, while the second one specifies the ambience that compounds this lifestyle. The third category is related to the body that appears in those images. Finally, we proceeded to our final considerations, which involved a dialectical articulation between the adopted theory referential and the documental stage that pointed selfies as consumption phenomenon of the self and the other. In fact, on selfies many sides – its finality, its types, the search for the perfect selfie and for likes – we observe the mirroring of consumption society’s aspects. The perfect selfie, synonym of maximum visibility and likes, shows itself as the “perfect” integration of consumption ideals through new shapes. The search to capture the otherness eyes through what is familiar: the publicity language, part of Culture Industry’s speech. In the end, the spectacle is craved because became a total existing manner to people and to objects: it has included the social scene. By this mean, we point the relevance of this study to our contemporaneity, especially, to critical social psychology. Still, at this research, it’s uncovered an individual immersed in an homogenizing clime produced by a culture industry exacerbated by Tecnocultura. Therefore, this individual’s output, in other words, the way he chooses to portrait himself, shows this “existence pedagogy” or “vision pedagogy” , on which visibility and existence are, at many times, overlapped.