321. Summer of Selfies

Every year, Nora gets on her Instagram and promotes her made up holiday: the “Summer of Selfies”. She encourages all of us to take pictures of ourselves and celebrate our beautiful faces.

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Nora McInerny:  It’s hard for me to tell when summer starts because I live in a place that always feels like summer. But for at least five years, I have been participating in a holiday that I made up. It is something that I call Summer of Selfies  because it’s alliterative and I love alliteration and I love selfies. I love other people’s selfies  because what’s not to love?

I love people. I love people enjoying their lives. I love people appreciating the moment that they’re in. I love even the selfies that other people dismiss as vain. The ones that have great lighting and good angles.  Because I think that documenting your brief and beautiful existence  is worth it.  I think you are worth documenting. 

When you’re alone on a kayak in the middle of a lake.  When you take yourself out to dinner,  when you’re sitting in the car with the windows up, just taking a minute for yourself before you walk into the house or walk into work or walk into whatever other thing that you have to do with other people. 

When you’re dressed up for a big night or when you just like the outfit you’re wearing and you want to see, 

I think you’re worth documenting when you’re dressed up for a big night or when you just like the outfit that you’re going to wear to the store.  I think that people are worthwhile and sacred and there is something intimate and human about our instincts to document our lives.  The birthday cards we keep, the journals that we write in, calendar invites, and yes, selfies. 

Summer of selfies is really, honestly, it’s an all year long kind of thing. But again, alliteration.  I like when people are able to put down their judgment. and the judgments of other people. I like when I get tagged in a photo by a person who says they never take photos of themselves because they don’t like their face or their body or because they’re afraid people might think they’re full of themselves.

Because they’re embarrassed to be alone in public and take out their phone and take a photo of just them. Just them? Just you? I think you mean you.  You! All caps with an exclamation mark. You are you. Glorious, wonderful, magical you. There has never been another you. There never will be another you ever again.

And I think you are worth  documenting. I think you are worth looking at.  Even if you are the only one who sees the photo.  Summer of Selfies is not really an event. It’s an attitude. It’s a lifestyle. It’s an appreciation of who you are and where you are right here and now.  It is shrugging off every voice who told you that you weren’t cute enough, you weren’t special enough, you weren’t hot enough. 

You are.  And anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong and dumb and has bad taste.