If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- How did a 1980s political initiative in California ignore scientific evidence to launch a self-esteem movement that ultimately fueled today's narcissism epidemic?
- In what ways are seemingly harmless selfies actually a calculated tool for building a 'personal brand' in our hyper-competitive, gig-economy world?
- How has the financial model of online advertising turned public shaming and moral outrage into a highly profitable, yet socially devastating, industry?
Listen to Selfie — Free Audiobook
Key Takeaways from Selfie
- Our conception of the perfect body and mind is not objective, but rather heavily molded by cultural histories, with Western physical ideals tracing back to ancient Greece.
- The nineteenth-century industrial revolution shifted human identity away from environmental survival toward economic self-determination, giving birth to the modern self-help movement.
- The widespread push to unconditionally boost children's self-esteem originated from misrepresented political studies in the 1980s and has ultimately fueled a skyrocketing rate of narcissism.
- Selfies are not just harmless fun; they are tools for building a personal brand in an increasingly individualistic, neoliberal society where the self has become a monetized currency.
- The internet's hyper-competitive environment has created a lucrative public shaming culture that severely punishes mistakes, leading to devastating real-world consequences for vulnerable young people.
Selfie — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: The way our culture shapes how we think about our bodies
Chapter 3: We model ourselves on people who are popular and successful
Chapter 4: Nineteenth-century progress reshaped our idea of the perfect self
Chapter 5: High self-esteem doesn’t make us better citizens, but it does make us narcissistic
Chapter 6: Selfies capture our more competitive, individualistic and internet-driven world
Chapter 7: Online pile-ons and shaming teach young people they can’t slip up
Selfie Summary & Overview
Selfie (2017) takes a hard look at today’s internet-driven age of self-obsession. Asking where our ideal of the perfect person came from, acclaimed British journalist Will Storr traces the history of the self from ancient Greece to the social-media-heavy world of selfies and Instagram brunch pics. Along the way, he picks out a multitude of fascinating facts about the political, cultural and economic factors that have shaped the Western world’s notion of who we should be and what we should look like.
Who Should Listen to Selfie?
- Fans and foes of social media
- Anyone who’s wondered where our culture’s heading
- History and politics buffs
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