{"id":7465,"date":"2015-03-18T07:05:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T23:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=7465"},"modified":"2022-06-17T16:00:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T08:00:45","slug":"selfie-culture-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2015\/03\/selfie-culture-hong-kong\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapping Me, Myself and I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selfies take social media by storm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Achlys Xi<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you have a social media account and you have checked it today, the chances are you will have seen a selfie in your feed. The term \u201cselfie\u201d started to appear in 2005 when people began to post self-portraits on social media like MySpace and Facebook. With newer versions of smartphones incorporating front-facing cameras and the popularity of photo apps like Instagram, the taking and sharing of selfies grew into a worldwide phenomenon.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Oxford English Dictionary picked \u201cselfie\u201d as the \u201cword of the year\u201d \u2013 just a year after it was selected as one of the \u201ctop 10 buzzwords\u201d of the year by Time<\/em> magazine. On Instagram alone, the word is used as a tag for over 220 million photos. Meanwhile, the hashtag #selfie appeared in more than 150,000 tweets on Twitter during a single week in October 2013.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/a>
Daniel Lau’s selfie atop The Center went viral on foreign media. (Courtesy photo from Daniel Lau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Photographer Daniel Lau became an international a sensation when online media published pictures of him atop The Centre, a 346-meter, 73-storey building. The 23-year-old and his friends had scaled Hong Kong\u2019s fifth tallest building last August and online footage<\/a> shows Lau swinging his monopod \u2013 otherwise known as the \u201cselfie stick\u201d \u2013 to film his friends munching bananas with Victoria Harbour and Central\u2019s high-rises as their backdrop.<\/p>\n

Considering himself an explorer, Lau aims to take photos that are extreme but aesthetically pleasing, and taking selfies on the rooftop is a way to combine the two. \u201cThey are daring, but at the same time, they are beautiful,\u201d Lau says. \u201cPeople are always saying my selfies are so extreme, and maybe people are looking for those extreme selfies that they can\u2019t take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lau shares photos of his adventures on his public account on Instagram. With over 200 posts, he enjoys a following of over 55,000 from all over the world.<\/p>\n

Armed with his selfie stick and a GoPro, a compact camera used for sports and action filming, Lau travels to various cities and takes photos on the rooftops of the tallest buildings and down below ground on construction sites. In Lau\u2019s hands a selfie is like a passport stamp, proof that he was there, especially in extreme and dangerous environments. \u201cThis is the sense of presence. I am telling people I am really there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/a>
Christine Fung Hiu-tung prefers taking selfies of her sporty side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Few people would go to the extremes Lau does to take a selfie, but some do think of selfie-taking as a form of self-expression. Christine Fung Hiu-tung posts selfies of herself doing sports and working out because she feels that is when she is expressing her authentic self. \u201cThere\u2019re some beautiful moments I see in girls,\u201d says 25-year-old Fung who works in marketing for a sports company and sometimes engages in freelance modelling. \u201cWhen they work out, when they sweat, it\u2019s the best moments for us to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is not concerned about what others think of her selfies and is not a frequent poster on Facebook and Instagram. When she does post a selfie, it would most likely be of her running or practising yoga. She wants to convey a lifestyle that is \u201csporty, natural, strong and healthy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of messages that one can convey [through selfies], but I choose to tell people the life that I sweat,\u201d Fung says. \u201cThat\u2019s how I define myself. It shows my personality, my character, my attitude towards life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fung does not post selfies to keep her followers entertained and is not bothered about constructing an image of herself on social media. \u201cI usually say what I feel when I\u2019m taking that photo,\u201d she says, \u201cIf I feel like I want to post a selfie, I just go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jade Lam, on the other hand, does care about her image on social media. The beauty blogger has more than 65,000 followers on Instagram. Scrolling through her page, you will see Lam\u2019s numerous selfies showing her choices of clothing and make-up, along with snippets of her daily life.<\/p>\n

Lam, together with her friend, produces videos for their own YouTube beauty channel, ArmourBeauty JM<\/a>,<\/em> to offer advice on make-up techniques. After the channel became popular, Lam noticed more and more people following her status updates, and she responded positively. \u201cI think my life is indeed colourful, so I don\u2019t mind sharing with others. I like doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Lam does not just share anything, she often strives to choose the right pictures to upload. She wants to share her happy moments and avoids sharing the unhappy ones. Meanwhile, she also uses apps like BeautyCam<\/em> to enhance her photos. She thinks a prettier photo will give strangers a better first impression of her, especially when she is posting selfies on a platform where most visitors are strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese apps can produce better photos, as your skin will be whiter, your eyes will be bigger, and your face thinner,\u201d Lam explains, \u201cEveryone should be very happy to see a prettier self in their photos.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet, no matter how Lam wants to share happiness online, her selfies are inevitably subject to scrutiny by the public. Some people question her age and criticise her make-up; some even speculate about whether she has had plastic surgery.<\/p>\n

Lam realises she cannot please everyone, but admits she was once troubled by the critical comments. In particular, she feels upset when people discuss her age online. \u201cI don\u2019t like others talking about my age. I don\u2019t want others judging me from head to toe because of it,\u201d Lam says.\u201cNobody would like to be judged in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

With people trying to show the best sides of themselves through their selfies, perhaps it is natural for people to expect praise instead of criticism. Professor Louis Leung Wing-ci, of the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says people always present their ideal image in order to be recognised and included in social circles. Leung believes the do-it-yourself (DIY) element of selfie-taking allows people to take the image they want other people to see.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9601\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This DIY feature is also emphasised in many of the city\u2019s selfie studios. Unlike traditional studios, these self-service studios allow customised self portraits using professional photographic equipment and a wide range of props. Customers take their own photos using a remote control which connects to the shutter of the camera.<\/p>\n

Since the first selfie studio appeared in 2013, the photo-taking business has witnessed a revival with a growing fanbase on social media. SNAPARTY<\/a> in Mongkok is a selfie studio founded by three young people. Here, customers can take unlimited photos in an hour-long session. They can then collect their photos immediately afterwards without having to wait for printing.<\/p>\n

\"(From<\/a>
(From left) Ellen Chan Ka-yu, Nala Li Ka-lun and Vien Wong Wai-ying co-founded SNAPARTY in 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The studio has all types of customers including couples, office ladies, models, students, mothers with their babies and even elders. On average, people usually take around 200 photos in an hour but three girls once took a record 3,000 plus photos in just 53 minutes.<\/p>\n

The studio\u2019s founders attribute the popularity of selfie studios to the fact customers have full autonomy of the photographic process. Without a professional photographer, they can play and enjoy the time without anyone watching. \u201cIt\u2019s more valuable and special to hand-make your own memory, different from one that is created by others,\u201d says 24-year-old Vien Wong Wai-ying who co-founded the studio.<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s partner, 23-year-old Nala Li Ka-lun, believes social media also creates a new demand for visual content among the younger generation. Li says visual communication is the dominant mode of communication on the internet. People use images to record and share their memorable experiences with others. \u201cPeople are unresponsive towards everything except visual content,\u201d Li says. \u201cFacebook and Instagram give you the urge to upload the photos, whereas in the past you didn\u2019t see the necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

As selfie-taking has become a widespread and \u201cnormal\u201d activity, local visual artist Rachel Ip Hiu-yin has launched a project called \u201c100 Self-Portraits of Hongkongese<\/a>\u201d. Through the project, she hopes to probe the question of Hong Kong people\u2019s identity by asking people to take selfies while at the same time promoting photography.<\/p>\n

From an artistic point of view, Ip sees the selfie as a special way of seeing, as the photographer is more aware of the presentation of the image when he shoots his own picture. She hopes this project can help people to reflect on the way they are taking selfies and the way they see themselves amidst the flood of selfies on social media.<\/p>\n

To Ip, the selfie is a tool for people to record their own history through images.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in fact producing the world\u2019s greatest ethnography, an in-depth and penetrative one that has never been seen in human history,\u201d Ip explains. \u201cEveryone writes his own history. Everyone is a contributor.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Humans have a long history of making self-portraits. Ip says it has always been people\u2019s wish to record their own images. The emergence of the selfie has merely rekindled and elevated this impulse. \u201cPeople have always had this desire [to record their own image]. It has never stopped. It\u2019s just when the tools become more accessible, people can achieve this more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edited by Brian Wong<\/em><\/p>\n

* In the print edition of this story, Daniel Lau’s age is incorrectly given as 25. We apologise for the error.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From schoolchildren to celebrities to presidents, anyone with a smartphone can and does take selfies these days. Some people go to extreme lengths and exotic locations, such as from high altitude and even space, to make their selfies more creative and unique. Varsity looks at selfie culture and the different reasons people have to snap their own images. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1964,836,1],"tags":[135,368,369,154],"class_list":["post-7465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-135","category-lifestyle","category-uncategorized","tag-photography","tag-selfie","tag-selfie-studio","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7465"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21213,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465\/revisions\/21213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}