By Katie Despeaux
Elm Staff Writer
What’s your greatest insecurity? A physical trait, an invisible diagnosis, a personal choice? Would putting a name to that insecurity and broadcasting it through a photograph terrify or thrill you? Thousands of people did just this for a photography project by Steve Rosenfield. “What I Be” put faces to drug problems, disorders, weight issues, criminal records, you name it, in order to reveal that no matter what mask we put on, we are all in fact people with insecurities.
After moving past how incredibly similar or astonishing these secrets are, the bravery of the individuals truly shines through. To bare all, holding nothing back, is almost like taking that jump into the unknown, where you’ll sink, shine, or receive a huge range of Internet responses.
Then again, is it really that far off from what some of us do and practically all of us see every single day?
In reality, this whole idea of photographing your insecurities isn’t too far from what a good bit of people do daily: posting selfies onto social media sites. The first selfie in history is debatable (I know there’s some 19th century blurry photo floating around out there in the depths of the Internet), but it’s definitely become a cultural staple in our generation. Goose Nation has even caught on – just keep your eyes out for the Instagram February Photo-a-Day Challenge.
These posts can range from the casual and infrequent to the daily and insistent, but you’d be pressed to find someone under the age of, let’s say, 25, who has never posted a selfie. The nature of a selfie is inherently similar to Rosenfield’s project. Putting a selfie online for your Facebook friends – or the whole world, depending on how you pick your poison – is basically putting yourself onstage for judgment, flaws and all. Maybe you don’t make a judgment when you see your friend’s or a stranger’s face on your phone; I don’t know, but there’s sometimes an unconscious reflex to question their makeup choice, sports team apparel, or location (although,poor location choices are a discussion for another day).
And then there’s the celebrity side of the whole selfie/judgment debate. Entertainment media constantly hounds Rihanna for donning that barely-there bikini on the beach, or Miley Cyrus for whatever new scandal she is wearing, or so-and-so for a possible face lift/nose job/botox surgery. Just by posting their photos to Instagram, just as we do, brings the wrath of every Joan Rivers character and even their fan bases.
We see Rosenfield’s “What I Be” every single day- they’re just missing the captions. But the daily selfie may even take more courage than those who participated in “What I Be” have. That celebrity, your friend, or whoever, isn’t clearly identifying what the viewer should be concentrating on. Instead, they’re allowing the viewer to scrutinize their selfie, picking at anything that he or she deems worthy of judging. There’s no buffer that distracts you from what could be several insecurities, making them just that much more vulnerable. So while Instagram provides us with a variety of filters to enhance our selfies, they can be just as provocative and important as Rosenfield’s “What I Be” project.