The Selfie Generation

This is probably the best thing I’ve read about all week. The word Selfie describes ‘Generation Y’ and‘Generation Z’ pretty accurately and let’s face it, it’s funny because it’s true.

Selfie was the Oxford dictionary’s word of the year for 2013, last year’s word was ‘Vape’ but let’s not go there.

Some would say the ubiquitous selfie represents classic Gen Y behaviour. You may find them annoying and you may think that they’re for the self-obsessed, foolish and narcissistic – and yes I’ll admit they may be all these things to some degree, but mostly they’re just a bit of light-hearted fun.

There’s definitely a lot of vitriol surrounding the little old selfie, that ‘they’re a high-tech reflection of the way society teaches women that their most important quality is their physical attractiveness’,ouch. But let’s remember Ellen’s Oscar selfie of 2014, and the Queen’s ‘Photobomb’ of a selfie taken by two Aussie hockey players at the Commonwealth Games. I say let the people have their selfies, looks like fun to me, and what’s wrong with a little self confidence.

While I don’t necessarily like making generalisations about people based on when they were born, I am part of Generation Y and if we are going to be remembered as the Selfie Generation I’m okay with that – even if I’ve never taken a selfie in my life.

I’m part of a generation that grew up with computers in our homes; grew up with the ‘mind fouling’ internet; we embraced social media and instant messaging; we’re the generation most likely to own a smartphone and we trynot to roll our eyes when our parents need help using their new iPads. We change our minds often but we’re also likely to be more open minded than our parents. We absorb our news from TV or the internet, we’re a generation of multi-taskers and we’re more connected than any generation before us.

Forget Generation X, Y, Z and the rest – we’re all just a product of the environment and the society we grew up in and we’re turning into a society that’s device laden, more technologically sophisticated and more formally educated. We’re devouring information at unprecedented levels thanks to the internet. I actually think (and Tony [read his VERY interesting blog HERE] may not agree with me) that because of all this it’s harder to sell someone your product or idea these days, Generation Y or not, when all the information and competitors are just a swipe or a click away. We Gen Y-ers or Millennials have been exposed to a lot of information from a young age, and it’s dangerous to think we haven’t become wary of everything we see and hear.

Yes the ‘youth’ of today are still fascinated by celebrities and by new trends and fads, that hasn’t changed in the last 50 years I’m guessing. But think about social media, it didn’t exist in the 80’s and think about how prolific and accessible it’s become today – for all generations. If something’s not worth the hype, or if a company makes even a small gaffe, you can rely on the fact that people are going to share it on social media faster than Kim Kardashian’s nude magazine cover #broketheinternet.

We can only imagine what the Gen Z kids will be like in adulthood, many of them probably knew (will know?) the basics of how to operate a smartphone before they start kindergarten.Toddler selfies FTW.