# Introduction he recent developments and inventions in the field of technology have showered the human civilization with enormous facilities. As a result, sharing of cultural elements among different countries has become easier and more flexible. This sharing of the most of the elements, without doubt, in most cases, entails positive cultural notions. But thinking deeply will obviously demonstrate that there are some incongruent elements of/in a culture/s that should be avoided. In running with the idea of Globalization-the world is like a village where the countries are like next door neighbours, the countries have to, to a great extent, share (?!) cultural elements, technological facilities, and ideological stances. Through this sharing, cross-culturation occurs. Sometimes this crossculturation brings positive feedback and sometimes negative. So, before choosing/taking/granting any element of a culture, people have to be aware of the impacts that the element is going to have on a person, a society, and a culture. The idea of Selfie (a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a Smartphone or webcam and shared via social media 1 ) is not an old one because much has been said and much virtual ink has been spilled over the past few years. The Oxford Dictionary chose the word selfi as word of the year 2013. 2 Very recently, as reported by Olivia Solon in Mirrror in 2014, Twitter has announced the year 2014 as the year of the Selfie. 3 In many countries, sharing Selfie is as much a part of any other cultural elements. Nowadays, Selfie has become a very common phenomenon among the people (mostly young people) all over the world. According to Kristina Robb-Dover, '?selfies are the lifeblood of social media, and no profile is complete without at least a few of them '. 4 1 Oxford Languages, For a full discussion, see https://www.google. com/search?q=selfie+definition&sxsrf=ALiCzsaC7NM-T0V6Npf03dX 9Pq6Q0IplmQ%3A1663335300784&ei=hHskY76-L6Kf3LUPuvmf8AU &oq=selfie+definition&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYATIECCMQJzIEC CMQJzIECCMQJzIKCC4QsQMQ1AIQQzIKCC4QsQMQ1AIQQzIHCAA QsQMQQzIECAAQQzIECC4QQzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAESgQIQRgAS gQIRhgAUABYAGD7DGgAcAB4AIABlAGIAZQBkgEDMC4xmAEAwAE B&sclient=gws-wiz (accessed 16 September 2022). 2 Silvia Killingsworth, 'And the word of the year is', The New Yorker, 19 November 2013, For a full discussion, see https://www.newyorker. com/culture/culture-desk/and-the-word-of-the-year-is#:~:text=Hold% 20on%20to%20your%20monocles,used%20in%202002%2C%20in%20 an (accessed 16 September 2022). 3 Olivia Solon, '2014 was "year os the Selfie" on Twitter-with Ellen's Oscars photo triggering endless imitators', Mirror, 10 December 2014, For a full discussion, see https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technologyscience/technology/2014-year-selfie-twitter---4783195 (accessed 2 September 2022). But too much use of it in many countries has taken it to a level of criticism. It has become a very regular part of daily activities among the young people that they are frequently hanging around and taking Selfies to upload in the social media. The research finds out why the young people are so much attracted to picking Selfie and what the reasons that are driving people, especially young people, to have this kind of pictures. Various pushing factors are there behind taking selfies. They might include keeping the memories forever, looking better than others on social media (use of photo edit apps), gaining popularity among friend circle, and, but not limited to, increasing confidence. The paper also advances with the idea that the cell phone producing companies are promoting this idea in order to increase their sale. The research discusses the imposition of latecapitalistic tools in the once-colonialized countries through establishing a myth in the arena of Cell phones. It, then, shows how Selfie alienates an individual from society, and flushes out all the secret of people. # II. Selfie as a Narcissistic Idea 'Every narcissist needs a reflecting pool. Just as Narcissus gazed into the pool to admire his beauty, social networking sites, like Facebook, have become our modern-day pool'. 5 The mission behind starting the chapter with the quotation is to justify that the urge of expressing the self is an ancient one. The idea of expressing someone's own existence connects itself with the idea of knowing the self. So, it can also be traced to Socrates' famous idea-know thyself. But then again he used it not to lure people to follow something blindly, rather to suggest them to judge something from a holistically sceptic and analogically dialectic viewpoint. The case to be discussed here is partially resonant with that. Moreover, for the present discussion, it is significant to revisit the myth of Narcissus, the son of a river god named Cephissus and a nymph named Liriope, who was well known for his beauty. Full of pride for his beauty, he started to disdain others who loved him. Because of his pride, Nemesis, the spirit of divine retribution, brought Narcissus to a pool. There he fell in love with his own reflection in the water. He became so immersed in his own image that he could not leave the pool and subsequently died. His death came due to his being so much consumed with himself. In the same way, Selfie is being used to promote the narcissistic idea of beauty. It is being done mostly by some of the industrially developed countries and some multinational corporate companies. Apparently, it discourages sadness and thus encourages happiness but the real motif is veiled under a mask. Selfie has now been ushered down to the poorest of people because of the availability of front camera Smartphone. From the general outlook of this kind of photos, one can easily guess the relation of makeover, beauty parlour, and saloon with Selfie. It is also related to expressing aristocracy, and so looking rich and elegant is deemed extremely important. Hiding the reality on a high expense and showing off also sound logical to some brainwashed victims. Most of the people who take Selfie share it in the social media. This phenomenon of sharing photos would have been no issue for the authors of the current paper if there were no concrete evidence backing up the idea that for some people it is an obsession. What this obsession might result into has been mentioned by some writers. One of them is Erin Gloria Ryan who comments on Selfie in this way in the first paragraph of her essay, 'Selfies are just dandy, they say, because they're a way for people (mostly young women) to express themselves and to show pride in who they are'. 6 On June 13, 2014, an Article titled "Scientists Link Selfies To Narcissism, Addiction & Mental Illness" was published in an online newspaper named True Activist. In that article, the growing trend of taking Selfies is linked to mental health conditions that focus on a person's obsession with looks. 7 He expressed his obsession to Mirror with taking selfie by saying, 'I was constantly in search of taking the perfect Selfie and when I realized I couldn't, I It is reported in the Mirror that a British male teenager, Danny Bowman, tried to commit suicide after he failed to take the perfect Selfie because he became so obsessed with capturing the perfect shot that he spent 10 hours a day taking up to 200 Selfies. It is also reported that the 19-year-old lost nearly 30 pounds, dropped out of school and did not leave the house for six months in his quest to get the right picture. He would take 10 pictures immediately after waking up. Frustrated at his attempts to take the one image he wanted, Bowman eventually tried to take his own life by overdosing, but was saved by his mom. wanted to die. I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life '. 8 Another phenomenon is the opportunity of editing the photo which reinforces people's narcissistic tendency. Kristina Robb-Dover comments that a selfie that is edited loses its authenticity and the way the selfie All these prove that technology is the tool to activate the narcissistic tone of beauty. 6 Erin Gloria Ryan, 'Selfies aren't Empowering. They're a Cry for Help', Jezebel, 21 November 2013, For a full discussion, see https://jezebel. com/selfies-arent-empowering-theyre-a-cry-for-help-1468965365 (accessed 5 September 2022). 7 Scientists Link Selfies To Narcissism, Addiction & Mental Illness, True Activist, 13 June 2014, For a full discussion, see https://www.trueacti vist.com/scientists-link-selfies-to-narcissism-addiction-mental-illness/ (accessed 5 September 2022). 8 Gemma Aldridge and Kerry Harden, ' Selfie addict took TWO HUNDRED a day-and tried to kill himself when he couldn't take perfect photo', Mirror, 23 March 2014, For a full discussion, see https:// www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/selfie-addict-took-two-hundred -3273819 (accessed 16 September 2022). Volume XXII Issue VI Version I 80 ( ) takers can control the perception of the photo is a narcissistic one. 9 # III. Selfie: An Imposition of Late-Capitalistic Powers After all the discussions, it can be said that the people who continuously post Selfies in the social media without understanding the gravity and aftermath of it share some characteristics of Narcissus. The only difference between the myth and the reality is that people take the myth as reality and do not care about the reality or take it seriously. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, irrespective of any exception, is a recognised psychological disorder which is typified by that kind of action; attack all who do not support their massively delusional ego which needs feeding by any means necessary. This is a confirmation of the existence of this phenomenon and also is testament to their selfobsession and absence of compassion toward fellow humans. Selfie is one of the late-capitalistic corporate tools that are controlling people's lives to a great extent. To support the proposition, the paper uses Roland Barthes' Mythology-how a myth is created to motivate people and promote a product. For some people, posting a selfie is like having meals and that is what prompts the market demand to rise. The research finds out how the sale of Smartphone has increased only because of Selfie. 'Nothing can be safe from myth, myth can develop a second order schema from any meaning and, as we saw, start from the very lack of meaning'. 10 By this, Barthes is trying to mean that myth is a form of signification. However, according to Barthes, myth is different from ordinary speech and language. Barthes follows Ferdinand de-Saussure's discussion regarding the nature of the linguistic sign (a link between a concept and a sound pattern) 11 9 Kristina Robb-Dover, 'Obsessive Selfies: What a Photo Reel May Reveal About Mental Health', FHEHealth, 15 January 2021, For a full discussion, see and he characterizes myth as a second class of signification. What was the sign in the first order of language (for example the signifier "cigarette" and the signified of an object made of paper and tobacco) turns into a signifier in the second order (signifying lung cancer). In other words, myth for Barthes is a realm of second class signification which could be seen as a cultural association, to distinguish from denotation. The recent implication of the word Selfie is also a myth. Basically, the word Selfie can be regarded as the signifier of a photo that a person takes himself/ herself taken by the front camera of a Smartphone. Now the sign (The word Selfie/Signifier+the photo that is taken/Signified) can be/has been given a new signifier and that is the sense of looking beautiful and being up to date. This idea of self taken photo has been reorganized and mythologized and has been added a new meaning, i.e. selfie means beauty or handsomeness. It happens many times that people take selfie with a make-up look. It has been very tactically/technically done by the corporate phone companies in order to increase the sale of their front camera Smartphones. This can be related to Tehnocapitalism-an idea advanced by Luis Suarez-Villa. I believe that the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late consumer or multinational capitalism. I believe also that its formal features in many ways express the deeper logic of this particular social system. refers to the emergence of a new kind of capitalism which he calls technocapitalism which he thinks is a way of domination through capturing the technology by the corporate organizations. He also thinks that it is designed to exploit intangibles such as creativity and new knowledge. In relation to Villa's theory, it can be said that Selfie is a technocapitalistic element that is dominating or exploiting cultural values. From the outer appearance, it looks like a regular part of social system. It can be discussed from Fredric Jameson's perspective that sees Postmodernism as a way of upholding late consumerism and multinational consumerism. In his essay "Postmodernism and Consumer Society", Jameson (1998) has discussed, 14 Interestingly, these photos cannot be used for any official purpose. Their uses are limited in the social media-in the techno-traps. It is almost the same like the advertisements of fairness cream. In most of these advertisements, female characters are given the role to perform as a girl who has some problems with their physical colours according to the advertisements. Funnily, they show some girls who, before using the cream, looks blackish or they may have some pimples on their face. In many cases, they promote their cream by applying it on the girl character and make her very glowing and somewhat whitish by which they want to mean real beauty. The problem is, in some cases, they show a girl who, before using the cream has a somewhat greyish or blackish face and body, becomes whitish all through. This is bogus because a girl's hand cannot become whitish by applying a cream on her face. Now, for many people, and they do it intentionally, the word Selfie now means an exhibition of their beauty. For example, Dove is a company known for campaigning to raise self-esteem among young women so that they don't get sucked into the objectification that media often bestows upon them. In one of their recent videos aptly titled "Selfie," they use the practice of silly self picture taking as a medium to help young women really see their beauty and self worth in a very honest way. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, in an essay titled The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, write, 'The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them'. 15 This word is a linguistic distortion of the word 'self'. This myth has been exploited to popularize the use of the front camera of a phone. It is well-known that the android phones or iPhones have a front camera. It first came as a help for the people to have photos of self but was not that much popularized. When this author was a student of Honors 2 nd year in his university, he saw a phone to one of his friends. He became amazed to see it first. At that time, the term Selfie was not that much popular. The front camera was mostly used as a mirror. It was/is mainly given for video calling facility although it helped people in some other ways. But now it is being used mainly as a medium of picking Selfie. In the past people used to have portraits/ sketches of themselves and hang those on walls. Now this has taken a new form by dint of different picture editing software applications such as Picasa, Photoshop, and so on. A report published in Business Wire on October 29, 2014, states that new smartphone releases and an increased emphasis on emerging markets drove global smartphone shipments above 300 million units for the second consecutive quarter. According to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC)Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 327.6 million units during the third quarter of 2014 (3Q14), resulting in 25.2% growth when compared to the 261.7 million units shipped in 3Q13 and 8.7% sequential growth above the 301.3 million units shipped in 2Q14. 16 IV. Existence of the Other: Alienation through Othering the Self The tendency of having selfie, in many cases, alienates people from the society. Theoretically, it can be said that a selfie is taken when the person/s who want/s to have a photo do/es not have anyone to take the photo for him/her/them (ideologically). It signifies the statement, 'I am enough for myself.' It is a usual notion that human mind is full of urge of knowing and discovering the self more and more. This is an unquenchable quest. Jean Paul Sartre posits that as conscious beings, expectations of humans never end. They go on to want more and more because they are always aware of their self-esteem which is not perfect according to Sartre. Sartre, in his philosophical masterpiece, Being and Nothingness, postulates that two types of reality lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists as "in-itself," that is, in an independent and non-relational way. However, consciousness is always consciousness "of something," so it is defined in relation to something else, and it is not possible to grasp it within a conscious experience: it exists as "for-itself." According to Sartre, in order to ground itself, the self needs projects which can be viewed as aspects of an individual's fundamental project and motivated by a desire for "being" lying within the individual's consciousness. 17 In an article titled "Selfies Aren't Empowering, they're a Cry for Help", Erin Gloria Ryan wrote, 'Selfies aren't expressions of pride, but rather calls for affirmation '. 18 by a comment under that article by somebody called fuhhletch, I had grown up believing wholeheartedly that I was The Ugly One in my Teen Girl Squad. I knew I wasn't terribly hideous, but I felt I had quite a below average face. And all my life, I'd been told that average wasn't good enough, so how could I be happy with that? I wasn't. I was miserable, and my constant self-deprecation showed through my face, not doing me any favors. Increased frequency of sharing photographs of the self, regardless of the type of target sharing the photographs, is related to a decrease in intimacy. Most people really fail to get your good angles. Some people have the idea that liking someone's photo will be exchanged by another like. Tracy Alloway comments, 'The rise of social networking sites have led to changes in the nature of our social relationships, as well as how we present and perceive ourselves'. 19 At last the chapter shows that Selfies create an existential vacuum/void/segregation inside a human mind and it alienates a person from the others. It also turns a person from self to 'other'. Normally when we have a photo, we do it by the dint of a photographer. Thus it segregates the person from his or her real life relationships. Dr Muhammad Torequl Islam, an Assistant Professor of Pharmacy, in an article published in The Daily Star, wrote something that resonates with the idea of people's tendency of expressing themselves differently from the way others do it. According to him, 'People are always looking to express themselves differently from others. A selfie is a great tool for this purpose '. 20 Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians'. "Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? 21 For example, if a person takes a Selfie and pretends to be asleep, that is not going to make him/ her look intelligent anyway because one can easily understand the flakiness behind it. Simple-one cannot have a Selfie while sleeping. In a paper hilariously titled "Tagger's Delight? Disclosure and liking behaviour in Facebook: the effects of sharing photographs amongst multiple known social circles" four professors claim that 19 Tracy Alloway, Rachel Runac, Mueez Qureshi, and George Kemp, 'Is Facebook Linked to Selfishness? Investigating the Relationships among Social Media Use, Empathy, and Narcissism', Social Networking, 3 (3), 2014, pp 150-158. 20 Dr Muhammad Torequl Islam, 'Selfitis: the selfie caused mental disorder', The Daily Star, 4 July 2021, For a full discussion, see https:// www.thedailystar.net/health/disease/disease-control/news/selfitis-theselfie-caused-mental-disorder-2122861 (accessed 16 September 2022). 21 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, New Delhi: Book World, 2001, p 119. people who post more selfies have shallow relationships with people. 22 V. The Distortion of the Idea of Secrecy 'The culture industry has finally posited this imitation as absolute. Being nothing other than style, it divulges style's secret: obedience to the social hierarchy'. 23 The formation of secrecy is being distorted by sharing Selfie in the social media in various ways. Julian Assange comments, ' Facebook is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented'. 24 Wherever you are, posting a selfie brings your personal life into light-brings you-'the performer!'-on the stage to be audienced. Joseph Turow, the Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, warns people against sharing too many photos on social media. In one article published on Penn Today, he says, 'The more photos reflect the context of a person and their relationships with others, the more that person can be denoted by their location which in turns allows hackers greater access to personal information'. Assange's comment shows how we are being objectified and controlled. The advancement of technology, especially the social media, has revealed that it is very easy for many developed countries or organizations to know any information about netizens living any country. So, the idea of being engaged has been replaced by the idea of being encaged and the idea of sharing something has been shifted to the idea of informing and thus being controlled. Another proof of this is a recent study by Amandip Dhir, Torbjorn Torsheim, Stale Pallesen, and Cecilie S. Andreassen in 2017 has shown how privacy concerns influence selfie behaviour. Their study implicated that privacy concerns resulted in lower engagement in selfie-taking and selfie sharing frequency and in photo-editing behaviour across both male and female users. 26 A report published in the Daily Prothom Alo states that actress Chloƫ Grace Moretz questions the safety of people universally. She explains it when commenting on the recent nude celebrity photo-hacking scandal. ' The idea of freedom has become paradoxical because the word 'freedom' is also debated because of its consequences. So, the phrase Freedom of Expression can be viewed otherwise. The journalists and some political leaders in some ways enjoy this freedom. But the others who are not involved in any of these professions cannot enjoy it in the same way. In this age of globalization, no one can claim to be free. In the same way, no one can say that s/he is not free. But the problem is, and it is not without its logic, whenever a person is expressing his/her feelings in any social media, s/he is somewhat expressing his/her personality and opinion. This is what 'the concerned authorities!' or the hackers need. was what Moretz commented on the issue. 'And you should be able to not let people see it because people do things in...relationships with their significant other and they don't need some 14-year-old boy in Minnesota to know what you look like in our most intimate setting,' she added. The term 'to share', then, should better be called 'to inform'. So, before sharing/informing anyone about anything, think repeatedly about what you are sharing/informing. # VI. # Conclusion Excitement about something new is inherent in human beings. Same goes for Selfie-a tool of technobusiness. Only in Twitter, the word Selfie has been used 92 million times in the year 2014-which is 12 times more than the previous year (Olivia Solon, Mirror, 2014). 28 As the paper points out, most of the selfies are taken to inform people about the happy moments about the "pictoriotized" person. But now days, among the young people of some countries, it has spread like cancer. They are being prompt to post even their secretest moments with people. It does not matter where they are, that is, at shopping mall, at university, roadside, village, etc. Now, the intelligence of the developed countries can know the action of the people of these countries as these types of pictures are mostly shared in the social media like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Ingstram, Tumblr and so on. Bitter but true, it can also be misused by the criminals. However, it is clear that a person needs a smartphone to have a Selfie that results in the increase in the sale of smartphonebusiness. Moreover, most of the time, it is nothing but a show off and remembrance is the namesake. It is because the people who take Selfie normally have make up for looking white/ish-more business. One thing should be mentioned here that having occasional Selfies is not problematic and not harmful to a person or a culture, but having and posting Selfies without understanding the necessity of it is. Whether any cultural element poses any threat to any other existing culture should/could be a matter of careful observation and debate. Intercultural sharing and borrowing of cultural elements is a common issue-the positivity and negativity can be a topic to be discussed further. For the Globalization has indeed showered the developed countries with numerous technological advantages. Similarly, it has blessed the developing and underdeveloped countries with some of the advantages. But in reality, some of the negative elements from the cultures of developed countries have been welcomed in the developing and underdeveloped countries. And sometimes, where there is no question of good or bad, too much immersion in something can bear negative outcomes. Kristina Robb-Dover, 'Obsessive Selfies: What a Photo Reel May Reveal About Mental Health', FHEHealth, 15 January 2021, For a full discussion, see https://fherehab.com/learning/selfies-mental-health (accessed 16 September 2022). Tracy Alloway, Rachel Runac, Mueez Qureshi, and George Kemp, 'Is Facebook Linked to Selfishness? Investigating the Relationships among Social Media Use, Empathy, and Narcissism', Social Networking, 3 (3), 2014, pp 150-158. Luis Suarez-Villa, Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatism, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2009. 13 Luis Suarez-Villa, Globalization and Technocapitalism: The Political Economy of Corporate Power and Technological Domination, London: Routledge, 2012. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Edmund Jephcott (trans), Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2002, p 24. 'Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Increase 25.2% in the Third Quarter with Heightened Competition and Growth Beyond Samsung and Apple, Says IDC', International Data Corporation (IDC), 29 October 2014, For a full discussion, see http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?con tainerId=prUS25224914 (accessed 5 September 2022). 17 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Hazel E. Barnes (trans), New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Olivia Solon, '2014 was "year os the Selfie" on Twitter-with Ellen's Oscars photo triggering endless imitators', Mirror, 10 December 2014, For a full discussion, see https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technologyscience/technology/2014-year-selfie-twitter---4783195 (accessed 2 September 2022).