Just Finished Reading: Selfie – How the West became Self-Obsessed by Will Storr (FP: 2017) [336pp]

This wasn’t the book I was expecting. On picking it up, paying for it, and carrying it home I thought it was going to be on the Selfie ‘craze’ that swept the world some years ago and peppered the Internet with pictures of people having amazing times at amazing heights and, from time to time, falling off them. In passing it was kind of about that obsessive (and sometimes fatal) self-regard but it went deeper both in time and space and actually turned out much better than it might have been.

The author follows the idea of the individual and Individualism from identifying with the Tribe, to being the Hero in your own personal narrative (yet another thing we’ve received from the Ancient Greeks!), to ideas of Christian personal salvation, to the modern idea of self-actualisation and empowerment, to the uber-individualism of Ayn Rand and finally into the present of the perfect online persona complete with video evidence of once in a lifetime experiences (on repeat) and a full list of everything you’ve ever had for breakfast. Along the way the author tries out monastic retreats, Californian ‘let it all hang out’ experiences and meets up with semi-professional self-publicist’s who take selfies at funerals because they look good in black. It’s quite a journey if a bit tedious and self-indulgent at times (oh, the irony).

Apart from a few wobbles and meandering detours this is a pretty good exploration of the way we got to be the most self-absorbed and self-referential culture in human history – and what damage it’s increasingly doing, rather ironically, to our self-esteem. With significant increases in youth suicide – particularly amongst young women but also increasing in young men – an important element is the (often vain) attempt to keep up with your peers and to keep in the spotlight. With seemingly everything at stake – were ‘social value’ has become a matter of life and death to some – any obstacle which in more normal times would be viewed as a ‘bump in the road’ becomes an existential crisis that only drastic action can address. Where a belief in absolute perfectionism takes hold the fact that no one is, or can be, perfect is total anathema and inevitably results in a rejection of reality and the mental/emotional issues caused by the effort to maintain a fictional existence. It is, to understate the issue massively, not the way to live your life. I’ve added this into the ‘Self-Help’ label because of the final section ‘How to Stay Alive in the Age of Perfectionism’ which addresses some of the issues the perfection driven have to deal with. Overall this is a pretty good, if sometimes frighteningly depressing, look at the society/culture we have created. Recommended, especially if you’re struggling with the Social Media monster.