Every day we share hundreds of millions of photos on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Many of these are selfies. Selfies are continually talked about, yet persistently attacked as unworthy of all of this attention. They generate far more engagement than most other social media content, but are claimed to lack artistic merit; indicate narcissism;
 and lead to dangerously stupid behavior. This talk focuses on how selfies make us feel, and why they have the power to make us feel anything. It answers the question of “why selfies matter?” by unpacking the different cultural stories and social norms attached to selfies. It dismantles the exaggerated claims that all selfies are narcissistic, inauthentic, or low quality photography, or on the flipside, that all selfies are empowering. By analyzing how, why and when selfies make us feel “good” or “bad” a story of judgment and control emerges.

Kat Tiidenberg, PhD is an Associate Professor of Social Media and Visual Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia and a post-doctoral researcher at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is the author of the forthcoming "Selfies, why we love (and hate) them", as well as "Body and Soul on the Internet - making sense of social media" (in Estonian) published in 2017. Tiidenberg is a a long time member of the Association of Internet Researcher's Ethics Committee, a founding member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, second time board member of the Estonian Sociology Association. She is currently writing and publishing on selfie culture, digital research ethics and visual research methods. Her research interests include visual self-presentation, sexuality, and normative ideologies as mediated through social media practices. More info at: kkatot.tumblr.com.