That thing called “selfie": a phenomenology on lived experiences of selfie-lords in Metro Manila

Abstract

The phenomenon of selfies has become a continuous trend worldwide. Selfie is defined as a photo of taken by oneself, commonly using the front camera feature of smartphones or iPhones and uploaded on social networking sites like Facebook. Filipinos coined the term "selfielord" to pertain to people who post a lot of selfies on social media. This study focused on the lived experiences of selfie-lords living in Metro Manila. The purpose of this study is to describe the lived experiences of selfie-lords, how they define the word selfie, enumerate the benefits and disadvantages of selfie-ying and find out if the benefits they gain also satisfy some aspects of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Seven selfie-lords from different cities of Metro Manila participated in the study. The researcher used the qualitative method, particularly phenomenology, for the research. In-depth interviews are conducted using an interview guide questionnaire. Content analysis was used to analyze the data collected. Results show that taking selfies have a deeper meaning for the selfie-lords. It is their way to capture memories and communicate their daily activities especially to their love ones. They gained confidence in themselves as people give positive feedback on their selfies. They also received negative comments regarding their picture or because of their behavior of posting a lot of selfies. They described extreme selfie-ying as posting senseless photos of regular activities almost every minute or showing too much skin on a selfie. Further study can be conducted to verify the benefits of selfie-ying that the seflie-lords experience and to validate as well if the benefits of selfie-ying satisfy Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.