The Self is as the Selfie Does: Three Propositions for the Selfie in the Digital Turn

On popular social media sites, selfies have also become a way of identification, where the verification of the ‘true self’ behind an account often demands a selfie as an authentication mechanism. There is much work done, in digital cultures and in critical analyses, about the work that the people have to do to produce the selfie. This chapter makes three propositions around the selfies: First, the selfie is a digital object and it hides more than it reveals. Second, as a networked object, the selfie is inherently self-referential – a selfish object. Third, the selfie does not just work at interfaces of visibility but it also strategically makes itself and the self within it, invisible. Thus, in the face of the biometric identity-driven Aadhaar project, where the people faces are being consolidated and correlated in massive national databases that work towards interoperable governance systems, it is important to understand what the circuits of the selfie might be.