saucydoorhandles 's review for:

Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed by Will Storr
3.0
This was really interesting but I wanted something more. Though I wish it hadn't focus on the authors stories of his low self esteem, his perfrctionism etc. He talks about narcissism but inserts himself into the story time and time again, where it wasn't needed. I also picked up a tinge of arrogance and "I'm so much clever and better than you." He sounds like that hipter in a cafe going "I don't do social media, I like yah, living in the moment you know, yah?". I also felt like it could've gone deeper, there was so many things that could've been focused on. It's such an issue with a lot nuance and this was also surface. And I would argue that self involvedness on social media has more to do with insecurity and low self esteem, rather than confidence. People edit their photos because they are insecure, they post the highlights of their life so other people will think they're doing well, people taking 100 photos and only liking one is down to insecurity and looking at the "flaws" of the other 99. Also, race, class, health issues, gender, sex, sexual abuse, access to media, abusive parents are some of the number one things that will effect self image yet this is barely touched upon. Like I see hair that is hip length as utterly beautiful , especially blonde thanks to me watching swan princess and sleeping beauty. I spent my childhood wishing I could look like them. To me, Aurora and Odette were utterly beautiful. If a genie gave me a wish, I would've chose to look like them. I still find long blonde hair stunning. In real life, I have dark hair and dark eyes, so I was never going to look like them. Plus I'm not an animated character. So that impacted my confidence as what I found beautiful then, was everything I was not. Also, the fact we can compare ourselves to thousands of people doesn't help yet I don't think this is ever mentioned. We see our peers be successful and what seems to be wonderful, exciting lives. Yet we are a failure.

There were so many ways you can breakdown this topic and I think it missed the mark quite a few times.