How Else Would You Take a Photo? #SelfieAmbivalence

Popular discourse describing selfies as the "narcissistic"(2) practice of teenagers or a tool of personal empowerment, minimize the structural constraints under which selfies operate as a ubiquitous mode of sociality. Based on focus group discussions in two Canadian cities, we explore how young adults describe their selfie experiences and explore three discursive tensions expressed in the transcripts. First, how questions of "control" were taken up; second, how "visibility" was understood as fragile, and animated by an anxiety of invisibility; third, the nature of "fun" that selfies generate. We conclude by exploring some of the epistemological shifts that these practices indicate.