The Selfie, Mirror of Narcissus?

The omnipresence of the selfie raises questions: is it a sign of a narcissistic era? I argue, on the contrary, that this gesture, poorly understood, reveals a profound mutation in our relationship to the world, to time, and to others.

The Social Function of Self-Image

Before passing hasty judgment on the practice of photographing oneself with a phone, it seems essential to me to deconstruct the act itself. Creating an image of oneself is not intrinsically narcissistic; everything depends on the context and purpose of this image. When we enter a photo booth for an identity document, no one would think to qualify this approach as narcissistic. In this situation, the intention is not self-contemplation, but the production of a document required by a social norm. We must therefore analyze images not as simple personal objects, but through the prism of the social function they fulfill for us.

From this perspective, I argued almost ten years ago, in the article Lives in Pictures published in Esprit magazine #425 (June 2016), that staging one’s image on social networks is much more akin to clothing or makeup than to pure self-adoration. It’s a way of presenting oneself to the world, of mastering one’s appearance in a social space that demands it. The question then becomes: is a person who takes the trouble to dress well and apply makeup necessarily narcissistic in the pejorative sense of the term? Or can’t we consider that this is a form of self-respect and respect for others? The image we give of ourselves is also and above all the image of our social function to be able to be identified through these codes, and to be able to function in the group with which we interact. The same person, a business executive by day and a rapper by night, will not dress the same way depending on the context and their different roles, which is the richness of life. Conversely, would a person who completely neglected their appearance be, by definition, more virtuous? This questioning should lead us to nuance the judgments that may come to our mind at first glance when we see people making images of themselves in ways that seem incongruous, ridiculous, and superficial to us. We can see in the care of one’s image an anchored social practice, of which the selfie is only a digital extension. As philosopher Michel Foucault explored, “care of the self” is not selfishness, but a condition for properly taking care of others and the city.

This idea finds real resonance in Fabrice Midal’s work, Narcissus is not selfish (2019), which revisits the original myth to denounce reductive interpretations.

We have made Narcissus the symbol of selfishness and vanity, but this forgets that in the Greek myth, Narcissus does not recognize himself in his reflection. He is not in love with himself, but with an image he mistakes for another. It is not self-love that destroys him, but on the contrary the inability to recognize himself, to accept himself as he is. True pathological narcissism is not an excess of self-esteem, but a deficit of self-consciousness, this impossibility of coinciding with one’s own being that drives us to constantly seek our validation in the external gaze.

This rereading of the myth invites us to rethink our relationship to self-images: perhaps the selfie, far from being a narcissistic celebration, is sometimes an attempt to grasp oneself, to understand oneself, to construct oneself, even to accept oneself in our life, where our identity is fragmented between multiple social spaces and where legitimation, due to systems of domination, is particularly difficult to establish. The staging of oneself, the work on lighting, the decor behind oneself, the filters to modify one’s appearance and enter into codes, the presence in front of the screen, that is to say in front of the other at the same time as in front of oneself, has become a form of process of existence, personal and social. Thus everyone perhaps has today, thanks to these new devices of mediation between human beings, the chance to be able to construct their legitimation in a freer and more autonomous way.

Certainly, pathological narcissism exists. An individual whose sole activity consisted of photographing themselves to contemplate themselves permanently, in a closed circuit, could be qualified as narcissistic. But is this extreme situation representative of the practice of millions of people? I believe there are mainly degrees and, more importantly, contexts of use. The gesture is one thing, the intention that carries it is another. It is this intention, inscribed in a social framework, that should be the true object of analysis, much more than the technical act of taking a photo or video of oneself.

The Expansion of Our Space of Existence

To understand the proliferation of self-images, we must grasp the evolution of the context in which our lives unfold. Our space of social existence is no longer strictly delimited by the “here and now.” It has extended to include a “there,” which can be simultaneously a “now” (during a video call) or a “later” (when leaving a trace for one’s interlocutor or community). Present time itself has been stretched; it is no longer just the fleeting instant, but a longer duration, a temporal presence artificially maintained through digital means. This had begun with letters, then telephone answering machine messages, and now in the evidence of digital networks.

This transformation of our relationship to space and time has a direct impact on our modes of communication. Traditional orality, made of words pronounced by the mouth in the presence of others, has been enriched and complexified. I qualify contemporary communication as “digital orality”, composed of a constant flow of writings, images, sounds, and videos, produced and transmitted immediately, as speech is. In this new paradigm, a self-image is no longer just a representation, but a speech act, a sign of presence, a way of saying “I am here,” “I think of you,” “I am living this.” Smartphones and social networks are much more than means of communication; they shape a new social grammar where personal image has become a common word.

Sharing an image of oneself is therefore occupying this expanded social space, maintaining the link with communities that are not physically present. It’s a way of sharing one’s experience with people who matter to us, but who are in another place, or with strangers who feel connected to us and let us know in return. The image then becomes a bridge, a vector of co-presence. To judge this gesture as narcissistic amounts to ignoring this fundamental mutation; it’s wanting to apply the rules of an old world to a new reality. It’s a misunderstanding of the very nature of contemporary sociality.

Judging with Nuance

Let’s take a concrete example that often provokes quick judgments: men filming themselves with their phones around exercise equipment in a park. At first glance, the impression may be one of exacerbated narcissism, of an ego culture entirely focused on aesthetic performance to be broadcast on social networks. This interpretation, while possible, is reductive and ignores what I have just developed.

Let’s consider other motivations, equally plausible. Perhaps these men are simply documenting their progress to stay motivated, using their “future self” as an engine. Perhaps their community of practice, the one that encourages them, advises them, and understands them, is not in this park, but online. In this case, sharing their effort through images makes perfect sense; it’s about maintaining a social link relevant to them, sharing a passion and receiving feedback from a community that only exists in this delocalized space. The gesture is no longer turned toward oneself, but toward others, toward the group, for mutual enrichment, which is characteristic of any virtuous social space.

Of course, in this group, some may be driven by pure narcissism. But others, no. They are simply living their social life according to the rules and with the tools of their time. It is therefore impossible to make a definitive and universal judgment on the act itself. We must accept that the codes of social existence have changed. Before morally condemning a practice, we have the intellectual duty to understand the new ecosystem in which it is inscribed. The selfie may not be the symptom of a world sick with self-love, but rather the vernacular language of a humanity learning to exist, together, beyond the boundaries of time and space.