Mirror Images vs Selfies

There appears to be no end of reflective surfaces near me. While most go by unnoticed due to their nature of commonality, the shift in focus on one particular day, brought my attention to a piece of thought that had been quietly floating like a plastic bottle in an ocean. It turns out I belong to part of the population who isn't invested in selfies as much as mirror images.

"Mirror images aren't true images.  You are never, in essence, seeing yourself. Every image capture of you that you've seen of yourself is recorded.", shot back a thought, stemming from an obscure memory, recollecting a random comment on the internet to connect with its predecessor. This made things interesting for that day, though. Whether the images are true or not, why is one preferred to the other? Furthermore, am I the only one who thinks like so?

To my delight, the area has been discovered, scoured and studied well, for the search results for the question are astonishingly vast and immediately brought an answer to the second question. As for the first one, the only thorough, well-built and convincing answer that passed through my filters of scrutiny was one offered by The Mirror Effect on Social Media Self-perceived Beauty and Its Implications for Cosmetic Surgery, stating (towards the end) that selfies start appealing to one when one has been exposed to it often enough. 

With the abjection soothed, another itch cropped up right away. This time, questioning, "Selfies and photographs aren't appealing, but selfies with certain filters are. What gives and why?"  Fortunately, that question has been thoroughly investigated too. Under the title 'Why am I not photogenic', lies a whole lot of information exploring the biases in self-recognition and possible differences in memory spaces allocated to self and others, explored via 4 experiments. While I shall not be implicitly writing down everything that has already been written before, what seems to be of value is that participants of the experiment; who coincidently happened to share some of my facial features; also coincidently shared my biases as well, making me, in the end, feel less alone in my tiny sorrows and worry.

Image Source: Lisa Fotios on Pexels

Author's note:- If you read these regularly, I'd like you to know that I am going away (for a vacation) for the next 2 weeks and obviously, won't be able to upload anything new.