Meagan - Self-Portraits vs. Selfies

Self-portraits are generally seen as works of art, while selfies aren't. At least, that's what one would assume, however in my research I have found it mostly boils down to the intent of the piece. With selfies, they are typically spur of the moment and meant to capture a quick moment of someone's life, like one attending a concert or going on vacation. Depending on the person taking the selfie, they might not take into account things like composition or getting the perfect lighting. It isn't meant to have any deeper meaning than just sharing a moment in time with the viewer.

With self-portraits, there's a lot of time and care put into the piece to make it as perfect as possible. The artist makes sure to plan out as many details as possible from the pose, to the expression, to the background and much more. Self-portraits can also contain symbols and other iconography that tells the viewer what kind of person the artist was and give us an idea of what their life was like.

Perhaps the largest difference between self-portraits and selfies that I found was in this Getty article. It says that compared to self-portraits, selfies were more disposable. If the person taking the selfie doesn't like it, they can simply delete the picture and try again. With self-portraits however, mistakes are more permanent and harder to fix.

That's not to say they don't have similarities. Both are types of self-representation, it's just that selfies are made using phones and self-portraits are made using paint or other kinds of art mediums.