Many "digital natives" have grown up in and with the social web. This video-essay deals with a subgenre of so-called "reaction videos", in which personal social media-socialisations are reconstructed by looking at old selfies. Based on the photos, users draw conclusions about moments in the history of technology or about a selfie-specific posing ("This is one of my first duckface-wannabe-photos"). What conclusions can the re-reading of past selfies draw about the format itself, but also about a generation that grew up with a daily practice of self-staging?
Annekathrin Kohout (*1989) is an author and research assistant at the University of Siegen. She is co-editor of the journal "Pop. Kultur und Kritik" and the book series "Digitale Bildkulturen".
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keywords:
#reactionvideos, #selfies, #historyofselfie, #duckface, #visualculture, #digitalculture