On Selfie as an Affirmation of Existence
(This is a pretentious probe; don’t read it if you’re not into such stuff)
1. There is no selfie without sharing. Taking a selfie is merely a prerequisite for sharing it.
1.1. The selfie, as an act of capture, allows the individual to potentially overcome the limits of their biological time.
1.2. The selfie, as an act of sharing, allows the individual to overcome the limits of their biological space and time.
2. The selfie is the ideal “extension of man,” not tied to a specific medium like other McLuhan extensions.
2.1. Although digital media have refined the nature of the selfie.
3. The only condition for a selfie to transcend personal time and space is reaching out to others.
3.1. Each person is a servomechanism for another, liking or affirming in some other way one’s evidence of existence.
3.2. Everyone to each one is a medium to certify the completion of a selfie, that is, existence.
4. The selfie is the ultimate form of authorship, requiring no content creation, not even creativity.
4.1. The selfie is pure authorship, undisturbed by creativity or content.
5. Digital media is the perfect environment for the rapid circulation of selfie transactions, where everyone affirms and is affirmed simultaneously.
5.1. To post is to exist.
6. The survival of a biological species relies on sorting out individuals.
7. The survival of a cognitive species relies on the selfie-realization of individuals.
8. By choosing my selfie, I choose for all mankind (damn, Sartre has already said this).
9. AI is mankind’s ultimate selfie, selfie-sufficient enough to affirm itselfie.
9.1. Mankind was God’s selfie.
9.2. Therefore, AI is the selfie of God’s selfie.
See also books by Andrey Mir:
The Viral Inquisitor and other essays on postjournalism and media ecology (2024).
Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect (2024)
If you have not already read it, you might enjoy Byung Chul Han’s The Crisis of Narration, which is consonant with what you have articulated here.