The ‘selfie,’ recently in the news for being the newest addition to Webster’s dictionary has taken social media and phone photo streams by storm.
Everybody takes them, and let’s face it, usually twenty or thirty at a time until they find the perfect one to post online. How does one typically define the beauty of a selfie, though?
Usually, a lot goes into the process: from the way their hair hangs, the tilt of their head, how open their eyes are and the size of their smile, not to mention how the makeup looks! During Love Your Body Week, however, the ladies of Tau Omega, one of the recognized sororities on campus, challenged the social norm of the art behind the selfie.
When PSU hosted Love Your Body Week, the Tau Omega girls knew it was the prime time to put their idea into action. According to Miranda Mountain, a freshman and also the social chair for Tau Omega, the idea came to her over winter break while watching Good Morning America when they did something similar. Selfies for Self Esteem was all about taking a ‘bare faced and beautiful’ selfie and posting it on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using the hashtag #taubaresall. Panthers were encouraged to take an au naturale photo, makeup and filter free, to promote their love of their purely beautiful image.
“The objective is to help build confidence of college students. The whole thing came together pretty quickly,” said Mountain.
Now here’s where the whole event got even more fun for everybody at Plymouth. On Wednesday, after the Tau girls gathered and printed 8×11 copies of every selfie posted using the #taubaresall hashtag, they grouped in the fireplace lounge for everyone to see the bare faced and beautiful shots of ladies and gents on campus.
What’s more is that passersby had the opportunity to write positive affirmations on sticky notes and leave them for each participant in the selfie challenge. Later that evening, the newly sticky note adorned selfies were on display at the YouTime event in the Hage Room at the Hub. There were a total of 41 selfies on display and by the end of the night, a grand total of 259 sticky notes were left for the participants to see and receive.