Inspired by the lyrics of a song that played from my laptop while looking through the site Post Secret, the famous rapper, Q-Tip, a member of the 90s hip-hop sensation A Tribe Called Quest, says in the song What, “what are the youth if they ain’t rebelling”. I found the significance of these words uncanny as I read through the secrets posted anonymously by people whom I would guess were mostly under 25 because it highlighted the nature of the youth. The site’s sheer existence showcases the need humans have for unity and solidarity especially when engaging in taboo activities. The posts that struck me most were those that were admissions of guilty pleasures and mostly harmless, inappropriate activities. These kinds of posts, combined with a recent reading of Kate Douglas’sYouth, Trauma and Memorialization: The Selfie as Witnessing, got me thinking about another taboo activity that is a topic amongst many popular and scholarly conversations, the nude selfie.

Members of the youth throughout history are known for pushing boundaries and changing social orders and most times, revolutionary ideas begin as covert, guilty pleasures and taboo activities. I would like to consider nude selfies as extremely controversial forms of witnessing within a greater social movement. To extend on Kate Douglas’s proposition that selfies are a new form of life narrative and witnessing (Douglas), I would like to put forward the idea that the taking nude selfies, and distributing them, is a minor form of witnessing within a larger social movement. Nude selfies present a branch of selfie witnessing that is considered taboo and is often discussed in reference to its negative impacts. However, in the age of modern technology where information is both easily accessible and readily available, nude selfies have come to have numerous other effects on individual identity and solidarity amongst the youth.

Nudity has its own history, however, general popular opinion views nudity as appropriate in private situations but taboo in public. Nude selfies challenge this view of nudity in both areas, firstly, the actual taking of nude selfies is considered shameful and dangerous as a result of the negative implications such as, body shaming, blackmail and revenge and desensitisation (Nanny). Secondly, voluntarily sharing nude selfies is considered taboo because it challenges the idea that the nudity is something that should remain private. However, young people today are breaking these boundaries.

Sharing nude selfies has become a normalised cultural practice for those who take and/or share them. For some, it is a form of digital intimacy to be shared between individuals or kept privately, for others, it is an act of empowerment, especially for young women, as nude selfies can be used to advocate for the body positivity movement. Matthew Hart in his article Being Naked on the Internet: Young People’s Selfies as Intimate Edgework from the Journal of Youth Studiessuggests that nude selfies taken by young people can be viewed as a form of edgework. While society tends to view to “risk-taking in the adult world” as “a cultural norm and acceptable form of behavior”, when it comes to young people and risk-taking there is more focus on its negative effects (Hart). In light of the negative impact nude selfies can have on young people, provided they are taken by those who are of age and with informed consent, it can be argued that nude selfies and their distribution are a way in which young people situate themselves within an atmosphere of changing social norms and indeed, what are the youth if they aren’t rebelling?

Works Cited

60+ Hippie Quotes with Odd Twists You’ll Relish. n.d. 5 November 2018.

Douglas, Kate. “Youth, trauma and memorialisation: The selfie as witnessing .” Memory Studies(2017): 1 – 16 .

Hart, Matthew. “Being Naked on the Internet: Young People’s Selfies as Intimate Edgework.” The Journal of Youth Studies(2016): 301 – 315.

Nanny, Net. Sexting Can Have Long Term Negative Effects for Teen. 18 January 2018. 7 November 2018.

Q-Tip. “What.” The Low End Theory. By A Tribe Called Quest. 1991. Online Recording .

Secret, Post. Sunday Secrets. 2 November 2018. 4 November 2018.