Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 22 Issue 6

takers can control the perception of the photo is a narcissistic one. 9 III. S elfie: A n I mposition of L ate- C apitalistic P owers After all the discussions, it can be said that the people who continuously post Selfies in the social media without understanding the gravity and aftermath of it share some characteristics of Narcissus. The only difference between the myth and the reality is that people take the myth as reality and do not care about the reality or take it seriously. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, irrespective of any exception, is a recognised psychological disorder which is typified by that kind of action; attack all who do not support their massively delusional ego which needs feeding by any means necessary. This is a confirmation of the existence of this phenomenon and also is testament to their self- obsession and absence of compassion toward fellow humans. Selfie is one of the late-capitalistic corporate tools that are controlling people’s lives to a great extent. To support the proposition, the paper uses Roland Barthes’ Mythology - how a myth is created to motivate people and promote a product. For some people, posting a selfie is like having meals and that is what prompts the market demand to rise. The research finds out how the sale of Smartphone has increased only because of Selfie. ‘Nothing can be safe from myth, myth can develop a second order schema from any meaning and, as we saw, start from the very lack of meaning’. 10 By this, Barthes is trying to mean that myth is a form of signification. However, according to Barthes, myth is different from ordinary speech and language. Barthes follows Ferdinand de-Saussure's discussion regarding the nature of the linguistic sign (a link between a concept and a sound pattern) 11 9 Kristina Robb-Dover, ‘Obsessive Selfies: What a Photo Reel May Reveal About Mental Health’, FHEHealth , 15 January 2021, For a full discussion, see and he characterizes myth as a second class of signification. What was the sign in the first order of language (for example the signifier "cigarette" and the signified of an object made of paper and tobacco) turns into a signifier in the second order (signifying lung cancer). In other words, myth for Barthes is a realm of second class signification https://fherehab.com/learning/selfies-mental-health (accessed 16 September 2022). 10 Roland Barthes, Mythologies , Annette Lavers (trans), New York: The Noonday Press, 1991, p 131. 11 Kalntzis and Cope, Works and Days, For a full discussion, see https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-8/saussure-on-signs (accessed 16 September 2022). which could be seen as a cultural association, to distinguish from denotation. The recent implication of the word Selfie is also a myth. Basically, the word Selfie can be regarded as the signifier of a photo that a person takes himself/ herself taken by the front camera of a Smartphone. Now the sign (The word Selfie/Signifier+the photo that is taken/Signified) can be/has been given a new signifier and that is the sense of looking beautiful and being up to date. This idea of self taken photo has been reorganized and mythologized and has been added a new meaning, i.e. selfie means beauty or handsomeness. It happens many times that people take selfie with a make-up look. It has been very tactically/technically done by the corporate phone companies in order to increase the sale of their front camera Smartphones. This can be related to Tehnocapitalism- an idea advanced by Luis Suarez-Villa. He, in his two books, Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatis m 12 and Globalization and Technocapitalism: The Political Economy of Corporate Power and Technological Domination 13 I believe that the emergence of postmodernism is closely related to the emergence of this new moment of late consumer or multinational capitalism. I believe also that its formal features in many ways express the deeper logic of this particular social system. refers to the emergence of a new kind of capitalism which he calls technocapitalism which he thinks is a way of domination through capturing the technology by the corporate organizations. He also thinks that it is designed to exploit intangibles such as creativity and new knowledge. In relation to Villa’s theory, it can be said that Selfie is a technocapitalistic element that is dominating or exploiting cultural values. From the outer appearance, it looks like a regular part of social system. It can be discussed from Fredric Jameson’s perspective that sees Postmodernism as a way of upholding late consumerism and multinational consumerism. In his essay “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”, Jameson (1998) has discussed, 14 Interestingly, these photos cannot be used for any official purpose. Their uses are limited in the social 12 Luis Suarez-Villa, Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatism , Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2009. 13 Luis Suarez-Villa, Globalization and Technocapitalism: The Political Economy of Corporate Power and Technological Domination , London: Routledge, 2012. 14 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism and Consumer Society: The Cultural Turn, Selected Writings on the Postmodernism, London: Verso, 1998, pp 1-20. © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue VI Version I 73 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 C O ‘Selfie’! O Narcissus: The Mythologico-Cultural Imposition of Late-Capitalistic Tools in the Present Digital World