Who doesn’t like & respect the actor James Franco?
He went to Columbia University and Yale, he was Harry Osborn (the rich son of the Green Goblin), he has a star on Hollywood’s walk of fame, and he was the wizard of “Oz”. So he is a man that is a somebody, and as Oz, he must know what he is talking about.
Recently in the New York Times, he submitted an opinion piece concerning America’s love of ‘selfies’ (If you don’t know what selfies are I can’t help you, only pity you). Instead of castigating us over our obsessive penchant for vanity, he encouraged selfie-takers everywhere to keep clicking those iPhones! Listen to his tribute to the wonder of selfies…
“Attention seems to be the name of the game when it comes to social networking…it’s what everyone wants: attention. Attention is power. And if you are someone people are interested in, then the selfie provides something very powerful.” He goes on to say, “In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, ‘Hello, this is me.'” Wow, take a selfie if you want to look at someone right in the eye? Take a selfie if you want people to know who you really are? No wonder people don’t know how to have relationships.
Here is my quick take on selfies: I agree this is an issue of wanting attention. But which kinds of people want attention? Those that aren’t getting it. Have you ever worked with kids? Those who act up the most are craving for attention; and usually, the reason is because there is a disconnect from their parents, primarily with dads. Maybe our obsession with selfies and our need for attention is because we feel disconnected. Yes from others (especially when a selfie can be considered as looking someone in the eye); but maybe there is a feeling of abandonment in the general populace because so many people don’t have a relationship with the Almighty Father? I think Nietzsche was right, when we abandon the foundation of a caring Sovereign God, in practicality, it is as if we have said, “God is dead.” And the result is that in the depth of our soul we feel left alone; children abandoned with a deep hole left uncared for. By our own arrogance of thinking we can live without God, we have created for ourselves a silent world…desperately needing attention.
So instead of admitting our need and turning back to the one who has created us with meaning & significance; we turn back to our cameras thinking we can find security in the number of “likes” our picture on Facebook got.
Wow, just think what Snapchat does for us, 10 seconds and we vanish away as a morning mist. I think I read that somewhere?
