ABSTRACT
In the visual primacy of current communication technologies, selfies accrue value as they travel through truth-telling tropes. The selfie is understood to reproduce the mirror likeness of an original: an instance of identity that is reflected and received. But in a climate of post-truth communication often designed to mislead, silence or confuse, users can no longer assume the semiotic economy of mimetic representation. Discourses of post-truth point to one of the selfie’s defining paradoxes: the way in which a gesture, often celebrated as empowering, can also be disempowering as identities as products are circulated, manipulated, and appropriated. Selfies walk a tightrope between doxa and dynamic self-reinvention. This chapter expands an often narrow focus of post-truth as true/false, honesty/mendacity by focusing on a cultural form seldom considered by post-truth communication research, selfies. It specifically focuses on the buzz over the “scam” of influencers’ fake “mirror selfies” on TikTok and Instagram, especially. The circuit of exploitation of new editing technologies for selfies claims to authenticity, and revelation of deception only feeds back into and helps reproduce the original bedrock of post-truth: massive social distrust.
