Selfies are defined by replaceability and disposability rather than by technical qualities

Evidence

Getty curator Arpad Kovacs states that “the self-portrait and the selfie are two separate, though at times overlapping, efforts at establishing and embellishing a definition of one’s self. Qualities like medium specificity, deeply rooted histories, and traditions (or lack thereof) that define these efforts only superficially differentiate the two. What has greater weight is the selfie’s inherently replaceable and even disposable quality.” Selfies are replaceable and disposable; they are, to quote Kovacs again, “easily forgotten and replaced by a new picture.” The selfie is ephemeral. “A portrait lasts,” editor Annelisa Stephan concludes based on her discussion with Kovacs, “not because it is better than a selfie but because it is meant to.” — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 74

Categorization

• DEFINE: Offers the working definition of the selfie — inherently replaceable and disposable — versus the meant-to-last portrait.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 74