4.0 Asian Selfie Culture

To know whether Asians do love taking selfie more than people from other part of the world, I found this research done by TIME that investigates the geography of selfie-taking. TIME ranked a total of 459 cities by downloading the Instagram photos in two sets of five days: from Jan. 28-Feb.2, 2014 and Mar. 3-7, 2014. In total, there were 402,197 Instagram photos tagged “selfie” that included geographic coordinates. Each yellow dot in the map represents one selfie taken recently over the course of a ten-day period. The results:

1. Makati City and Pasig, Philippines. 258 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
   
    
2. Manhattan, N.Y. 202 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
3. Miami, Fla. 155 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
4. Anaheim and Santa Ana, Calif. 147 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
5. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. 141 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
6. Tel Aviv, Israel. 139 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
7. Manchester, England. 114 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
8.  Milan, Italy. 108 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
9.  Cebu City, Philippines. 99 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
10.  George Town, Malaysia. 95 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
    

 (Wilson, C.2014)

From the top 10 list, half of them are Asian countries, with Philippines topping the list. I guess it is safe to say that Asians are slightly more obsessed with taking selfies. Two cities from Malaysia took the fifth and tenth place which I am quite surprised of considering our population is lesser compared the other countries. Selfie culture is pretty hyped in Malaysia too.



The V-Sign:

I also found that Asians are more inclined to make V-sign in photos. According to TIME, most young Asians who make the gesture in photos said it comes naturally to them and are baffled when asked why they do it. They might be imitating celebrities, or another way to explain is that it becomes an idiosyncrasy that mitigates the awkwardness when posing.

Laura Miller, a professor of Japanese studies and anthropology at the University of Missouri at St. Louis,: “Like so much else in Japanese culture, the creative agents in Japan are often young women, but they are rarely recognized for their cultural innovations,” (Burnett. S. 2014)

I agree with her saying because the V-sign is said to began with Janet Lynn an American figure skater who was expected to win gold in the 1972 Olympics in Japan but she fell during her performance. Instead of grimacing she smiled and habitually flashed the V-sign during media tours around Japan in the years following the Olympics. Her reaction appealed to the Japanese norm of saving face and this cultural phenomenon was born. However, Japanese media attributed the biggest role of spreading V-sign culture to Jun Inoue, singer with the popular band was a celebrity ambassador for Konica cameras, and supposedly flashed a spontaneous V-sign during the filming of a Konica commercial. With the mass production of cameras afterwards and a sudden upsurge in female's magazines in the 1980s, kawaii - a visual culture superficially based on cuteness hit the trail. V-sign was extremely popular in the kawaii visual culture. When Japanese pop culture began to spread around East Asia in the 1980s, the fashionable V-sign found itself invading mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. This reminds me of the term mentioned in class- consumer of culture. By looking at the origin and widespread of the V-sign from Japan to other parts of Asia, media can really be a powerful mean to spread or propagate practices. Perhaps it is also justifiable to say that Asian tend to be more blindly adhering to trends and also less culturally innovative.



References:

Wilson, C.(2014). The Selfiest Cities in the World: TIME’s Definitive Ranking. TIME [online]. Available at: http://time.com/selfies-cities-world-rankings/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].

Wilson, C.(2014). Makati. [image]. Available at: http://time.com/selfies-cities-world-rankings/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].

Wilson, C.(2014). Georgetown. [image]. Available at: http://time.com/selfies-cities-world-rankings/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].

Burnett, S.(2014). Have You Ever Wondered Why East Asians Spontaneously Make V-Signs in Photos?.
TIME [online].Available at: http://time.com/2980357/asia-photos-peace-sign-v-janet-lynn-konica-jun-inoue/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2016].