{"id":15572,"date":"2013-05-06T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=15572"},"modified":"2013-05-06T17:33:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T21:33:03","slug":"a-bombers-page-one-selfie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2013\/05\/06\/a-bombers-page-one-selfie\/","title":{"rendered":"A Page One Selfie"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15573\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15573\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15573\" alt=\"via https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattdpearce\/status\/331096177393160193\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar-500x299.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar-500x299.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar-250x149.jpg 250w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar-400x239.jpg 400w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2013\/05\/Dzhokhar.jpg 816w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15573\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">image via https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattdpearce\/status\/331096177393160193<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I\u2019m fascinated by the cover of yesterday\u2019s Sunday New York Times. Fixated on the image of Boston Marathon suspected bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I was momentarily unable to notice the words surrounding it. I was a little stunned, then angry, then captivated. The image, not just the Instagrammed selfie of Dzhokhar, but this photo within the culturally significant\u00a0<i>New York Times<\/i> front page, is endlessly sociologically fascinating.<\/p>\n<p>For some, this cover provokes anger<!--more-->:<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Wonder what Boston marathon victims think of the huge, swoony photo of Dzhokhar on the front of today&#39;s NYT.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Matt Pearce \ud83e\udd85\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@mattdpearce) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattdpearce\/status\/331093627700912129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 5, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>This cover and the anger around it should be understood alongside <a href=\"http:\/\/gawker.com\/freejahar-when-conspiracy-theorists-and-one-direction-478152664\" target=\"_blank\">the noteworthy #FreeJahar movement<\/a> (Dzhokhar\u2019s friends called him Jahar). Many people have expressed very positive feelings over Dzhokhar\u2014including through the #freejahar tag on Twitter as well as fan-Tumblrs and so on\u2014and what is brought up quite often is his disarming good looks. It might appear that the\u00a0<i>New York Times <\/i>is playing to the #FreeJahar crowd here with such an enchanting shot. Further, within photojournalism, it is quite controversial to use photos that go out of their way to obscure reality with dramatic editing such as a <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2011\/05\/14\/the-faux-vintage-photo-full-essay-parts-i-ii-and-iii\/\" target=\"_blank\">faux-vintage<\/a> filter, something <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2011\/08\/02\/faux-vintage-afghanistan-and-the-nostalgia-for-war\/\" target=\"_blank\">I discussed<\/a> when the paper ran award-winning faux-vintage war photos from Afghanistan. While the <i>New York Times\u00a0<\/i>had previously used more \u201cobjective\u201d photos of\u00a0Dzhokhar, for yesterday\u2019s cover, the paper opted for a glamour shot.\u00a0Why?<\/p>\n<p>What <i>the New York Times<\/i> was very likely trying to do is play on the juxtaposition between Dzhokhar-the-bomber and Dzhokhar-the-kid, the inherent tension of a swoon-worthy-murderer will sell lots of papers. In all of this, one must wonder, like the tweet above, if those affected by the Boston Marathon bombing find this treatment disrespectful?<\/p>\n<p>Beyond just right or wrong, the fact that the paper chose an Instagrammed selfie is novel and interesting in and of itself. The image does capture well the story it accompanies. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/05\/05\/us\/dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-dark-side-carefully-masked.html?hp\">The article<\/a> is, in my opinion, a well-told and intriguing story about Dzhokhar\u2019s efforts to cover a disturbing set of motivations with a likeable exterior. The <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2011\/05\/14\/the-faux-vintage-photo-full-essay-parts-i-ii-and-iii\/\" target=\"_blank\">faux-vintage Instagram glow<\/a> on an attractive selfie might very-well be a paradigmatic modern example of the sort of identity \u201cface work\u201d we all engage in. The selfie is, of course, face work in the literal sense that it is a photo of one\u2019s face, but also in the way Erving Goffman famously\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/139652154\/Goffman-Erving-on-Face-Work\">discusses<\/a> \u201cface work\u201d: as the demonstration and maintenance of positive social value and attributes in an effort for acceptance and approval. Goffman notes that this is a \u201c\u2019working\u2019 acceptance, not a \u2018real\u2019 one\u201d, which is precisely what the <i>New York Times<\/i> story describes Dzhokhar attempting to pull off in this front-page selfie.<\/p>\n<p>Granting, of course, that Dzhokhar&#8217;s\u00a0face work\u00a0was certainly of a radically larger scale, selfie face work is a sort of fiction that is a common fact. The filtered selfie isn\u2019t the most objectively accurate photo, but it might have been the most honest. It\u2019s how he presented himself, down to the name-brand shirt, and it\u2019s how many people his age understand and perform for increasingly ubiquitous photographic documentation. It\u2019s a sort-of unreality that\u2019s carries a sort-of truth. The selfie isn\u2019t just any photo of you, it is, of course, one taken of yourself, by yourself, and there is something simultaneously fitting and upsetting in the young bomber taking his own mugshot.<\/p>\n<p>The Page One bomber selfie also challenges what many of us thought the bomber would look like on the day the tragedy occurred. This image doesn&#8217;t conform to what &#8220;we&#8221;, as a culture, <i>wanted<\/i>, perhaps even needed, the bomber to look like. Instead of the stereotypical guy-in-a-cave or guy-in-a-shack, Dzhokhar here looks like someone we might know. More than that, given that this is an Instagrammed selfie, he even <i>acts<\/i> like someone we know, someone we recognize as \u201cnormal\u201d. It breaks from the script: The bomber was never supposed to be so familiar.<\/p>\n<p>The bomber selfie forces us to confront that violence doesn&#8217;t always come from an <i>other<\/i>. It is even cropped square; I can almost picture the now-customary \u201clike\u201d or &#8220;&lt;3&#8221; Facebook and Instagram buttons with this photo. As such, this front page acts a bit like a mirror: the Instagram filter forces us not to just see Dzhokhar, but ourselves, our own, modern, culture, too.<\/p>\n<p>What other angles here have I not yet considered? Or perhaps it is still too soon to engage in this sort of meta-conversation around this tragedy, apologies if so, but this cover struck me as culturally significant\u00a0for the reasons I&#8217;ve tried to articulate this morning, saying something important about what it means to be alive in 2013, .<\/p>\n<p><i>Nathan is on Twitter [<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nathanjurgenson\" target=\"_blank\">@nathanjurgenson<\/a>] and Tumblr [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nathanjurgenson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">nathanjurgenson.com<\/a>].<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The cover of yesterday\u2019s Sunday New York Times, featuring an Instagrammed selfie of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is endlessly sociologically fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[19926,11512,19946,19945,19944,10675,19949,10671,118,3162,12101,3250,12132,3455,19948,19947,732],"class_list":["post-15572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-bombing","tag-boston","tag-boston-bombing","tag-dzhokhar","tag-dzhokhar-tsarnaev","tag-faux-vintage","tag-filters","tag-instagram","tag-journalism","tag-new-york-times","tag-photo","tag-photography","tag-photojournalism","tag-self","tag-selfies","tag-selie","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15572"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15581,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15572\/revisions\/15581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}