Tuesday 3 December 2013

Don't be a Selfie be an unselfie.


"SELFIE" is word of the year, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. "Posting a picture of yourself, taken on your mobile device, along with the hashtag #selfie" and it has become one of the defining features of the new social media world.

A selfie is something anyone can do. If this trend strikes you as rather, well, selfie-centred, why not fight back and promote the opposite, by posting an "unselfie"?

It is really easy to create an unselfie. First, write clearly on a piece of paper what cause or causes you will be supporting in the run up to Christmas. Maybe you are giving some money, or volunteering some time; you can mention more than one, if you are giving to more than one. Then, because this is about the causes not you, hold the piece of paper in front of your face, showing your personal giving pledge, and take a picture. Add the hashtag #unselfie. Then Tweet, Facebook and email it as widely as possible. Hopefully it will become as popular as the selfie.

Of course, your unselfie should be done in the right spirit. Not for nothing is there a long tradition of considering that giving is best when it is done in secret; the unselfie is emphatically not about showing off or advertising how virtuous you are being.

However, the unselfie is worth doing because it can tap into the power of social media to inspire others and motivate ourselves by sharing our passions publicly. The unselfie is a way of saying, this cause is important to me - and seeing that, the people who take an interest in you may be inspired to look more deeply into the causes you support, or to think about, and hopefully unselfie, the causes that matter to them.