The Kid Selfie as Self-Inscription: Reinventing an Emerging Media Practice

Adopting a media-archaeological perspective, Alexandra Schneider and Wanda Strauven suggest putting the kid selfie in relation to different intertwining genealogies of writing (-graphy) practices, which are all centered around the idea of “inscription”—a notion borrowed from James Lastra’s study of nineteenth-century sound technologies. In particular, the authors look at selfie videos made by young children with all kinds of portable media devices, connecting their playful activity to older art and media practices, such as drawing and sound recording. The kid selfie, Schneider and Strauven argue, can be understood as a way of reinventing the adult selfie, which is in itself still a rather n…