Mirror, Mirror

Are we currently in the golden age of vanity? Looking through people's photos of themselves on Facebook, I was thinking about how the internet is such a huge outlet for shallow self-indulgence. From blog posts (like this one) to youtube videos to the decision whether to tag or untag ourselves in pictures, where do you draw the line between a healthy level of self-appreciation/self-exploration and vanity? I saw a girl who had posted an album of 37 photos of just herself on Facebook, and my first thought was "wow, she's vain." I may be overly judgmental in this respect because I think I'm a little too into myself. But is what she did all that different than spending time to choose a nice profile picture, posting say 5 photos of yourself, or allowing a friend to post a ton of photos of you? If you consider that people our age are at or near the apex of their attractiveness in life (although for many, the apex was high school), maybe it's ok to really be into ourselves now before we get old and wrinkly.

If it's ok to be vain now, was it ok in the pre-internet days? What sort of things could you even do to display your pride? Hang up pictures of yourself in your house? Send letters about your life to your friends? None of these seem all that self-indulgent. But there is evidence that the current vanity we are experiencing is nothing new. Museum trips show us how the rich have put themselves on display throughout time by commissioning portraits of themselves. Maybe we should be thankful for the enduring vanity of human beings for it has left us with masterpieces by artists like Rembrandt that teach us how people lived in different ages. Or maybe vanity has been detrimental because it's left us with too many paintings of unattractive, dead people.