When reading through Hodge's article, two questions stood out to me concerning the selfie: 1.) what is the significance of the always-on world for the selfie, and 2.) why is Hodge concerned with the selfie and not simply with images of the self in the always-on world. I remember when I was younger, my grandparents would always throw a Christmas party for our whole family. Every year, myself along with my cousins would receive relatively similar gifts from my grandparents, and every year one of those gifts was a Kodak disposable camera. We would play around with the camera and occasionally take pictures of ourselves, amounting to what are essentially selfies. However, Hodge seems to not be concerned with this sort of representation of the self. Rather, the selfie only seems significant at all in the context of the always-on world, and it seems that this is not merely a product of Hodge's focus on topics relative to his field. In the case of the disposable camera, the pictures would be taken, and then we would have to go get the photos developed before driving them home and placing them in a book to be looked at at our leisure. In the case of the selfie, the image is created immediately and is made easily distributable. This turns the picture of the self from something that says "this happened" to "this is happening" (10). The always-on network thus, through its potency for the creation, distribution, and reproduction, serves as the condition of possibility for the selfie.
It then seems strange that Hodge decides to focus on the selfie instead of simply the image of the self. For example, I could have a friend use their phone to take a picture of me, and it would be as much of a representation of myself as if I had taken the photo myself. One might conjecture that perhaps one is not always around people who can take a picture of them, for example if someone is home alone, and thus contradicts the "always-on-ness" of the always-on network. This seems implausible, however. Given the connectivity provided by always-on networks, friends may be only a message away if you desperately want that photo without your arm obtruding on the full-body shot you wanted to take. Even if not, if one waits to take the photo, the connection that we have to always-on networks ensures that our images will be produced and circulated immediately, making the same statement that "this is happening". The selfie, instead, seems to draw attention to the total self-production of the image as opposed to another person acting on us. We are saying not only that "this is happening" as opposed to "this happened", but we are also saying that "I am happening" as opposed to "they are happening". This seems to be the reason why the selfie plays such a significant role for Hodge. We are both saying that we are distinct from a background as well as asserting our autonomy as selves. I am not (seemingly) reliant on anybody for this production of myself, rather my relationship to the always-on network allows for me to create myself through a productive act of self performance. What we are saying with the selfie is that "I am happening"