The nebulous millennial generation has often been criticized for supposedly being image obsessed and narcissistic because of its penchant for taking pictures. It's been criticized for being too lost in the actual capturing of an image, ultimately losing out on the experience itself in favor of choosing just the right filter on Instagram or obtaining a worthy Snapchat story. The millennial generation been accused of blatant self-absorption, and with the undeniable popularity of image based social media sites, it's a seemingly easy argument to make.
However, the argument that the "millennial generation" is a monolithic and superficial group of people is overly simplistic and generalist. It misses one of the primary purposes of taking the pictures in the first place; it's not necessarily to have an elegant profile picture, nor to simply have a memento of the event occurring, nor even the widespread theory of stroking one's own ego.
No, it's to reframe a given event the way one wants to. The very action of taking a selfie with your friends or by yourself allows you to have true control over how you want to be perceived and how you perceive yourself. It's the awareness that you have the power to influence how you're remembered and, more importantly, how you remember an event or group of people yourself.
It bonds groups closer together by sharing memories in a more widespread and permanent way than ever before, even if a Snapchat story only lasts 24 hours. The action of taking the Snapchat story of posing for a quirky Instagram picture with your friends more clearly cements a given event in your minds. Having an impromptu photoshoot with your friends at a carnival or music festival needn't necessarily be narcissistic if the intention of the photoshoot is to just more concretely remember where you were at this moment of time with the friends you have now and doing what you did today.
Taking pictures allows the millennial generation to take control over their own destiny and self perception, which needn't be looked upon disparagingly. When even the name millennial wasn't even coined by those within the millennial generation and instead being used by Baby Boomers as a means to belittle them and criticize their parenting styles, wanting to be the ones to shape how they'll be remembered is nothing to be ashamed of. In today's image saturated world, millennials understand that it's impossible to be entirely invisible to public perception, but also understand that they have the power to shape exactly what that perception is.
