MISS MANNERS by Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin<\/p>\n
DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the era of selfies, I\u2019m as guilty as anyone of holding my phone out and snapping a photo of my spouse and me in front of some interesting feature. Those photos stay on my phone, or maybe on a social media account, but no further. <\/p>\n
Conversely, my grandparents, of blessed memory, who never even heard the word \u201cselfie,\u201d had 8×10 studio photographs of themselves framed and hanging on the walls in their respective living rooms. I also inherited large-format portrait photos of two pairs of great-grandparents, both of which are in fairly elaborate frames. They now hang in my living room. <\/p>\n
Though it was obviously once common, I don\u2019t know anyone who has framed portraits of themselves in their homes now. <\/p>\n
An oil portrait of my spouse and me isn\u2019t in our budget, but I have been considering hanging a professionally composed and framed photo of us in our home. Would this come across as narcissistic? Or is it simply a loving continuation of a three-generation tradition?\t<\/p>\n
GENTLE READER: Who, in what you so aptly named the Era of Selfies, will dare to raise the charge of narcissism? And which is more blatant: including yourselves among family in your own living room, or posting it for all the world to see? <\/p>\n
Showcasing painted portraits of oneself was considered acceptable because they were presumably valued for their artistic merit, rather than their subjects — and never mind that the subjects had commissioned them in the first place. <\/p>\n
If you want to be above reproach, Miss Manners suggests that you avoid pictures in which you are shaking hands with the president or displaying the biggest fish you ever caught. But frankly, she doubts that there is much danger these days, when modesty is no longer considered a virtue, but rather an unfortunate lack of self-esteem. <\/p>\n
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.<\/p>\n
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MISS MANNERS by Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the era of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-241187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}