By Tony Maglio
TheWrap
James Franco has learned to harness the power of the selfie, and so can you!
The multihyphenate published an editorial in Thursday’s New York Times Arts section, where he almost academically breaks down the value — and proper usage — of the self-pointed snap-and-upload phenomenon. His analysis on the seemingly silly topic is far more enlightening than one might assume. It is also revealing, which Franco argues is the entire point of the selfie.
“In a visual culture, the selfie quickly and easily shows, not tells, how you’re feeling, where you are, what you’re doing,” Franco concluded in the piece.
“The likes spin out of control for selfies of me and my two handsome brothers, especially Dave, the other actor,” Franco began his explanation, while admitting his growing addiction to Instagram.
But his reasoning is not self-absorbed, just self-aware. The scholar in Franco has studied the trends from his own page. He continued in the piece, “I can see which posts don’t get attention or make me lose followers: those with photos of art projects; videos telling the haters to go away (in not so many words); and photos with poems.”
“But a well-stocked collection of selfies seems to get attention,” Franco added. “And attention seems to be the name of the game when it comes to social networking.”
So the once-called “king of selfies” has a plan:Â “For every photo of a book, painting or poem, I try to post a selfie with a puppy, a topless selfie or a selfie with Seth Rogen, because these are all things that are generally liked.”
JamesFrancoTV, the actor-writer-director’s official Instagram page has more than one million followers. Franco had 1,659 posts at the time of this writing — many of them are selfies.
Taylor Swift, One Direction Top List of 20 Most Charitable Celebrities
Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and a Baby Face Off Against 50 Frat Bros in New ‘Neighbors’ Trailer (Video)
James Franco to Star in Indie Drama ‘The Fixer’ (Exclusive)
