The hedonism of seeing and being seen

the selfie festive experience in sports environment

Abstract

This article aims to analyse how the selfie (a neologism that comes from the word self-portrait,) and subsequent publication of these images on social networks have become a current practice in modern times, in a post-spectacle society engaged in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure. This exhibitionist behaviour of exposing the “self” has gained a new form in sports, where spectators and sportsmen/women alike use the selfie in the quest for the satisfaction of seeing and being seen, during or after sports competitions. To understand this phenomenon, we conducted a review of bibliography on the selfie and, based on recent examples that have marked the sports scene in recent years in Brazil and Portugal, we have established relations between this practice and the concepts of community, virtual community and habitus (the latter as defined by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu).