Self-referencing as resistance
Photographing your own style is a way of opting out of the external gaze.
Human beings weren’t meant to look in the mirror, let alone look at hundreds of videos a day. We were supposed to not know what we look like, and only occasionally be able to get a glimpse of a reflection from still water. But here we are, drowning in deep water made of images, and it feels like holding onto a sense of self is getting increasingly difficult. And it’s getting harder. The more we see, the less we seem to know. Our sense of identity blurs, and with it, our sense of style. The deeper we go, the murkier it gets, the harder to see the shore. When you can’t tell where you end and the feed begins, it’s easy to buy clothes that don’t quite belong to you, because you can’t see the forest from the trees, or the sea from the fish, to keep it aquatic. If it feels more like you are sinking, rather than that you are swimming, you should keep reading.
Why should you be defining your personal style? You don’t have to want to be a style icon to want to understand your style. If you’ve ever wondered why some clothes feel like home and others you end up donating with the tags still on, this is about that gap between how we dress and how we see ourselves (or don’t see, because we don’t know how to look).
In social media culture, we’re constantly exposed to other people’s and brands’ versions of a “visual self.” Most people’s style, as a result, shifts reactively: we copy, compare, and follow. How we buy and get dressed a reaction to what we see, rather than inneate creation. Some say that is just how fashion works, and that there is nothing to be done about it. It’s in our nature; we are powerless, wired to follow. If that were the case, I’d be very worried, as it would sound like a flock of sheep were in very deep water, which, for a sheep, is dangerous.
So what does dry land look like? Maybe it starts with looking at yourself differently, not through the feed, not even through the mirror, but through your own lens. Taking photos of yourself isn’t about performance or aesthetics; it’s about building identity continuity in a fragmented, image-saturated world. When you become your own reference, you start opting out of the external gaze, not just the gaze directed at you, but the one you’ve been directing outward all along.
Self-referencing through photography is a small act of resistance. It’s how you stop dressing reactively and start understanding your visual language. Think of it as a quiet, ongoing conversation with yourself. It’s a personal archive that stabilizes who you are amid the scroll. Outfit photos aren’t about validation; they’re about documentation. They show you what already exists, what keeps repeating, what feels like you.
The mirror and the camera play different roles in that conversation.
The mirror shows the felt self in the moment:
- the subjective, immediate version of you
- fluid, self-adjusting, comforting
The camera shows the observed self:
- the external, relational version.
- static, sometimes confronting, tells the truth, the mirror can’t
Style happens through intentionality somewhere between those two reflections. It’s not a fixed aesthetic; it’s a dialogue between inner feeling and outer form. Taking your own photo simply lets you overhear that dialogue more clearly.
This kind of looking doesn’t feed on dopamine. The satisfaction comes from recognition and understanding when you notice coherence across images: Yes, that’s me. It’s a shift from the buzz of buying to the calm of knowing. The moment you start referencing yourself, not the algorithm, the hunger for new images and new clothes loses its power.
It’s easy to underestimate how radical that is. Our culture trains us to outsource identity to trends and to equate novelty with meaning. But there’s a different kind of pleasure in building your own continuity, in realizing you don’t need to keep reinventing yourself for the feed. Taking photos of your own outfits isn’t a style exercise; it’s a subtle form of identity maintenance that replaces the consumer’s chase with the creator’s curiosity.
What does it mean to see yourself clearly when seeing is so mediated today? Is it better to see or not to see? Refusing to look doesn’t make the anxiety disappear; it turns into the impulse to shop, an attempt to fill a void whose shape you don’t yet understand. Looking, really looking, is uncomfortable. But it’s also how you start to understand what the void is asking for. Seeing yourself isn’t narcissism; it’s orientation with a map and a compass.
Maybe that’s what dry land feels like: not detachment, but groundedness, the sense that you’re no longer swimming in borrowed imagery. You’re building your own small island of meaning, one picture, one outfit, one self-reference at a time.
Best wishes,
former drowning sheep
(If you would like me to be your shepherd, hit subscribe.)