Photos: Gerad Estadella _ Illustration: Ricardo Fumanal

Going out to dance and have fun isn’t like it used to be. Or at least it’s not completely the same. Now there’s almost always a digital camera out there. It’s as if all our experiences were recorded on files in order to show everyone else later on. You and your camera… and MySpace. Or Fotolog. And if you’re not keen on taking the photos, there’s no need to worry, because there’s always Gerard Estadella, aka Geej, ready to snap you at a party when you’re out there on the dance floor. His website at www.icanteachyouhowtodoit.com has become an absolute must-see for an entire generation of young people who like to show off what they’ve got. They dress up in their best and he returns the compliment with a snap or two, or three…or as many as it takes in order to get that perfect shot, which will later be admired by thousands on their computer screens.

You can see them in this catalogue, most of them barely twenty, and who practically all know each other thanks to MySpace. They know they’re the stars of a story which has a name of its own thanks to the book by US author Jean M. Twenge which came out just over a year and a half ago: “Generation ME”. Or, like the song by De La Soul, “Me, myself and I”. Lucas Arraut, ex director of Vanidad magazine and the current editor of EP3, the supplement for young people published by Spanish daily El País, has also referred to this ME or I Generation in both publications; a generation of girls and boys who seem to have shrugged off the final vestiges of embarrassment and shyness in favour of a carefully calculated exhibitionism. As Lucas himself says, “a way of freely expressing your fantasies or fears or uploading photos of your booziest parties, of you looking your very best or your most sensual and photogenic poses that can be classified as normal, something you would expect from people that age”. You upload your photos and sit back and wait for the compliments to come pouring in. But that’s not all. “Back in the nineties only a megalomaniac could come out with a phrase like ‘I’ve got fans’ and get away with it. But the truth is that Internet has generated a new type of celebrity that has never recorded an album or even appeared on TV, but whose profiles are capable of chalking up around 10,000 hits a day. In essence, Internet converts any user into a public figure. And in this celebrity-obsessed world, it should come as no surprise to anyone that any user of the Internet feels that they have an audience that’s ready to listen to them. “Because they really do”, continues Lucas.