What the Miss Lebanon selfie ‘scandal’ says about meaning on the Internet

[Commentary] Whenever any seemingly stupid, superficial Internet issue combusts like a cluster bomb, we’re never actually talking about a bad tweet, or an ill-advised meme, or the abstract niceties of international politics.

We’re talking about identity, personal identity: that one, closely guarded thing that reliably riles up comments sections each and every time it is even tangentially threatened. Everything else -- the tweets, the memes, the embattled selfies -- is just symbolism. And that explains everything. Miss Lebanon and Miss Israel -- Saly Griege and Doron Matalon, IRL -- took a selfie with two other contestants at the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Lebanon selfie isn’t just a lolzy social media gaffe: It’s about the difficulties of embodying a self and a country simultaneously. It’s about the politics of personal identity and vice versa. It’s about the unwieldiness of semiotics itself.