[PyGame] Beginning PyGame question about "self"

[jakegold98]

Hello I am not sure how to really question my question if that makes sense. I am following metulburr's pygame tutorial and something I don't really understand is why when I make a class I have self. I have my example below but if someone could explain what self.*** actually does or clarify it simply that would help, also I see under the player class "def __init__" a lot why is __init__ commonly used?

class player:
    def __init__(self, screen_rect):
        self.image = pg.image.load('spaceship.png').contert()
        self.image.set_colorkey((255,0,255))
        self.rect = self.image.get_rect(center = screen_rect.center)

    def draw(self, surf):
        surf.blit(self.image, self.rect)